A Fight Against Terrorism -- and Disorganization

Beyond the turf battles, however, counterterrorism officials grew concerned that U.S. strategy needed to expand beyond what one called the "whack, capture, interrogate and whack again" approach of the military. "Our thinking has matured radically since 2001," he said. "Then, it was looked at as the al-Qaeda network. Now, it is seen as looser, more diffuse, and also in our own country, in Western Europe and Canada."

"The military can't be the big hammer" anymore, he said, because al-Qaeda and its affiliates "are not the nail."

"You'll never win unless you can get to the sources of radicalization," he added. ". . . As the threat has changed, we've tried to adapt. But it's taken some time. As an American taxpayer, I wish we could have gotten it right in October 2001."

The "changing paradigm" applies at home as well as overseas, said a senior FBI official. The FBI operated on the assumption that "al-Qaeda was 'The Sopranos,' with a boss, an underboss, the consiglieri and the captains who ran the cells," the official said. "It was comfortable for us to understand."

New initiatives such as the National Implementation Plan were launched to eliminate overlap and set priorities for what the administration now calls the "long war." Beyond drawing sharper lines of responsibility, officials said, the plan is designed to drag the nation's counterterrorism strategy back from military dominance, better balancing the military "whack" with diplomacy and the "hearts and minds" campaigns that are now seen as critical to long-term victory.

Bush was briefed on the plan on June 26. A White House official said the plan reflects Bush's feeling that the terrorism fight is "all-encompassing," including military attacks but also "the war of ideas and the softer side, the long-term battle."

Within half a dozen broad objectives, the document designates lead and subordinate agencies to carry out more than 500 discrete counterterrorism tasks, among them vanquishing al-Qaeda, protecting the homeland, wooing allies, training experts in other languages and cultures, and understanding and influencing the Islamic psyche.

Achieving agreement among more than 200 department and agency representatives over 10 months of often-torturous negotiations was "a heroically ambitious exercise," said a senior administration official who participated in the process. "A couple of months ago, everybody was still shaking their heads."

The plan is expected to prompt a rewrite of the president's February 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism, which emphasized the physical elimination of terrorist networks while making largely symbolic bows to international partnerships and addressing the "underlying conditions that terrorists seek to exploit."

Eventually, officials acknowledged, it will also require a reconfiguration of the intelligence budget, now heavily weighted toward the military. No one expects that to happen overnight -- early proposals to shift spending brought a sharp protest from Rumsfeld.

But even at the Pentagon there are signs of turf-war fatigue. "Two years ago, we didn't have anything," said Brig. Gen. Robert Caslen Jr., who until June was the Joint Chiefs of Staff's deputy director for the terrorism fight. "Every department of government had its own idea on who was the enemy. Now we have a strategy and a plan that gives specific tasks and responsibility," he said.

Others are guardedly optimistic that the plan can be implemented. "It's going to alleviate a lot of the turf tensions and the growing pains," said one senior counterterrorism official. "But they're not going to go away."