Bush's war against terror

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On the first night of the operation, 7 October 2001, Royal Navy submarines fired Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Afghanistan. RAF tanker aircraft also refuelled American bombers and reconnaissance aircraft gathered intelligence for the campaign.

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Source A suggests that the Bonn agreement would not bring lasting peace because the Afghan delegates are smiling and shaking hands above the table but holding rifles and daggers underneath it. This shows that they were only pretending to be united and were still ready to fight each other. The Bonn talks brought together four rival groups, including the Northern Alliance and supporters of the former king, and several of them had fought each other in the civil war of 1992-96, which destroyed much of Kabul. The hidden weapons also suggest that the warlords would keep their private armies, which is what happened: commanders such as Dostum and Ismail Khan kept their forces and their regional power after Bonn. The UN official at the head of the table cannot see the weapons, suggesting that the UN was naive or unable to enforce the deal; the international security force was limited to Kabul. The sign 'Peace and national unity' is ironic. The Taliban were not even at the table, so they had no reason to accept the new government.

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Source B is useful because it shows the official reason the USA gave for taking military action. Bush demands that the Taliban 'deliver' the leaders of Al-Qaeda 'who hide in your land' and close 'every terrorist training camp'. This reflects the situation in 2001: since bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996, Al-Qaeda had trained thousands of fighters in Afghan camps, and the Taliban had protected him even after the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Africa. The phrases 'not open to negotiation' and 'share in their fate' are useful because they show that the USA had already decided to attack if the Taliban refused. However, the provenance limits its usefulness. This was a speech to Congress and a television audience nine days after nearly 3,000 people had died, so Bush wanted to unite Americans and present the case for war as strongly as possible. It does not mention other motives, such as public anger and the desire for revenge, or the wider aims he set out in the same speech, when he said the war would not end until every terrorist group of global reach was defeated.

Source C is useful because it explains the other side of the crisis: why the Taliban refused. Zaeef demands 'proof' and says that handing over a guest without evidence would be against Afghan and Islamic tradition, which reflects the Pashtun code of hospitality. This helps an historian understand why diplomacy failed. As the Taliban's spokesman to the world's press, Zaeef is a good source for the regime's public position. But he was defending a government that depended on bin Laden's money and fighters, so he hides how close the alliance was; Al-Qaeda fighters had fought alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. My knowledge also shows that the Taliban never moved far from this position: a council of clerics only suggested bin Laden should leave voluntarily, and later offers to hand him to a third country were rejected by Bush.

Overall, Source B is the more useful for explaining why the USA attacked, because it states the American demands and shows that the USA would not compromise. But the sources are most useful together: B shows what the USA demanded and C shows why the Taliban would not give it, which explains why the crisis ended in war on 7 October 2001. An historian would still need other evidence for the wider motives behind Bush's war on terror.

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American air power was essential to the rapid collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001, which fell in about two months. However, I only partly agree that it was the main reason. Air power was decisive only because it was combined with Afghan ground forces, guided by US special forces, and because the Taliban regime was weak and unpopular.

American air power did enormous damage. From 7 October US bombers and cruise missiles, joined by British Tomahawks, destroyed the Taliban's air defences, airfields and command centres within days. The Taliban had no air force or missiles that could resist. Precision-guided bombs could hit individual positions, and B-52 bombers pounded the Taliban front lines on the Shomali plain north of Kabul. Huge 'daisy cutter' bombs terrified Taliban fighters. Once the bombing of the front lines intensified in early November, the cities fell within weeks, which suggests air power was the key that unlocked the Taliban's defences.

However, bombs alone could not take and hold cities. In October, when the USA was bombing fixed targets, the Taliban held firm. The decisive change came when small teams of US special forces and CIA officers joined Northern Alliance commanders and directed air strikes onto Taliban positions using lasers and satellite positioning. It was the Northern Alliance that actually fought on the ground: General Dostum and Atta took Mazar-i-Sharif on 9 November, Ismail Khan took Herat on 12 November and Northern Alliance forces entered Kabul on 13 November. In the south, Hamid Karzai and Gul Agha Sherzai raised Pashtun fighters who forced the surrender of Kandahar in early December. Only a few hundred Americans were on the ground, so Afghan forces were just as important as American aircraft.

Money and defections also mattered. CIA officers carried millions of dollars in cash to win over local commanders, and in Afghanistan, after more than twenty years of war, commanders had a long tradition of changing sides to join the winners. Whole Taliban units changed sides or went home rather than fight.

The Taliban's own weaknesses help explain why they collapsed so quickly. The regime was harsh and unpopular, particularly with Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras in the north, and many Afghans resented the foreign Al-Qaeda fighters. After 11 September it also lost its foreign support: Pakistan, which had helped the Taliban to power, agreed to co-operate with the USA, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates cut ties. Finally, many Taliban leaders chose not to fight for the cities but to withdraw. Mullah Omar fled Kandahar and many fighters escaped to Pakistan. This means that the 'collapse' was partly a retreat, which is why the Taliban were able to return in later years.

In conclusion, American air power was a necessary cause of the Taliban's rapid fall, but not the main reason on its own. The regime collapsed so quickly because air power was combined with Afghan ground forces, directed by US special forces and helped by bribes, against a regime that had little popular support and had lost its foreign backers. The speed of the victory was also misleading, because many Taliban withdrew rather than being destroyed.