The Bush administration warned, even before Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), that the War on Terror would be costly and long. Unpleasant proof of this is that the Taliban are making a comeback already in their former stomping grounds, and life for the natives in post-war Baghdad is still chaotic and squalid. But now that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended its primary warfighting phase, and America contemplates the big vexed question -- What next? -- we need to take accurate stock of all we've achieved against al Qaeda globally, and what remains to be done. Let's overview the issues in three parts:

What's been accomplished most recently.

An updated model to conceptualize our enemy.

Methods for "end-stage containment" of homicide bombers.

The discussion will attempt to meet that time-honored military dictum, Bring solutions, not problems.

1. Recent accomplishments:
Al Qaeda has less and less territory to use as safe havens for training, planning, and staging. Half a dozen countries worldwide now hold in custody numerous al Qaeda members ranging from top echelon to foot soldiers. Many sources of funding to al Qaeda have been identified and cut. Counter-terrorism forces are working smarter all the time, and cooperating internationally as never before. The suicide bombings in Riyadh and Casablanca have led (at least for now, superficially) to a major advance in collaborative effort between the FBI and overseas law enforcement. Imams and government leaders ranging from the Saudis to Syria(!) to Morocco label the terrorists as perverters of -- and threats to -- genuine Muslim teachings and faith. They say this in their messages of condolence to the victims, in their latest declarations of policy, and in sermons broadcast from mosques.

2. Conceptual model:
Al Qaeda has been discussed in the open media as being organized into cells that scattered around the world to find new footholds wherever they could. A better analogy today may be to think of al Qaeda as a sprinkling of virus particles. "Cells," in the sense of compartmented old-fashioned spy tradecraft, imply a degree of centralized leadership that seems to be less relevant to regenerated "al Qaeda II." Classic thinking that a bullet to the brain would kill the body has obviously failed. (We gave the original al Qaeda infrastructure a pretty thorough lobotomy, but the assaults in Riyadh and Casablanca were multi-person affairs that were very well planned.)

Virus particles, in contrast to cells and entire bodies, barely meet the definition of life in the conventional sense. They can function, and are dangerous, only after they infiltrate a genuine living organism and seize partial control. A virus, whether the common cold or its mutant cousin SARS, spreads by transport through hosts. Whatever its genetic background, a given virus's particles are all equally dangerous -- there is no center of gravity, no crucial command and control node. Reduce the virus's numbers, and the virus becomes less deadly. But leave just a handful of particles intact, and the modern plague can flare up again.

A layered defense against travel by infected carriers, and quarantine of identified people at risk, seems to be helping suppress the outbreak of SARS. But border crossings and hospitals are in some ways the easiest places to guard or cordon off, and the fight against the disease must then be handled country by country. The exact same thing can be said about al Qaeda: immobilizing their operatives using the latest surveillance methods (human and technical) is an important step to wiping out their pockets of activity nation by nation. But a dedicated, pre-trained homicide bomber is much like a virus particle in other ways too. Neither responds to appeasement.

Counterintelligence and relentless tracking and signals-intercepts are therefore vital, yet just as viruses are mindless things that don't feel pain, some forms of psy-ops and deterrence aimed at al Qaeda itself might be wasted. Better perhaps to focus hard diplomacy, economic pressure/incentives, and eye-opening education through local media, against more vulnerable, responsive links in the infection chain. These include potential recruits before they're recruited and brain-washed, and possible sympathizer regimes or warlords -- either before they grant al Qaeda safe harbor and local empowerment ... or while they're considering taking such welcome away, out of awe if not shock at America's forward-deployed armed strength.

The keys are to de-glamorize association with terrorism (despite Hezbollah's wide use of a slick new videogame), and prove through fact in an era of emerging tools and tactics -- summarized below -- that homicide bombers will often simply die alone and impotent.

3. End-stage containment.
Al Qaeda is far from perfect. Our existing twin strategy, of cross-border containment of their operatives, and denial of access to weapons of mass destruction, seems to be working, at least for now. Al Qaeda may have blundered badly by launching attacks in countries that until the last week or two felt safe, Morocco and Saudi Arabia -- but the terrorists may have been forced to this by a much-reduced option to travel. Al Qaeda's methods of attack, lacking WMDs, are becoming predictable: homicide bombers either on foot or in vehicles.

Intelligence also suggests al Qaeda remains fixated on airliners, to shoot them down or hijack and crash them into landmark structures. Defenses against these types of attacks, if not already in place or under very active study, are within the reach of existing U.S. engineering skills and manufacturing ability. Detectors, decoys, and jammers used by military aircraft to protect against enemy missiles at low altitude might need to be installed on passenger planes, or at least emplaced around airports. (Fixed installations might be less expensive; there are far fewer runways than planes.) And a combination of techniques and gadgets available now in the civilian sector can provide a layered last-ditch defense against homicide bombers as they approach their chosen target on the ground.

For starters, it's a basic fact of weapon effects that the destructive force of a open-air detonation drops inversely with the third power of the range. That is, twice as far means one eighth the force. Ten times as far means a thousandth the impact. The three attacks in Riyadh collectively show that clustered housing bastions should be laid out to establish the greatest distance between the bomb and soft targets. And it's far better that a truck bomb go off on a spacious boulevard, venting some force to the atmosphere, than inside the lobby of a building, guaranteeing a structure collapse and a very high body count -- like the Marine barracks in Beirut.

Devices exist for subduing crime suspects less-lethally, and others for smothering blasts. These can with effort and ingenuity be made to apply even to a homicide bomber who uses a dead-man's switch -- which sets off the explosive vest when pressure on a trigger is released, either on purpose or if he/she is shot by guards. The famous "goo gun" prototype, used by police to immobilize a suspect by spaying a thick and heavy fast-acting adhesive, stands a chance to force the terrorist's hand to remain on the dead-man's switch, at least until the next set of countermeasures can be employed. . . .

Some of these countermeasures go back to the days of the Unibomber, and were common in corporate mail-rooms then. Explosion resistant blankets were made of special high-strength materials. These blankets were to be wrapped around or draped over a suspicious package. This would buy time for local evacuation and arrival of a police bomb squad. In the worst case the blanket would minimize human and property loss if the package went off. A homicide bomber on foot, once thoroughly goo-gunned, could be wrapped in such blankets until explosive ordnance disposal experts reached the scene. Schemes for a instantaneous, remote-controlled "blanket barrage" should suggest themselves to authorities.

Large construction projects sometimes need to clear bedrock. This is achieved using explosives placed in holes drilled in the rock. But amid busy streets in a major city, or on the shoulder of some crowded superhighway, the blast must be very carefully contained. This is commonly done with huge, biscuit-shaped steel mesh tampers. These tampers are typically moved around by excavators or bulldozers. Such a massive biscuit or two, dropped on a terrorist car or truck that tries to break through a checkpoint barrier, could help make sure the homicide bombers claim the least number of victims -- other than themselves. Deployment of the tampers could rely on gravity alone, if vehicles are channeled through a lane with a few of these biscuits looming overhead on a trestle rack.

None of the above discussion is meant to minimize the dangers that homicide bombers do present, nor to trivialize the problems of reliable end-stage attacker identification and mass deployment of expensive countermeasures that don't harm innocents. The real point is to give the al Qaeda virus's possible hosts and targets both a positive choice: There is indeed a way to keep this mindless human plague from wreaking sure havoc. Foil enough attacks, and we discourage new recruits and any prospective terror-enablers. Literally squish enough attackers, and al Qaeda and its ilk are reduced in the eyes of the world to a sputtering nuisance. There's no glamour in such a finale, not even in a Hezbollah videogame.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com