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U.S. Threatens "Full Wrath"
WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (News Agencies) - The United States threatened Sunday to inflict its "full wrath" on nations which nurture terrorism and laid plans to avenge last week's deadly strikes after top suspect Osama bin Laden denied involvement.
Facing huge public pressure for an immediate and overwhelming response to Tuesday's carnage in New York and at the Pentagon military headquarters near here, President George W. Bush poured over his options with advisors at Camp David before returning to the White House.
"We will rid the world of the evil-doers, we will call together freedom loving people to fight terrorism," Bush said after his helicopter touched down on the White House lawn.
With expectations rising that the first U.S. target would be Afghanistan, where bin Laden lives in exile, Pakistan said it would send a delegation to "knock some sense" into the ruling Taliban.
But bin Laden vehemently denied involvement in the attacks, which seem, ever-increasingly, to have killed more than 5,000 people.
"The U.S. is pointing the finger at me but I categorically state that I have not done this," he said in a statement faxed to the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press news agency.
"Those who have done it, they have done it in their personal interest," bin Laden said in his first personal denial of any involvement in the attacks.
Leading a blitz of top officials on Sunday talk shows, Vice President Dick Cheney revealed Bush had Tuesday given fighter pilots the "horrendous" order to destroy any hijacked civilian airliners thought destined for use in attacks other than those on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
"The president made the decision on my recommendation ... if the plane would not divert or if they would not pay any attention to instructions to move away from [Washington] at the last resort, our pilots were authorized to take them out."
Cheney promised the United States would plunge into the "mean, nasty, dangerous and dirty business" of secret warfare to match a new and shadowy enemy.
States that shield terrorists can expect "the full wrath of the United States of America," Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld added that, "the best defense against terrorism is an offense.
"That is to say taking the battle to the terrorists and particularly to the countries across this globe that have been tolerating, facilitating, financing and making possible the activities of those terrorists."
Asked whether that meant striking countries that harbor terrorists, he said on Fox News Sunday: "We have no choice."
Top officials, citing operational secrecy, refused to offer further details of planned retaliation.
Cheney and Rumsfeld said Washington was examining bin Laden's involvement in Tuesday's attacks in which terrorists steered four hijacked airliners into U.S. landmarks, and said Washington would wage a long war across a broad front.
"I have no doubt that he [bin Laden] and his organization played a significant role," said Cheney.
"There's a lot of evidence to link his organization to this operation ... that doesn't mean there weren't others involved."
Pakistan, target of fierce U.S. diplomatic pressure following the assaults owing to its links to the Taliban, said it would send a delegation to persuade the militia to expel bin Laden.
Islamabad's ambassador to Washington, Maleeha Lodhi, told CNN a team of senior officials would go to Kandahar - home of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to stress the "gravity of the situation".
Earlier, sources close to the Islamabad government told Agence France-Presse (AFP) the officials would "try to knock some sense into the Taliban."
Ramming home U.S. pressure on Islamabad, Secretary of State Colin Powell meanwhile said the United States would send a team of officials to Pakistan in "in the next several days," to discuss anti-terrorism measures.
Powell also said he saw openings for improved ties with Iran and Syria, after the two countries Washington deems "state sponsors of terrorism" condemned last week's strikes on the United States and called for anti-terrorism cooperation.
NATO allies, particularly Britain, France and Germany, have expressed strong support for the U.S. stance, but also some hesitation in joining a military force unless bin Laden's involvement is proven.
Russia has embraced the fight but appears to be wavering on whether to allow U.S. forces to use facilities on its soil.
Arab leaders, while backing the fight, appeared wary of being drawn into U.S. military action, perhaps mindful of a tide of a backlash in their own countries.
The U.S. public, solidly behind Bush, overwhelmingly favors a military assault on terrorist bases and supports such action - even if it leads to thousands of innocent civilians killed abroad, two polls revealed.
In a Newsweek survey, 71% of Americans polled support a military strike on terrorist bases, while in a similar poll by the
New York Times and CBS television, 85% of respondents favored military action
The United States has launched the biggest criminal probe in its history to find those who financed and inspired the 19 hijackers who launched the attacks.
Two people have been arrested and 23 detained in connection with the attacks over the last three days.
An FBI spokesman told CNN that one of the men arrested had been in Immigration and Naturalization Service custody on possible immigration violations.
One hundred and eighty corpses have been retrieved from the ruins of World Trade Center - 115 of them identified - and the number of people missing now stands at 5,097, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said.
"The recovery effort continues and the hope of finding someone alive is still there, but the reality is that we have not found anybody for four days ... But we continue to look for lives."
Another 189 people are presumed dead at the Pentagon, including 64 people on the plane that smashed into it.
And 44 people died on a fourth hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
In New York, and across the nation, Americans worshipped at churches, keen to share their grief and draw strength for the trying weeks ahead.
On Manhattan, lines of mourners queued around the block and spilled out of church doors, many clutching bouquets of flowers or tiny American flags.
Wall Street was meanwhile feverishly getting ready for Monday's opening bell with the world waiting to see if the attack on New York will wreak equal devastation on global financial markets.
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