A NATION CHALLENGED: THE BOMBING
A NATION CHALLENGED: THE BOMBING; U.S. Steps Up Air Attack, While Defending Results of Campaign
By ERIC SCHMITT and STEVEN LEE MYERS
WASHINGTON, Oct. 25 -  American warplanes pounded Taliban forces along the front lines today with troop-killing and armor-penetrating cluster bombs for the first time, officials said. Even as Navy and Air Force fighter-bombers struck north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, and south of Mazar-i-Sharif, a strategic town in the north, for the fifth day, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sought to counter criticism that the airstrikes were falling short in America's goal of undercutting the Taliban's grip on power. ''This is proceeding according to our plan,'' General Myers said. ''Success is yet to be determined, but we think we're having some success.'' Hoping to improve the accuracy of its attacks on the front lines, where Taliban troops face rebel groups known as the Northern Alliance, the Air Force has also begun using an unmanned Predator reconnaissance drone with lasers to mark targets for AC-130 gunships to attack. The unarmed Predator, which takes photographs and videos of ground activities from more than 10,000 feet, can relay information about new targets to the gunship, a senior Air Force officer said. ''It's hard to get real-time intelligence, and the Predator can do that,'' said a Pentagon official. Pentagon officials have said the air campaign, now in its 19th day, has effectively destroyed the Taliban's arsenal of aircraft, surface-to-air missiles and air defenses, and cut off most of their communications. ''The Taliban's ability to effectively oppose the forces on the ground that are in opposition to the Taliban is degraded and diminished,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said. But he acknowledged that whether the Northern Alliance takes advantage of the airstrikes is not within Washington's control. ''The calibrations they make as to when they want to move and how far they want to move, and what they want to put at risk in any given day, week or month, are judgments they make,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said. ''We try to encourage those judgments by providing ammunition, providing food, providing better targeting -- doing what can humanly be done from the air to reduce the opposition forces in front of them.'' Mr. Rumsfeld also changed his assessment of the likelihood that the United States would capture or kill Osama bin Laden, the head of the terrorist network Al Qaeda. When asked in an interview published today in USA Today about those prospects, Mr. Rumsfeld said, ''I just don't know whether we'll be successful,'' adding: ''It is very difficult thing to do. It's a big world.'' Asked repeatedly at a news conference today about the interview, Mr. Rumsfeld reversed course, saying: ''I think we're going to get him. How about that?'' Mr. Rumsfeld said the United States had received intelligence about Mr. bin Laden's whereabouts, but not in a timely enough way to act on it. ''There's information that's after the fact, and there's information that's sufficiently before the fact that allows you to consider it actionable,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said. ''And it's the latter that is difficult.'' In recent days, Pentagon briefers have sent out conflicting signals about the strength of the Taliban forces. Ten days ago, one senior officer told reporters that the Taliban militia had been ''eviscerated'' by American airstrikes. But on Wednesday, another ranking officer expressed surprise at how ''doggedly'' the Taliban were hanging on to their power. Clearly irritated by the conflicting comments, Mr. Rumsfeld said that he and General Myers could not spare the time to brief reporters every day, and conceded that stand-ins might occasionally slip up. ''Sometimes they might use a word that I might not, or sometimes they might use a word that they won't again,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said, drawing laughter from reporters. All briefing officials have emphasized that the American air campaign is focusing on command posts and military garrisons that are important to the Taliban in and around Kandahar, the regime's spiritual and political headquarters. One senior officer said the Air Force has flown two F-15E attack planes nearly every day recently because the aircraft can carry 5,000-pound bunker-busting bombs or a long-range television-guided missile that can hit caves on the sides of mountains. But in the last several days, the United States has focused heavily on the front-line Taliban forces confronting the Northern Alliance. General Myers said the vast majority of the 80 strike missions flown today and on Wednesday were aimed at those troops. The use of a significant number of cluster bombs along those front lines, a number that officials said would grow, underscores the military's need to put more pressure on forces that so far have shown little sign of crumbling. But using those weapons, usually from B-1 or B-52 bombers, also increases the risk of civilian casualties caused by errant bombs. A United Nations spokeswoman, Stephanie Bunker, told reporters in Islamabad, Pakistan, today that eight people had been killed Monday night in an attack on Shaker Qala, a village near Herat that is close to a Taliban military compound. A ninth person died after picking up an unexploded ''bomblet'' left by a cluster bomb, she said. Pentagon officials said they could not confirm whether American bombs were responsible, but were investigating that and other reports of civilian casualties. Military officials acknowledge using cluster bombs, which carry more than 200 bomblets designed to spread destruction over a broad area. Cluster bombs have been used in recent days against military airfields and barracks near Herat, in western Afghanistan. But the officials said the munitions had not been used significantly along the front until now because of concerns of hitting Northern Alliance forces. The coordination between Northern Alliance ground forces and American targeters has been, in the language of one Pentagon official, spotty. ''We only use the cluster munitions when they are the most effective weapon for the intended target,'' General Myers said. Photo: A bomb dropped by an American jet exploding yesterday in Taliban-controlled territory south of Bagram, Afghanistan. The target was said to be a base with 200 soldiers and three tanks. (Tyler Hicks/Getty Images, for The New York Times)(pg. B3) Inside NYTimes.com Health " Too Hot to Handle