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Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, published September 17, 2001
WASHINGTON -- A day after proclaiming flatly that the nation was "at war," President Bush and his senior advisers took pains to warn Americans that it would be a war unlike any other, fought in the shadows, testing the patience of the public and leaders alike, but that nations failing to join the crusade would face the "full wrath of the United States," as Vice President Dick Cheney put it.
"This is a new kind of evil," Bush said at the White House after returning from a weekend war council Sunday with senior aides at Camp David, "and we understand, and the American people are beginning to understand, this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while, and the American people must be patient."
"We will rid the world of the evil-doers," Bush said, adding a moment later, "They have roused a mighty giant, and make no mistake about it, we're determined."
In his first public remarks since Tuesday's terrorist attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney offered chilling new details Sunday, saying that Bush had authorized military pilots to intercept and shoot down any commercial airliner that tried to penetrate airspace over Washington after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center towers. The Pentagon scrambled fighter jets to track a hijacked jetliner headed toward Washington, but the plane crashed in Pennsylvania, possibly after a struggle between passengers and the hijackers.
Calling it "the toughest decision" the president made during the crisis, Cheney said Bush issued the order as the government went into full "button-down mode" to try to make sure terrorists could not "decapitate" the U.S. government.
U.S. fighter pilots would have fired on any plane, Cheney said, if it had been on a direct path that threatened the capital and ignored warnings to divert.
"As a last resort, our pilots were authorized to take them out," Cheney said.
Asked about the decision, Bush did not go into detail. "I gave our military the orders necessary to protect Americans," Bush said.
It is thought to be the first time the government has publicly acknowledged a readiness to use military force against a passenger aircraft for a specific national security purpose.
Officials said that Ronald Reagan National Airport, just across the Potomac River in Virginia, would not reopen soon, and some suggested that it be permanently closed to commercial air traffic because its flight paths cross within seconds of virtually all important government buildings and monuments.
Speaking on Meet the Press on NBC, Cheney echoed other senior officials in declaring that any nations harboring terrorists such as Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in last week's attacks, would face "the full wrath of the United States."
At the same time, Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear that Washington was reaching out to an unlikely range of potential allies, including Pakistan, India and possibly even Iran, which has been listed by the State Department as the world's most active sponsor of state-supported terrorism.
Pakistani officials, who have pleased the administration with their cooperation, said they are sending a delegation, possibly today, to warn the ruling Taleban in neighboring Afghanistan that the country faces massive U.S.-led retaliation if its leaders do not assist in the capture of suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. Uzbekistan's government said it is open to allowing U.S. forces to use Uzbek airspace or territory for an attack across its 80-mile border with Afghanistan.
Cheney warned that the coming conflict would have to be fought "in the shadows" with the help of unsavory intelligence sources, and despite a 1976 executive order banning assassinations by the government, said he saw nothing to prevent the United States from killing bin Laden if it could find him.
Today is supposed to be the first day that Americans return to something like a normal routine. As Wall Street nervously prepared to reopen on today, Cheney said the country "quite possibly" could experience war and recession at once.
But he also said, "I would hope the American people would, in effect, stick their thumb in the eye of the terrorists and say they've got great confidence in the country, great confidence in our economy, and not let what's happened here in any way throw off their normal level of economic activity."
Major League Baseball's schedule also will resume today. So will comedian David Letterman's show. And Bush enjoined Americans to go back and "work hard like you always do."
The elusive bin Laden, an exiled Saudi multimillionaire who has taken refuge in Afghanistan in recent years, issued a statement Sunday through the Arabic television network Al Jazeera, in Qatar, denying involvement. "I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons," said bin Laden, whose current location is unknown to U.S. authorities.
Administration officials dismissed the denial. Cheney said he had "no doubt that his organization played a significant role in this." But even Cheney cautioned against making bin Laden the sole focus, painting a frightening picture of an enemy with more tentacles, and more hiding places, than many Americans may understand.
"It's also important for people to understand that this is a long-term proposition," Cheney said. "It's not like, well, even Desert Storm, where we had a build-up of a few months, four days combat and it was over with. This is going to be the kind of work that will probably take years, because the focus has to be not just on any one individual."
In other ways, change was clearly in the wind. Attorney General John Ashcroft met with leading legislators to seek support for an emergency package of anti-terrorism bills, including one that calls for a significant expansion of the Justice Department's ability to use wiretaps in cases of suspected terrorism or espionage. Under the proposal, investigators would have broad authority to conduct so-called roving electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists as they move from one telephone or computer terminal to another. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, speaking on Fox News Sunday said simply: "It's a new kind of war." He added, "It will be political, economic, diplomatic, military. It will be unconventional, what we do."
Cheney went out of his way to say that so far U.S. intelligence had turned up no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks last week, and Powell said that officials were exploring whether Iran, with which the United States severed relations in 1980, could be helpful in fighting this new war.
The administration has drafted a special message to the Iranian government saying that Iran can join the fight against terrorism, but to do so must change its policies, a senior administration official said Sunday.
But a decision had not yet been made by Powell or the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, to send the message, the official said.
The message says that the Iranians cannot be selective in which terrorists they oppose. Iran considers the Taleban a bitter enemy but at the same time is a major backer of other terrorist groups, like Hezbollah.
The investigation spread to more states and more communities as authorities try to penetrate -- and define -- what they believe could be a large network of accomplices. A "material witness" was arrested Sunday in New York. Investigators confirmed they were holding a suspected "high-ranking" associate of bin Laden, who was arrested nearly a month ago in Elk River, Minn. for illegally entering the country.
Two other men, arrested Wednesday in Texas after a flight and a train ride, are being questioned in New York about the box cutters, hair dye and $5,000 in cash they were carrying.
Authorities also are trying to figure out how two other alleged bin Laden associates slipped into the country last month through Los Angeles International Airport -- despite being on a government "watch list."
- Information from New York Times, Cox News Service and Washington Post was used in this report.