In 2001, President Al Gore confers with British prime minister Tony Blair in the first of a series of meetings aimed at assembling a Desert Storm-style international coalition to support the U.S. in the event that a full-fledged military intervention in Afghanistan becomes necessary.

Such intervention, if undertaken, is sure to be controversial, since there are many who will argue that invading a sovereign country is a disproportionate response even to a terrorist attack like the Sept. 11 downing of United Airlines Flight 93 by agents of the terror group Al Qaeda.

However, intelligence reports indicating that the Flight 93 attack was part of a larger, mostly unsuccessful strike at multiple targets including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have persuaded the President that drastic measures must be considered to deal with bin Laden's organization before it can pull off a successful mass-casualty strike.