Author: Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Publication: The Washington Post
Date: September 16, 2001
India will allow its military bases
to be used as a staging ground for U.S. forces in a retaliatory attack
on terrorist targets in Afghanistan, an offer that provides the United
States with a new degree of strategic flexibility and additional leverage
to elicit a similar commitment from neighboring Pakistan.
Indian officials have not publicly
discussed their decision, apparently out of fear that it might inflame
the country's Muslim minority. The decision was reached at a cabinet committee
meeting on security less than two days after the terrorist strikes on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
But Indian officials have privately
told the United States that, if requested, they will allow U.S. troops
and equipment to be temporarily based on Indian soil for the first time
in the country's history. Although Indian officials said the United States
has not yet formally asked to use any Indian facilities, Western officials
and military analysts said the offer provides U.S. commanders with a nearby
backup location for ground forces should Pakistan, which lies between India
and Afghanistan, balk at allowing in U.S. combat units.
Pakistani officials have said the
United States has not sought permission to put ground combat forces in
Pakistan. If asked, the Pakistani government has said it would consider
a request for a multinational force that includes representatives of Muslim
nations - a condition not attached to India's offer.
"We have given unconditional and
unambivalent support for any action the United States may take to deal
with the problem of global terrorism," one Indian official said.
Staging ground troops in India could
pose a challenge, however, because India and Afghanistan do not share a
border. Any troops based in India likely would have to be transported by
air over Pakistan, analysts said.
More significantly, officials and
analysts said, Indian air bases could play a role in housing fighter planes
and refueling long-range bombers. And Indian intelligence services, which
have long tracked Muslim extremist groups in Afghanistan because of their
support for separatist guerrillas in the disputed Indian states of Jammu
and Kashmir, could provide valuable information to U.S. commanders.
U.S. officials have identified Saudi
fugitive Osama bin Laden, who is being harbored by Afghanistan's ruling
Taliban movement, as the primary suspect behind last week's attacks in
New York and Washington.
Indian officials said they already
have given the United States intelligence reports about the Taliban, bin
Laden's training camps and other extremist groups operating in Afghanistan.
India's offer to cooperate with
the United States is a significant milestone in efforts by the two nations
during the past year to forge closer ties. Such a proposal, officials and
analysts said, would have been unthinkable during the Cold War, when India
led a nonaligned movement and had friendly relations with the Soviet Union.
"Within 72 hours of the attacks,
India had reversed decades of policy with regard to cooperating with the
United States," one U.S. official here said.
During the Persian Gulf War, India
allowed U.S. planes to refuel en route from bases in the Pacific Ocean,
a move that sparked controversy domestically.
"India could have offered what it
did before and everyone would have thought, 'Great,' " a Western diplomat
here said. "The idea of foreign troops on Indian soil has heretofore been
anathema."
Indian officials, whose alacrity
in proffering support surprised Western nations, see their wholehearted
backing for the U.S. effort as a chance to seize the high ground over Pakistan,
its longtime enemy, which has been more tepid in its endorsement of the
U.S. campaign to avoid provoking its fundamentalist Muslim population.
India contends that Pakistan has turned a blind eye to terrorist groups
that operate on its territory.
For India, a predominantly Hindu
country that has been a frequent victim of Islamic terrorism, any campaign
to crack down on militant activity in Afghanistan also is welcome, if long
overdue. India contends that the Taliban has provided support not just
to insurgents in Kashmir but to a range of other terrorists, including
those who hijacked an Indian Airlines plane in 1999.
In a nationally televised address
after the attacks, India's prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, echoed
President Bush's call for a war against terrorism. "The world must join
hands to overwhelm them militarily, to neutralize their poison," Vajpayee
said.
Although the rapprochement between
Washington and New Delhi began in the final year of the Clinton administration,
it has picked up steady momentum under Bush, who favors lifting sanctions
imposed on India in 1998 after it conducted nuclear tests. The Bush administration
has increased military cooperation, and during the past few months, a series
of high-level U.S. officials have visited this capital, including Deputy
Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage and Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
