WASHINGTON - The United States must add at least 7,000 troops in Afghanistan, double foreign aid spending to $50 billion, and be prepared to strike unilaterally against terrorist sanctuaries in Pakistan, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois said yesterday in a major speech laying out his counterterrorism plan.

The thrust of Obama's 35-minute address on national security was that America is less safe today than it was before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He argued that the "misguided" war in Iraq and the sacrifice of American values in military detentions have sparked fresh anti-Americanism and diverted attention from the crucial task of bringing Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his followers to justice.

"When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won," Obama said to a roomful of journalists and scholars at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Obama delivered his speech, in which he outlined a robust foreign policy with several military and diplomatic components, amid a fierce debate with presidential rival Hillary Clinton about when it is appropriate for a US president to meet with leaders of rogue nations such as Syria and Iran. Obama continued to sharpen their differences yesterday by obliquely equating the New York senator's reticence to meet with such leaders with the policies of President Bush, which he said has failed.

"It's time to turn the page on Washington's conventional wisdom that agreement must be reached before you meet, that talking to other countries is some kind of reward, and that presidents can only meet with people who will tell them what they want to hear," Obama said.

Political analysts interpreted Obama's speech as a pointed message to his presidential competitors: that he will not accept being portrayed as weak or inexperienced on terrorism and world affairs. Within hours of his remarks, however, the campaign of one of those competitors, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, dubbed Obama a "Johnny-come-lately" and said Obama had contributed little in recent months while Biden has worked toward many of the same goals.

Much of Obama's speech was devoted to how the United States should use nonmilitary means to rebuild relationships around the world. He vowed to attend a "major Islamic forum" in his first 100 days in office. He called for a new $2 billion global education fund to combat the influence of radical Islamic schools. And he said he would launch a public diplomacy initiative consisting of "America Houses" across the Islamic world with the "Internet, libraries, English lessons, stories of America's Muslims and the strength they add to our country, and vocational programs."

But though Obama proposed billions in new spending, he did not detail yesterday how he would pay for it. Aides said that drawing down the US military presence in Iraq would free up billions.

One striking element of the speech was Obama's tough rhetoric on Pakistan, which he said must do more to root out terrorists hiding in its remote regions or lose American aid. And he said that if Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, was unwilling to go after high-level terrorist targets despite "actionable intelligence," the United States would act on its own.

"I understand President Musharraf has his own challenges," Obama said. "But ... there are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again."

Husain Haqqani, director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University and a former adviser to several Pakistani prime ministers, said Obama was right to address forthrightly Pakistan's role in battling terrorism. But, he said, the United States had to be absolutely sure of its target or a unilateral military strike could backfire.

"It sounds very good to say we're going to go in and strike, but who are you striking and what are you striking?" Haqqani said. "All you're going to do is turn people against the US."

Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, who is also running for the Democratic nomination and trying to get traction, was unusually critical of Obama's remarks on Pakistan, saying it was "dangerous and irresponsible to leave even the impression the United States would needlessly and publicly provoke a nuclear power."

Obama was introduced by Lee Hamilton, a former US representative from Indiana who helped lead the 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study Group. Hamilton has not endorsed a candidate, but he gave Obama's speech high marks afterward, calling it "very well done."

"I'm very impressed with the number of quite constructive proposals he had in the speech," Hamilton said, highlighting Obama's strong warning to Pakistan. "It seems to me if we've learned anything at all about fighting terrorism, we have learned that we cannot permit Al Qaeda to have sanctuaries, and those sanctuaries must go."

In another veiled jab yesterday at Clinton, Obama stepped up his criticism of Congress's 2002 vote authorizing Bush to invade Iraq. "Congress rubber-stamped the rush to war," he said, also dubbing Congress "coauthor of a catastrophic war."

Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.

Byline: Mike Dorning

Aug. 2--WASHINGTON -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, under attack from a rival who portrays him as naive on foreign policy, declared Wednesday that he would use military force against Al Qaeda operatives hiding in tribal areas of Pakistan if that nation did not move more aggressively against them first.

The Illinois senator said he would take military action as president, if necessary, despite the risk of undercutting Pakistan's leader, President Pervez Musharraf, an important American ally.

"I understand that President Musharraf has his own challenges," Obama said. "But let me make this clear. There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. ... If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf will not act, we will."

Obama delivered the warning in a speech on counterterrorism policy at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a think tank in Washington.

Obama outlined strong views on a foreign policy issue at a time when his chief rival in early presidential polling, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), has sought to depict him as naive in international affairs after Obama indicated he would be willing to negotiate with foreign dictators that the U.S. has shunned.

His declaration also followed revelations last month that the Bush administration made a last-minute decision in 2005 to abort a special forces raid to capture senior Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan's tribal areas amid fears the operation might jeopardize relations with Pakistan. The disclosure stirred criticism of the White House, and in his speech Obama called the decision to abort "a terrible mistake."

A national intelligence assessment recently made public concluded that Al Qaeda is reconstituting itself in the remote region of Pakistan and gaining strength, including setting up training camps.

The Bush administration has followed a delicate strategy in Pakistan. The White House has prodded Musharraf, a key ally in the struggle against the Taliban, to take stronger steps against terrorist havens while also taking care not to undermine a leader who maintains a tenuous hold on power and faces an internal challenge from Islamic fundamentalists.

Events this summer have underscored Musharraf's shaky position. An attempt by the Pakistani president to dismiss the Supreme Court chief justice stirred violent riots and moved the court's full membership to overrule the president in a politically damaging rebuff. Islamic fundamentalists took control of the capital city's Red Mosque until they were ousted through a bloody military raid. That raid in turn prompted a series of suicide bombings against the Pakistani government.

Obama said he would make continued military aid to Pakistan conditional on a more aggressive Pakistani army offensive against Al Qaeda followers who have retreated to a region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in which local tribes operate virtually free of central government authority.

"I would make our conditions clear: Pakistan must make substantial progress in closing down the training camps, evicting foreign fighters and preventing the Taliban from using Pakistan as a staging area for attacks in Afghanistan," Obama said.

White House defends strategy

White House spokesman Tony Snow defended the Bush administration's strategy in Pakistan. "We think that our approach to Pakistan is not only one that respects the sovereignty of Pakistan, but also is designed so that we are working in cooperation," Snow said.

"Gen. Musharraf, President Musharraf, is clearly somebody who has chips in the game here," added Snow, who noted that the Pakistani leader has been the target of multiple assassination attempts.

Still, in an action that many observers read as a tilt by the Bush administration toward a military strike, White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend pointedly declined to rule out the option in a television interview in late July, stirring a chorus of protests in Pakistan.

Clinton said in a radio interview later in the day that she also would not hesitate to attack Al Qaeda targets on Pakistani territory.

"If we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured. And that will be my highest priority because they pose the highest threat to America," Clinton told American Urban Radio Networks.

But two of Obama's other Democratic rivals expressed skepticism at his pronouncements Wednesday. It's understood that the U.S. might have to go into Pakistan under some circumstances, said Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but that is not something to discuss publicly for fear of undermining Musharraf.

"The way to deal with it is not to announce it, it's to do it," Biden said at the National Press Club, suggesting Obama's comments reflected inexperience. "It's not something you talk about; as president, it's something I would do."

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), also a longtime member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, echoed the criticism.

Analyst: Blow to Musharraf

Teresita Schaffer, a former State Department official with responsibility for the region and now director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that an overt U.S. military strike inside Pakistani territory would be a particular blow to Musharraf, who is a military leader, and could well lead to his ouster. It also would bolster leaders hostile to the United States in both the struggle for national leadership and local control of the tribal areas, she said.

"Once you have made that kind of operation, everything connected to the United States, even more than before, is believed to be the enemy," Schaffer said. "You've probably created a safe haven that works even better than before."

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mdorning@tribune.com

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