REPORT FROM AFGHANISTAN: A dark scenario

MARCH 19, 2002, SHAR-I-KOT — Last week the US Department of Defense declared Operation Anaconda a smashing victory over Al Qaeda and the remnants of Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Hundreds of insurgents were reportedly killed, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that "there might be more operations like Anaconda, but we won’t be fighting the same people."

Anaconda was a success, by all official accounts, because hundreds of rabidly anti-American forces were killed, with only eight American losses. But that characterization is laced with a big problem: more American soldiers may have died than the Pentagon is prepared to admit.