Bruce Anderson: Destroy bin Laden, then overthrow Saddam Hussein

'Until both objectives are achieved, the West will not be able to say that it has won this war'

By sea and air, the American build-up is gaining momentum. An awesome quantity of firepower is already assembled, and more is arriving on an almost hourly basis. But one crucial issue is still shrouded in secrecy. It is not clear what plans exist to reinforce the air war with ground troops.

In London, there are indications that Tony Blair hopes to avoid a large scale deployment of British armour or infantry (special forces excepted). Whitehall is dismissing suggestions that the troops now exercising in Oman will move on to the Afghan theatre, and Whitehall appears to be telling the truth. Some of the units in Oman are 30 to 40 per cent under strength. If they were to go into combat, that would have to be rectified. There seem to be no plans to do this.

Equally, any large-scale British commitment would require the call-up of reservists and Territorial Army specialists, especially medics and mechanics. There is no indication – yet – that this is being considered. One might also have thought that brigade and battalion commanders would have been told to ensure that their men were in a heightened state of readiness. Thus far, not much of this has happened.

Then again, it is hard enough to campaign in Afghanistan without having to confront the Afghan winter. Osama bin Laden, whose strategic grasp should not be underrated, no doubt factored this into his calculations when he planned his atrocity for September.

It is probable that those in charge of Western strategy intend to spend the winter equipping the Northern Alliance, whose morale is reported as excellent, so that it can mount a ferocious spring offensive, with Western air support.

In the interim, the diplomatic preparations are moving ahead almost as rapidly as the military ones, with Britain playing an important role. The Prime Minister has not only visited Washington and tried to ensure that the Europeans remain on side. He has spent hours on the telephone ensuring that friendly Middle Eastern rulers and leaders feel that they are being treated with courtesy and respect.

It was also right to send Jack Straw to Tehran. There is some dispute about this in Washington. Richard Perle, a former American assistant secretary of defence, has argued that Iran's record as a large-scale state sponsor of terrorism should ensure that it features on the West's list of enemies and that it should not be treated as a potential ally.

There is a strong argument, however, that we should not maximise the number of our enemies in the region. Conflict with the Taliban is unavoidable, and it is also likely that we will find ourselves in a renewed and final war against Saddam Hussein. So there is a case for limiting our additional front-line exposure. There are also signs that pluralist politics may be emerging in Iran – so the West ought to do everything possible to encourage the forces of relative moderation.

It was unfortunate only that Mr Straw's efforts were undermined by his own inexperience and lack of judgement, reinforced by petulance. It is hard to believe that Foreign Office officials did not try to prevent him from walking in to the various linguistic traps that await the unwary who embroil themselves in the affairs of the Muddle East. The indications are that Mr Straw simply overrode their advice, on the assumption that he knew better. It was a false assumption.

It was also nonsensical of Mr Straw to brush aside Richard Perle's comments by claiming that he was a figure of no consequence. It is true that Richard Perle is not in this administration, though he could have been – he is not a man who enjoys office routines. But he is one of the half dozen most influential American conservative analysts of foreign policy. His views carry great weight, as they have done for the past 20 years; he has been thinking hard about foreign-policy issues since the days when Jack Straw was a left-wing student activist.

As a result of all this, Dick Perle is high on American liberals' hit-lists; they nicknamed him "the Prince of Darkness", a title he relishes. But the denigration by ignorant liberals is hardly going to carry have much impact in the Bush White House. As a result of his rudeness to Mr Perle, Mr Straw will also find that his credibility has been undermined. A fledgling Foreign Secretary, who is still deficient in basic information, Jack Straw would have been better advised to listen to Dick Perle than to quarrel with him.

There was another aspect to the Perle/Straw debate. While not everyone in the Washington administration shares Dick Perle's implacable antagonism towards Iran, there is widespread agreement that to kill bin Laden and proclaim a victory will not be enough. Nor will it be enough to overthrow the Taliban regime. If future terrorist outrages are to be avoided, the United States will have to take pre-emptive action to prevent the creation of terrorist networks and to deter any states that might succour them.

In this respect, it could even be argued that Osama bin Laden has done the West a favour. Since the abject failure of the UN's effort to obstruct him, Saddam Hussein has been pressing ahead with his efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. If bin Laden had waited a couple of years, he might have been able to arm those planes with truly terrible weaponry, and to have murdered far more than 6,000 innocent people.

Washington has now become aware of the urgent need to prevent Saddam Hussein from being in a position to inflict such terrorism himself or to enable others to do so. The removal of Saddam is not yet an official Western war aim. But Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence, is certainly determined that it should become one.

At the time of Desert Storm, there were widespread miscalculations in both Washington and London, and everyone underestimated Saddam Hussein. Charles Powell, the principal foreign-policy adviser to both Margaret Thatcher and John Major, assured me that Saddam would be overthrown within weeks, if not days. That view was shared by Colin Powell, Norman Schwarzkopf and most other advisers in Washington. Indeed, it was a view shared by almost everyone, except for Margaret Thatcher.

But we had scotched the snake, not killed it. More than 10 years later, the Western statesmen who thought they had encompassed Saddam's downfall are all in retirement. He remains in power. As long as he is in that position, and able to control the formidable resources of a significant industrial power, we can expect him to be a mortal threat to the West and its allies. Yet nothing has been done to remove him – until now, after bin Laden reminded the West of the terrible threat that terrorism poses.

Indeed, it is more important to overthrow Saddam than it is to destroy bin Laden. Until both of those objectives are achieved, the West will not be able to declare that it has won this war. As long as such enemies are at large with their malice and weaponry, no inhabitant of any major American city should feel safe, and nor should any Londoner.