The Independent On Sunday says Tony Blair will try to rally support at home in "almost Churchillian tones", while a grim realisation sets in that the campaign will be a "long and messy affair".
The paper notes that while there is scant sign the squabbling factions opposed to the Taleban are about to unite, hopes that moderate Taleban would defect have proved unfounded.
"Why can't they find where he is hiding?" asks The Sunday Times on the efforts to trace the chief suspect for the attacks on 11 September.
It agrees that the carefully devised military strategy is in trouble.
The paper thinks the most formidable manhunt ever assembled has been reduced to chasing shadows.
It says: "The monster is now a ghost and he is beginning to scare American planners who thought they could find him."
In an editorial, The Observer, argues the politicians have brought a crisis of confidence upon themselves, suggesting that "confusion maybe exactly what is going on in the minds of our leaders".
Winning words
In contrast, the News of the World uses a Winston Churchill quotation in its attempt to rally support for the present action.
It admits that war is never easy, but remembers the former prime minister's words shortly after the outbreak of World War II: "You ask what is our aim?
"I can answer in one word, it is victory, victory at all costs".
The paper declares "we must not allow faint hearts to unnerve us".
It adds that however "long the military campaign endures, we must not falter in our determination to confront the Afghan rulers and the barbarous terrorists they shelter".
Other headline stories:
A fierce attack on the former director general of the BBC Lord Birt is launched in The Sunday Times - by the man who gave him the job.
The corporation's former chairman Marmaduke Hussey, whose memoirs are serialised in the paper, said Lord Birt did not have the skills to get along with staff or manage them.
The paper says the pair finally fell out in 1995 before the broadcast of Martin Bashir's revealing interview with Diana, Princess of Wales.
"I do not think the BBC should have got itself into a position involving the private problems of the royal family" Mr Hussey said, "that is not what the BBC is about".
The paper points out the programme was probably rather awkward for Lord Hussey, whose wife was, and still is, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen.
Lie-in no more
Those enjoying a Sunday lie-in are part of a dwindling minority according to the Sunday Express.
It seems that almost 80% of the country are up and about by 0900GMT.
A fifth are working, while others play sport or use the time for supermarket shopping.
Only 6% are planning to go to church.
It is people in south-east England who are most active.
Those in the north-east of England take the tradition of the lie-in more seriously.
Seventy per cent refuse to get out of bed before 1100GMT.