War On All Fronts

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So while all the expected hardware kept moving toward Afghanistan, that was only half the picture. The U.S.S. Kitty Hawk steamed out of the Pacific toward the Persian Gulf, rigged not for air operations but as a platform for ground troops. A three-ship Marine amphibious group is on its way from Norfolk, Va. And up to 1,000 light-infantry troops from the 10th Mountain Division left Fort Drum in New York late last week for Uzbekistan, the first U.S. troops to be based in a country of the former Soviet Union.

The diplomats fanned out as well: British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has become a trusted and effective counterpart for Bush, visited Islamabad; State Department troubleshooter Richard Haass paid a call on the exiled Afghan King in Rome, and Rumsfeld spent three days in the Middle East and Central Asia locking down final logistics. He won continued access to Oman's air bases (and promised the Sultan a cache of American military hardware). A week after a secret mission by Under Secretary of State John Bolton, Rumsfeld got the formal go-ahead from Uzbek President Islam Karimov to base 1,000 troops at Khanabad, 125 miles north of the Afghan border. (Karimov said no aerial or ground attacks would be launched from his soil, at least for now.) And while Rumsfeld was taking care of the guns, other Bush aides were working on the butter.

The inside story of how Bush decided to open the humanitarian front begins in the first few days after the attacks. In peace, even the worst Presidents have time to plan; in war, the best barely have time to react. The food-aid idea came together in what an official calls an "organic" fashion, meaning in no particular order at all. But sources tell TIME that the package has its roots in the vengeful attacks on Arab Americans right here at home in the days after Sept. 11.

Many people who watched the buildings explode in New York City and Washington felt an intense desire for revenge. Bush was among them. On Air Force One on Sept. 11, he spoke privately of retaliation, of striking back with lethal force and doing so quickly; his military aides told him the U.S. had no good targets for a quick strike inside Afghanistan, and Bush wisely resisted the urge to launch a futile attack like the one Ronald Reagan ordered in 1983, when the U.S.S. New Jersey shelled the hills above Beirut after a suicide bomber killed 241 U.S. Marines stationed there.

Some Americans were not so restrained. After Sept. 11, as retaliatory crimes against Arab Americans mounted--in which three people were killed--Bush realized he had to do something to stop them. On Monday, Sept. 17, he motored uptown to the Islamic Center of Washington, the city's biggest mosque. He met privately with Islamic leaders, then joined them for a shoulder-to-shoulder statement for the cameras. "These acts of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it's important for my fellow Americans to understand that."