Bush, Congress Move Toward War Footing

Bush talks to a firefighter at the scene of the World Trade Center disaster Photo: Reuters/Win McNamee

September 15, 2001 -- Backed by a united Congress, President Bush told Americans Saturday to ready themselves for a "broad and sustained campaign" in response to attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"Underneath the nation's tears, there is a strong determination to win this war," the president said. "For everybody who wears the uniform, get ready."

Congress passed a resolution late Friday authorizing the president to use "necessary and appropriate force" in an armed response. The measure drew no opposition in the Senate and just one objection in the House. Earlier, lawmakers provided $40 billion in emergency funds for recovery work at the disaster sites and for a military effort.

Mr. Bush, huddling with his National Security team at Camp David Saturday, delivered a terse weekly radio address to the nation. He pledged to "secure our country and eradicate the evil of terrorism."

"Those who make war against the United States have chosen their own destruction," he said.

Calling on the American people for support, the president warned, in part: "You will be asked for your patience, for the conflict will not be short... you will be asked for your strength, for the course of victory may be long."

In remarks to reporters before meeting with advisers at Camp David, the president used even stronger language, saying: "We will find those who did it, we will smoke 'em out of their holes, we will get them running, and we will bring them to justice."

Meanwhile, the FBI said two men pulled from an Amtrak train in Texas Wednesday night and a third held in New York may have important information about the terrorist network behind the unprecedented assaults on U.S. targets.

Mr. Bush has formally declared a national state of emergency. The move cleared the way for the initial mobilization of 35,000 military reservists -- with more likely to be called up later -- to aid rescue and national defense efforts.

Boston's Logan Airport -- where two of the doomed flights took off -- reopened Saturday morning under heavy security. That left Reagan National outside Washington as the only U.S. airport still shut down.

But in a move it based on fears of future trouble ahead for the flight industry, Continental Airlines announced it would reduce its permanent flight schedule by 20 percent and furlough 12,000 employees.

Black smoke rose Saturday from fires burning deep in the wreckage of the World Trade Center. The fires are a new impediment to rescuers working around the clock to find survivors. Five people were pulled alive from the debris in the hours after the disaster, but no survivors have been found since Wednesday. Nearly 200 people are confirmed dead and more than 4,700 remain missing.

The president got a first-hand look at the recovery operation with a Friday afternoon visit to the wreckage in New York, and later spent about two hours with families of missing police and firefighters.

Standing on a gigantic heap of rubble, arm around a firefighter, the president warned: "The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Thousands of workers laboring to clear the debris and search for victims roared their approval, pumping their fists in the air, and chanting "U.S.A., U.S.A."

Crowds across the nation spilled from their homes Friday evening for a candlelight vigil spread by word of mouth and messages on the Internet. Musicians from this week's cancelled Latin Grammy Awards gathered for a concert in Beverly Hills to raise money for

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but the administration has identified exiled Saudi multimillionaire Osama bin Laden as a prime suspect in Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bush underscored that assertion in his remarks to reporters at Camp David, though he did not mention bin Laden by name in his address to the nation.

A blackened Pentagon Photo: AP/Ron Edmonds

The Justice Department said it was chasing "thousands and thousands" of leads in the search for those who planned and supported the hijackings.

The men discovered on the train in Texas -- and later flown to New York for questioning -- carried box-cutting knives and about $5,000 in cash, according to a federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity. They were discovered during what was described as a "routine" drug search.

An FBI spokesman said the men's baggage carried tags from a Tuesday airline flight from Newark, N.J., to San Antonio, Texas. One of the flights hijacked Tuesday was diverted from Newark.

The men switched to the train after their flight was halted in St. Louis by the lockdown on U.S. airspace that followed the attacks. A spokeswoman for the FBI said the men are suspected of entering the U.S. illegally from India and could be held indefinitely by immigration officials.

Federal authorities in New York issued an arrest warrant Friday for a material witness, the first such warrant of the massive investigation.

More than 100 people are wanted for questioning in connection to the 19 terrorists who died aboard the doomed flights. The FBI released the hijackers' alleged identities Friday, and said many of them had lived in Florida in Hollywood and Delray Beach.

Aviation disaster experts are assembling information about the series of crashes that followed Tuesday's hijackings.

Searchers found the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder from United Flight 93, a Boeing 767 that plunged from the sky outside Pittsburgh. The FBI said the devices were in "fairly good shape," and may help explain why the plane went down in a field instead of hitting a landmark. Families of some of the passengers aboard received cell phone calls during the flight, and reported that some passengers were talking about trying to overpower the hijackers.

Searchers also found the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the Pentagon crash early Friday. FBI Director Robert Mueller said the devices were badly damaged, but are expected to yield "some information." He didn't elaborate.

The so-called black boxes from the two planes that hit the World Trade Center are still missing.

No more survivors were expected at the Pentagon, where officials put the preliminary death toll at 189. The deaths included those who perished on the American Airlines jet that smashed into the west side of the Defense Department's headquarters. The Pentagon released a list of 74 people it has not accounted for.

Meanwhile, New York is trying to creep back into action. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said he will re-open the Wall Street area and main thoroughfares on Monday and begin running the Staten Island ferry. Financial markets, closed since Tuesday, were also expected to resume regular operations. U.S. airports are also gingerly resuming operations, working at limited capacity.