13 - 19 September 2001
Issue No.551
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 13 - 19 September 2001 Issue No.551 |
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State of war
Tuesday's attacks in Washington and New York are being viewed as acts of war, writes Thomas Gorguissian from the US capital
"None of us will ever forget this day," President George W Bush said in a televised speech to the nation from the Oval Office Tuesday night. And as many commentators said and repeated, America is not going to be the same again.
When two hijacked planes slammed into New York's World Trade Center, "an icon of American economic might," and another hijacked airliner hit the Pentagon, symbol of American military power, they constituted the worst attacks on American soil since the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. No official count of the death toll has been announced to date.
But thousands, perhaps not less than 10,000, lives are likely to have been lost in the destroyed twin towers, according to some estimates. More than 300 firefighters are missing at the scene. And as many as 800 people may have been killed in the attack that destroyed part of the US military headquarters in Washington.
US military forces in the United States and around the world have been put on a heightened state of alert. Pentagon leaders deployed an air defence net of naval warships along the East and West Coasts. The Air Force scrambled F-15 and F-16 fighters to patrol the skies over Washington, New York and other areas considered vulnerable to air attacks.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the attacks were an act of war and promised the United States would respond "as if it is a war."
Speaking on a television talk show, Powell said: "The American people have a clear understanding that this is war. That's the way they see it. You can't see it in any other way, whether legally this is correct or not."
He added: "We've got to respond as if it is a war. We've got to respond with the sense that it isn't going to be resolved with a single counterattack against one individual. It's going to be a long-term conflict."
Observer's agreed Tuesday's terrorist attacks exposed US vulnerability to an unknown or unidentified enemy. "It is an enemy that has proven that it has the ability to penetrate US homeland defences, perhaps more readily than any the country has faced in modern times," the Washington Post wrote in an editorial yesterday.
"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them," Bush told the nation and the world. "America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time."
Nine out of 10 Americans believe the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon represent an act of war, and most had confidence in President Bush's ability to handle the crisis, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll showed. "The government should be charged with a systematic response that, one hopes, will end the way that the attack on Pearl Harbour ended, "with the destruction of the system that is responsible for it," former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote, adding "that system is a network of terrorist organisations sheltered in capitals of certain countries. In many cases we do not penalise those countries for sheltering the organisations; in other cases, we maintain something close to normal relations with them."
"I have no intent of discussing today what comes next," General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon. "But make no mistake about it, your armed forces are ready."
Some reports suggest that the US government has evidence the attacks were related to Osama bin Laden, previously linked to the 1996 bombings of American embassies in Nairobi and Dar El-Salam. According to senior officials, evidence pointing to bin Laden was the result of a joint effort by the CIA and the FBI, with information from domestic and overseas sources. Attorney General John Ashcroft said that the FBI had launched crime scene inquiries in New York, Washington, Boston, Newark and the site of the crash outside Pittsburgh. He said that thousands of agents are participating in the investigation, including agents stationed in bureau offices abroad.
Formulating the American response will be the biggest challenge Bush has yet faced. For the time being he is a "war president" and has to act accordingly, political commentators said. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin recalled that after the bombing of Pearl Harbor Roosevelt produced "the right combination of anger, indignation and confidence that we would prevail" as he rallied the country to prepare for US entry into World War II. Bush is facing a similar task in the coming days and weeks.
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