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U.S. Moves Towards War
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (News Agencies) - The United States Friday mourned its dead and prepared to wage war on those responsible for a terror blitz unprecedented in its devastation.
Airborne attacks against New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon here have left some 5,000 dead and missing - more than twice as many who died in the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Troops are patrolling the streets of the national capital for the first time in recent memory as fighter jets sweep overhead and naval warships guard the nation's coasts.
"This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger," said President George W. Bush at a packed memorial service in Washington's National Cathedral.
"Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil," he said, rallying the American people for what he has said will be a sustained war against terrorists and the states harboring them.
A military choir sang the defiant Civil War-era "Battle Hymn of the Republic" before an audience that included most of Washington's elite.
Former presidents Gerald Ford, George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were present, with Ronald Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the lone former leader missing.
Former vice president Al Gore, Bush's rival in one of the most strife-torn elections in U.S. history last year, was also in the pews.
Absent was Vice President Dick Cheney, spirited away to the presidential retreat at Camp David to head off a constitutional crisis should Bush himself fall victim to new attacks.
Bush later flew aboard Air Force One for New York, joined by senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, to witness the devastation wrought after two hijacked airliners rammed and leveled the twin towers of the World Trade Center. A third airliner gouged a fiery hole into the Pentagon military headquarters near Washington and a fourth - presumably intended for the White House - crashed in western Pennsylvania.
"The people who knocked these buildings down will hear [from] all of us soon," Bush told rescue workers who chanted "USA, USA" as he visited the mounds of rubble that once was the World Trade Center, on a cold and drizzly afternoon that slowed rescue efforts.
On what was, by presidential decree, a national day of prayer, the United States moved to a combat footing for what Bush promises is the "first war of the 21st century" as signs mount the first target could be Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.
Bush also declared a national emergency and endorsed the military's planned call-up of 35,500 reservists, as the Senate unanimously voted to authorize him to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against nations, organizations or individuals linked to the attacks Tuesday.
The House of Representatives promptly followed suit.
The Senate earlier, in a 96-0 vote, approved a $40 billion supplemental aid package requested by the White House to respond to the crisis.
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, who harbor bin Laden, seem convinced they will be the first targets.
"We are ready to pay any price to defend ourselves and to use all means to take our revenge," a spokesman for the Islamic militia's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar told Agence France-Presse (AFP) by satellite phone from the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
"Now they [the U.S.] are indicating in clear words that they are going to strike," Abdul Hai Mutmaen said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell later stepped up pressure on the Taliban.
"To the extent that you are providing havens to organizations such as the one headed by Osama bin Laden ... you need to understand you cannot separate your activities from the activities of perpetrators," he warned.
The Taliban has refused to hand over bin Laden, who is also suspected in U.S. embassy bombings in Africa in 1999 which killed scores of people.
Pressing ahead on the diplomatic front, Powell garnered Arab support from Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Tunisia, as he pieced together a global coalition to go after terrorists wherever they may be hiding.
Russia signaled its readiness to back U.S. air strikes on suspected bin Laden bases in Afghanistan but said it would neither take part in a possible ground offensive, nor let NATO troops be based in former Soviet republics.
After seven hours of talks, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, and that country's top military commanders, issued no response to a U.S. request for help in hunting down bin Laden.
And despite robust U.S. rhetoric, NATO Secretary General George Robertson said Friday there would be no "mindless revenge", adding Washington had not yet contacted the alliance with requests for help on a retaliatory offensive.
A worldwide probe into the attacks pushed on Friday as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released the identities of the 19 hijackers who carried out Tuesday's attacks. Many were identified as citizens or residents of Middle Eastern states friendly to the United States, such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Some were qualified pilots.
No arrests had been made by late Friday in the biggest probe in U.S. history, though one person has been detained as a material witness, the FBI said.
FBI chief Robert Mueller said agents were chasing more than 36,000 leads in the investigation. The Treasury Department, meanwhile, said it was forming a task force to root out the sources of funding for terrorist groups.
Among Americans, the attacks have stirred a mix of emotions as they tried to resume normal lives.
On a street corner in downtown Washington, Jose King fearfully pondered the future as military policemen directed traffic.
"It's scary," he said. "It feels like something is going to happen anytime, like they're not telling us everything."
U.S. flags appeared on highway overpasses, city buses and in store windows. Office workers sported red, white and blue ribbons.
Candles were lit in cities and towns across the country in remembrance of those killed or missing.
Military recruiters reported increased interest in the armed forces, while saying it was too early to tell if that would lead to more recruits.
"The bottom line is our recruiting doors are open," said Colonel Thomas Nickerson, director of advertising and public affairs for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command.
Some 421 of the country's 451 airports were opened Friday after being certified under stringent anti-terrorist regulations that excluded most foreign airlines, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Fraser Jones. Among those that remained closed was Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, because of its proximity to the White House and the Pentagon.
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