Interviewer: 'So you don't have any clue where Osama bin Laden is?' Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: 'I didn't say that.' Interviewer: 'You do have a clue?' Mr Rumsfeld: 'No I didn't say that either. I'm not going to talk about whether we have good intelligence or bad intelligence on that subject.' The above exchange on CNN on Friday night came nearly six months to the day since bin Laden's suicidal warriors flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Whether the Pentagon or the White House likes it or not, bin Laden's capture remains crucial to perceptions of the success of President George W. Bush's 'new war' on terrorism. Mr Rumsfeld went on to say - with more apparent certainty this time - that the success of the war in Afghanistan had meant that it was very difficult for bin Laden and his shadowy leadership to operate there. He also added that wherever bin Laden was now, he probably wasn't very happy. Privately, however, Bush administration insiders make clear that the leadership knows such statements are ultimately not good enough; that bin Laden's 'head on a platter' remains a military imperative. 'If we could nail the leadership of al-Qaeda our job still wouldn't be finished,' one Pentagon source said. 'But right now it would make everything else so much easier. We all want it wrapped up.' 'Everything else' comprises a widening array of engagements, from the hunting of Abu Sayyaf bandits in the southern Philippines archipelago to similar anti-al-Qaeda efforts involving US forces in Yemen and Georgia. Then there is - to use parlance currently popular in Washington - 'the big one': President Saddam Hussein in Iraq. This weekend the mounting pressure of those engagements looks particularly acute. Vice-President Dick Cheney is making a rare return from hiding to make his first major overseas trip since taking office more than a year ago. This weekend he will leave for Britain, the Middle East and Turkey for a whirlwind diplomatic effort in which the removal of Saddam from power is set to dominate. Of the 10 Middle East states on his itinerary, four are on Iraq's border. The Bush team is locked in private debate about how and when to remove Saddam from power - a move which may have to be made without much Arab or European support. The one thing that does unite them is the belief that the sanctions that followed the Gulf War have failed and he now must go. 'The US has a policy of regime change in Iraq,' a senior administration official told a Washington press conference before Mr Cheney's departure. 'We believe that Iraq has been a danger and a threat to its neighbours, to the peace of the region and beyond.' Tellingly, he added: 'There has been no decision how to advance [our] goal.' The rugged, icy peaks of northeast Afghanistan are a long way from Baghdad, but are this weekend also taxing the minds of the Bush team. Here US-led forces are intensifying their efforts to end the Battle of Gardez - the biggest offensive of the Afghanistan campaign. Even though they know they have al-Qaeda on the run, the dogged ability of its fighters to avoid capture, regroup and take US casualties has surprised Pentagon planners. They know US forces can contain them when they link up, just as they know the al-Qaeda is weak when it is kept on the run. The problem is they do not want to have to sustain such a fight indefinitely while opening a new front - Iraq. 'We could do both - at a great stretch, and with some sharp planning and international support,' one Pentagon source said. 'But we don't want to have to. There is a great military, political and diplomatic cost to this . . . costs that frankly we have still to completely judge.' Those costs are weighing heavily on the mind of Mr Bush, a President who, after all, campaigned on a platform of keeping America's foreign military commitments to a minimum. The attention given to the eight servicemen killed over the last week has resonated deeply, amid scenes of their bodies returning home in caskets, draped in American flags. Since the decade-long quagmire of Vietnam, the 'body bag' count has weighed heavily on every American president. As he stood in front of the grieving parents of two of the dead, Sergeant Bradley Close, 22, and Specialist Mark Anderson, 30, Mr Bush asked for even greater sacrifice during a speech in Florida. His voice cracked with emotion as he said: 'We will take loss of life.' He composed himself and added: 'I know your heart aches, and we ache for you.' Close and Anderson, he said, died for a 'noble and just cause'. Nearly 1,200 US fighters have joined the Battle of Gardez, backed by a similar number of Afghan troops and also international fighters from Europe and Australia. Reports now emerging from the Baghram air base - the hub of the high-altitude showdown - evoke powerful comparisons to Vietnam; small fighting units cut off amid a welter of mortar, grenade and small arms fire until they can be freed by waves of American air power. The al-Qaeda fighters are reportedly 'fanatical' - prepared to dig in and fight to the death. Some military analysts describe them as 'the hard core of the hard core'. As their bodies pile up from the waves of air strikes on their cave hideouts, estimates suggest just 200 remain. They may comprise the last major al-Qaeda force. Whether bin Laden and his top cadres are among them remains unclear. Mr Rumsfeld has stated the Battle of Gardez - hampered yesterday by fresh snowfalls - could be over early this week. The Pentagon and the White House hope so - and that it will be the last major Afghan battle. His Afghanistan commander, General Tommy Franks, has warned it all could prove 'very messy'. Mr Bush said 'dangerous missions lie ahead'. Whatever the outcome, it will shape the US approach to widening its 'new war'. Patriot games - Review, Page 1
