As the polls show that more than 90 per cent of Americans support a long, sustained war, US President George Bush is facing critical decisions as he listens to his advisors, several of whom are offering conflicting views on the likelihood of victory in a military assault against Osama bin Laden.
Many of the men around Mr Bush are veterans of his father's administration and long-time friends of one another.
The Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld was head of the federal office of economic opportunity back in 1969 under President Richard Nixon. He recruited a bright young talent named Dick Cheney to join him later in the Ford White House. His rise was rapid; by the age of 34, Mr Cheney had become chief of staff of the White House.
Mr Cheney ran the Pentagon under George Bush snr in 1988. He is now Vice President. Colin Powell, now Secretary of State, was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the nation's highest military post, during the Gulf war in 1992. And Mr Rumsfeld served, then as now, as secretary of defence.
All of these men, with the exception of Mr Powell, are known to be hardline military men, advocating the use of force first and diplomacy later. Mr Powell, despite his status as five-star general, has always been a more reluctant voice. In 1992, Mr Powell urged moderation, and stressed tactical solutions to the problem of Saddam Hussein. According to David Halberstam, author of War in a Time of Peace, Mr Powell was told in no uncertain terms by Mr Cheney back then to confine his opinions to military matters.
"You are not Secretary of State," Mr Cheney reportedly told Mr Powell.
Well now he is. On Sunday, Mr Powell stressed that the war now facing the US is a "law enforcement war, not just a military war". He contrasted the conflict with bin Laden and his Islamic supporters with the Gulf war in 1992.
"That war was easy to see, easy to define. This enemy is clever, resourceful. It is a more difficult enemy to find and to fix. When we find them and fix them we will finish them," he said.
Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Cheney are said to be focusing on the military aspect of the US response, and it is a considerable challenge. Afghanistan, a country of 23 million mostly impoverished people, is an inhospitable terrain that has a history of defeating great empires and their invaders, including the Aryans, Alexander the Great, and the Soviet Army at its zenith. Today, about 300 F-15, F-16, and B-52 fighters jets are preparing for take off from Prince Sultan Air Base, in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, the same base used for air access to Iraq.
Twenty navy vessels with 75 aircraft aboard are gathered in the Arabian Sea. The problem they face is that bin Laden's network is not confined to Afghanistan. He has active cells in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Germany and the US.
One Russian general noted that shooting weapons inside Afghanistan is a waste of ammunition because there is "nothing to hit". Or to paraphrase Barry Bearak of the New York Times: "People who want to bomb Afghanistan back into the Stone Age should know they don't have very far to go."
Mr Powell appears to be stressing, as does Attorney General John Ashcroft, that the first challenge for Mr Bush and his administration is to get US intelligence and coordination up and running to define who exactly the enemy is.
And what constitutes victory? Well, Mr Powell has been known to discuss the necessity of an "exit strategy" in military operations. In this war, how will the US know when it has won?
"The exit strategy is when we know the American people are living in safety without this kind of threat," Mr Powell said.
That is a nice phrase, but it defines the inexactitude of advice currently being heard by Mr Bush.