WorldNetDaily

Panggilan Telefon Yang Didengar Seantero Dunia

(The phone call heard 'round the world)

Satu panggilan telefon biasa telah menggerakkan pasukan Pakatan Utara yang bersifat anti-Taliban melonjak naik semangatnya dan merobah corak peperangan di Afghanistan.

Mengikut sumber perisikan Washington dan Moscow, panggilan telefon itu dibuat oleh Presiden Russia, Vladimir Putin, kepada Presiden Bush pada hari Rabu Nov. 7 sebelum beliau bertolak menuju Persidangan PBB di New York. Putin telah memberitahu Bush agar merelakan askar Pakatan Utara untuk melancarkan serangan ke atas bandar Mazar-e-Shariff.

Mengikut perkiraan Putin, pasukan anti-Taliban mampu mengambil-alih bandar itu dalam masa beberapa jam sahaja. Selepas itu Putin menjangkakan Kabul dapat diserang dalam masa beberapa hari sahaja.

Mengikut sumber perisikan itu, Putin telah meyakinkan Bush bahawa semua persiapan sudah lengkap sambil merujuk kepada satu ketumbukan tentera Uzbek di bawah pimpinan General Rashid Dostum yang diperkuatkan oleh penyertaan sekitar 2,000 anggota tentera khas 'Russian Spetznaz' dan seramai 6,000 pasukan khas Uzbek, yang dikerahkan oleh satu arahan khas daripada presiden Uzbek, Islam Karimov.

Dua minggu sebelum itu, Krimov telah menolak permohonan Setiausaha Pertahanan Donald Rumsfeld yang melawat negara itu meminta Karimov mengirimkan tenteranya di sepanjang sempadan Uzbek-Afghan, Karimov memberi alasan dia mahukan anggota secukupnya untuk memerangi sebarang kebangkitan disebabkan ugutan rakyat beragama Islam yang tidak serasi dengan pengeboman Amerika di Afghanistan.

Putin berjaya memujuk presiden Uzbek itu untuk mengubah fikirannya dan memberikan jaminan beliau akan menempatkan pasukan tentera Russia di sepanjang sempadan Tajikistan seandainya presiden Uzbek itu merasakan bahayanya. Presiden Russia telah memberitahu Bush betapa beberapa petugas Uzbek, Kazakh dan Mongolian yang digaji oleh perikatan Russia sudahpun masuk menceroboh pasukan tentera Taliban terutama sekali di bahagian barat dan tengah Afghanistan, dan telah dapat membuat pakatan dengan pemimpin tempatan Taliban.

Tugas mereka ialah meyakinkan pemimpin tempatan Taliban agar berpaling tadah memihak kepada pakatan Utara, sebaik sahaja pasukan PU itu merapati kubu pertahanan mereka. Sebagai ganjaran mereka dijanjikan wang tunai, pakaian baru dan senjata, termasuk diserap menjadi anggota tentera general Dostum.

Mengikut sumber ketenteraan DEBKA, setiap komander Taliban yang dipujuk untuk berpaling tadah telah diberikan nama kod setiap agen prisikan Russia yang mengiringi pasukan awalan PU itu, yang dianggotai juga oleh tentera Russia dan Uzbek. Mereka telah diberi arahan tidak menyerang, selagi perisik Russia sudah melintasi benteng pertahanan Taliban dan memberikan nama kod komander Taliban bersama wang tunai yang dijanjikan. Agen Russia itu akan pulang ke pangkalannya bersama beberapa pegawai Taliban tempatan sebagai tebusan sehinggalah segala tipu muslihat itu selesai dilunaskan.

Putin telah mencadangkan agar pegawai khas pasukan AS bersama-sama dengan agen rahsia Russia memantau setiap transaksi jualbeli itu dan mendapatkan bantuan pengeboman udara jika difikirkan perlu.

Rencana yang diolah oleh Presiden Russia itu dan dicadangkannya kepada Bush pada Nov. 7 adalah bercanggahan dengan segala peraturan dan agenda diplomatik dan ketenteraan yang diuruskan oleh Donald Rumsfeld, bersama ketua turus tentera Amerika dan Setiausaha Negara Colin Powell dan kakitangannya. Rencana besar mereka ialah melakukan serangan yang penuh kewaspadaan yang mampu merangkul Kabul hanya pada akhir musim sejuk pada April nanti.

Rencana Putin telah mebolehkan mereka mencuri masa selama enam bulan lebih awal. Rencana Putin itu telah memperlekehkan perancangan Bush dan menunjukkan ia mampu dijadikan pedoman pergerakan pasukan anti-Taliban mengganyang Taliban di Afghanistan.

Bush bertindak menyetujui rencana Putin dengan serta merta. Dia tidak merundingkan perkara itu dengan pasukannya sendiri. Jika dia berbuat demikian tentu Rumsfeld memberi ingatan kepadanya betapa bahaya yang akan mengena terhadap segala persiapan ketenteraan, dan segala perencanaan yang disediakan oleh AS beberapa minggu lalu. Powell tentu memberikan ingatan bahawa tindakan Bush itu mengenepikan samasekali sekutu utama AS ketika ini, Pakistan dan menunjukkan AS tidak lagi memerlukan pangkalan udara di Pakistan sambil mencemar perhubungan baik yang dijalin khas dengan Presiden Pakistan Perez Musharraf, yang ketika itu berada di Amerika Syarikat.

Tetapi Bush bertegas tidak mahu mendengar segala perdebatan ini. Sebaik sahaja dua presiden itu meletakkan telefon di gagangnya, peperangan di Afghanistan menentang Taliban, Osama Laden dan kumpulan Al-Qaida, beliau telah memasuki satu rentak yang baru yang mengejutkan setiap insan di Washington.

Pengamat politik telah merakamkan betapa sejak September 23, ketika presiden Amerika dan Russia bersetuju untuk berpadu tenaga memerangi Taliban di Afghanistan, mereka kerap berbual di telefon banyak kali setiap minggu. Sumber yang dipercayai memberitahu setiap kali perbualan telefon itu diadakan, ia telah didahului oleh beberapa kertas kerja khas di antara pegawai tinggi khas dan penasihat keselamatan negara di antara kedua-dua negara untuk menyediakan maklumat negara.

"Ia adalah laksana menyertai satu persidangan puncak yang panjang yang tidak ada kesudahannya," kata seorang pegawai kanan di Washington. Sumber ini menyebut bagaimana dua pemimpin utama itu dapat menyesuaikan diri berkerjasama dan penasihat Bush telah beranggapan mereka dapat membaca pemikiran Putin sehinggalah 7 November wujudnya perbualan mereka yang memberi kesedaran betapa Putin mampu memerangkap mereka ketika sedikit alpa.

Beberapa sumber perisikan lain telah memberitahu DEBKA betapa dalam perbualan yang sama, mereka telah "membincangkan beberapa perkara perisikan yang sensitif mengenai peperangan membasmi keganasan di Afghanistan." Sumber itu enggan memberikan butiran lanjut. Tetapi kami dapat merumuskan betapa kedua-dua pemimpin itu membincangkan cara terbaik untuk menyekat Osama Laden mendapatkan maklumat rahsia yang paling tinggi tahap risikannya untuk membolehkannya menyerang pangkalan tentera AS dan juga sasaran awam yang besar-besar. Sumber itu semua menekankan betapa ugutan itu masih wujud lagi kerana segala peraturan baru yang sama-sama dipersetujui oleh kedua-dua perkhidmatan perisikan AS dan Russia belum lagi diuji dan diamalkan.

Terjemahan: SPAR.

Asal:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25351

FROM THE DEBKA INTELLIGENCE FILES

The phone call heard 'round the world

Putin gave green light for rapid moves by Northern Alliance

© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com

A single telephone call sent Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance hurtling into triumphal action this week and so reversed the tide of war, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly.

It was made, the intelligence service's sources in Washington and Moscow reveal, by Russian President Vladimir Putin to President Bush Wednesday, Nov. 7, before he set off for the U.N. General Assembly opening in New York. Now, said the Russian leader, was the moment for Bush to let the Northern Alliance off the leash and signal the attack on the key northern town of Mazar-e-Sharif.

In Putin's estimate, the rebels would breach Taliban lines and take the town within hours. After that, according to Putin's reckoning, the Northern Alliance would reach Kabul, ready to march into the capital in a matter of days.

According to those sources, Putin assured the U.S. president that everything was ready, a reference to the new lineup of forces in Afghanistan: the Uzbek units of Gen. Rashid Dostum were newly beefed up with 2,000 Russian Spetznaz (special) forces and some 6,000 men from special Uzbek units, transferred on personal orders from Uzbek president Islam Karimov.

Two weeks earlier, Karimov rejected a request from visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to send these units into Afghanistan, or at least to deploy them on the Uzbek-Afghan border. Karimov explained he needed the extra support at home to put down potential outbreaks arising from the Muslim unrest that was mounting as a result of U.S. bombardments next door.

Putin persuaded the Uzbek president to change his mind against a guarantee of aid from the Russian special forces stationed in neighboring Tajikistan should the Karimov government be in peril. The Russian president went on to inform Bush that several dozen Russian agents, together with Uzbek, Kazakh and Mongolian operatives on the payroll of Russian intelligence, had infiltrated Taliban forces, primarily in western and central Afghanistan, and made contact with local Taliban leaders.

Their assignment was to convince local Taliban chiefs to defect to the Northern Alliance on the rebels' approach to Taliban lines, in return for safe-conduct guarantees, cash, new clothes and weapons, plus integration in Dostum's army.

According to DEBKA's military sources, each of the Taliban commanders solicited for defection was given the codename of a Russian intelligence agent accompanying the advancing force, which also included Russian and Uzbek soldiers. They were ordered not to launch their attack until the said Russian intelligence agent crossed through the lines and gave his codename to the Taliban commander - as well as the promised cash. The agent would then cross back, accompanied by one or two local Taliban officers, as hostages until the defection deal was fully implemented.

Putin suggested that officers of U.S. Special Forces units accompany the Russian agents to monitor the transaction and call up air cover or bombing, if necessary.

The plan the Russian president put forward to Bush in his Nov. 7 telephone call ran contrary to all the diplomatic and military arrangements set up by Rumsfeld, the U.S. joint chiefs of staff and Secretary of State Colin Powell and his staff. Their blueprint set out a cautious step-by-step campaign that would reach Kabul at the end of the Afghan winter in April.

Putin stood that timeline on its head, cutting out five to six months by going ahead at once. His plan effectively trashed the U.S. position papers prepared for Bush. The Putin plan thus became the vanguard of the anti-Taliban offensive in Afghanistan.

Bush responded with an on-the-spot decision to go with the Russian plan. He did not consult his team. Had he done so, Rumsfeld would have warned him the new proposal would place at risk all the military preparations, deals and understandings the United States had put together over the past weeks. Powell would have warned that letting the Northern Alliance go would amount to ditching Washington's chief war ally, Pakistan, foregoing the need for U.S. bases in that country and damaging the special relationship with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who was then in the United States.

But Bush decided not to hear those arguments. The moment the two presidents put down their phones, the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida organization took a new and dramatic turn that caught everyone in Washington by surprise.

Political analysts note that since Sept. 23, when the U.S. and Russian presidents first agreed to join forces in the Afghan war, they talk on the phone several times a week. Senior sources in both their capitals disclose that in advance of those calls, small circles of close advisers and national security staffers prepare background and position papers.

"It's like being in one long summit conference that never ends," said one senior-level source in Washington. The source said the two leaders had established a comfortable working relationship, and Bush's advisers had thought they had a good insight into Putin's thoughts - until the Nov. 7 conversation showed the Americans that Putin could still catch them off guard.

Other sources familiar with the special Bush-Putin relationship and their exchanges told DEBKA that in the same conversation, they also went into what both regard as "perhaps the most sensitive intelligence issue in the war in Afghanistan and the war against terrorism." The sources declined to give details, but we infer the discussion turned on ways of blocking bin Laden's access to the type of high-grade intelligence data that gave him the means for carrying out terrorist attacks against U.S. military and civilian targets, past and present. The sources stressed that this threat still existed because the new precautions instituted jointly by American and Russian intelligence services had not been tested in practice.