By Charles Babington
washingtonpost.com Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 9, 2001; 2:40 PM

U.S. bombs and missiles have damaged Afghan air defenses to the point that allied pilots can safely attack the Taliban-ruled nation day and night, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.

"We believe we are able to carry out strikes more or less round the clock, as we wish," Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. With the exception of one airfield in a remote, rugged region, he said, all targeted air strips in Afghanistan also have been destroyed.

"In short, we're moving along well towards our goal of creating conditions necessary to conduct a sustained campaign to root out terrorists and to deliver the humanitarian relief to the civilians in Afghanistan as we are able," Rumsfeld said.

Even before the secretary spoke, U.S. planes had hit targets in the daytime, indicating pilots have little fear of Taliban anti-aircraft units. Such units, which were comparatively feeble to begin with, were among the first targets when U.S. and British missile strikes began Sunday in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

Appearing with Rumsfeld, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday's and Monday's air strikes damaged or destroyed more than 80 percent of targets throughout Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld's briefing provided the most comprehensive damage assessment yet of the three-day air campaign in Afghanistan. He declined to discuss what the military's next step might be in efforts to root out the al Qaeda terrorist group and its leader, Osama bin Laden.

Rumsfeld said he couldn't confirm reports that U.S. bombs killed four UN workers guarding an office building near Kabul. "Nonetheless, we regret a loss of life," he said. "Terrorists attacked and killed thousands of innocent people in dozens of countries of all races and religions in the United States" on Sept. 11. "If there were an easy, safe way to root terrorist networks out of countries that are harboring them, it would be a blessing. But there is not."

Earlier today, President Bush named new advisers to help fight terrorism at home and to protect American computer networks. He tapped retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing to be deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism. Richard Clarke, who works on anti-terrorism at the White House, will be special adviser for cyberspace security.

Downing will be Bush's principal adviser on matters related to combating global terrorism, including "all efforts designed to detect, disrupt and destroy global terrorist organizations and those who support them," the White House said today. A career specialist in counterterrorism, he wrote a critical official report on security lapses in the military after 19 U.S. troops were killed in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia, according to Reuters.

The report recommended the government regard terrorism as an "undeclared war against the United States."

Clarke will coordinate efforts to secure information systems, including telecommunications, banking and finance, transportation, energy, manufacturing, water, health and emergency services networks.

Bush was scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder later today in a White House visit aides said was arranged over the weekend.

Elsewhere today, according to AP, Reuters and the Washington Post:

* Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) gave the bombing campaign a vote of support, telling "The Early Show" on CBS, "We've got the right tone. We've got the right understanding of the complexity and the seriousness of this challenge. We're going about it in a concerted and a very successful way."

* Some of New York City's best students walked back into school for the first time since they looked out their classroom windows to see the nearby World Trade Center come under attack on Sept. 11. "I'm not looking forward to psych class," said Alice Chan, a 15-year-old junior who was in that class on the eighth floor of Stuyvesant High School when the trade center was hit. "I'll just try not to look out the windows."

After the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the school was turned into a triage center until it became clear there were few survivors to treat. It then had to be thoroughly tested for asbestos and cleaned. The students had spent a month at Brooklyn Tech, another of the city's top-ranked schools.