special report: america attacked

Special ReportPENINSULA DAILY NEWS SECTION EWEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001

AmericaAATTTTAACCKKEEDD

BY JERRY SCHWARTZTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Shortly before 8 a.m. East-ern time Tuesday, Ameri-can Airlines Flight 11 leftBoston for Los Angeles. Itwas one of four U.S. jetlin-

ers that would not reach their desti-nations.

Something happened shortly aftertakeoff. An apparent hijacking.Instead of climbing well aloft andheading west, the plane swept to the

south, to New York.Clyde Ebanks, vice president of an

insurance company, was at a meetingon the 103rd floor of the SouthTower of the World Trade Centerwhen his boss said, “Look at that!”

He turned and through a windowsaw a plane go by and hit the otherbuilding.

It was 8:45 a.m.For Peter Dicerbo and 44 co-work-

ers at First Union National Bank, itwas the start of their workday — abeautiful day, with sunlight glinting

off the Hudson River and streamingthough the windows on the 47th floorof the trade center.

And then, “I just heard the build-ing rock. It knocked me on the floor.It sounded like a big roar, then thebuilding started swaying — that’swhat really scared me.”

Harriet Grimm, inside the Bordersbookstore on the trade center’s firstfloor, heard a large boom, “and thenwe saw all this debris just falling.”

TURN TO ATTACKED/E3

CHAO SOI CHEONG/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A hijacked jetliner explodes into one of the World Trade Center towers, moments before it and its twin tower collapsed.

The towers underconstruction in 1971

SOURCES: The Encyclopedia of New York; Compiled from AP wire reports AP

World Trade CenterThe Center was a complex of sevenbuildings including the two towers,rising above an enormousunderground shopping concourse.

Number of stories in each tower: 110Height of the towers: 1,250 feetBase length of each tower: 400 feet

Number of people whoworked in the towers: About 50,000How old: Towers were completed in 1976Construction: A metal-mesh skinsupported the bulk of the towers weight,unlike typical modern skyscrapers, whichare supported on a steel frame.

E2 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 PENINSULA DAILY NEWSAmericaAttacked

JIM COLLINS (4)/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sequence shows the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsing after it was struck by a hijacked jetliner. The other tower collapsed later.

AMY SANCETTA/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Pedestrians flee the area of the World Trade Center as the south tower crashes to the ground.

CARMEN TAYLOR/KHBS

In this video image, a hijacked jetliner banks toward one ofthe World Trade Center towers seconds before striking it.

110

27

Mallentrance

Southparking

110

Map to comeFairfax

28Pentagon

DullesAirport

Md.

Va.

Wash-ington,D.C.

495

66

0 5 mi

0 5 km

SOURCE: Compiled from AP wire reports AP

Heliport

Attack on the PentagonA hijacked Boeing 757 plane carrying 58 passangers crashed intothe Pentagon Tuesday morning. About 20,000 military and civilianpersonnel work at the Pentagon, which covers 34 acres.

Metro Railand MetroBus entrance

River entranceArea of offices forthe highest officials,including Secretaryof Defense DonaldH. Rumsfeld.

HeliportentranceThe helipad isused by seniorofficials andPresident Bush.

Boeing 757First built in 1978, the planecarries 178-239 passengers.It is 155 feet long and has awing span of 124 feet.THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

A helicopter flies over the burning Pentagon near Washington, D.C., as the Washington Monumentappears through the smoke at right. The White House roof is visible in the trees at left.

PENINSULA DAILY NEWS WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 E3AmericaAttacked

About 18 minutes later, LuigiRibaudo — who works nearby, inTribeca — heard what he thoughtwas a plane making a strangenoise. He looked up; he saw a planethat was “too low.”

“It was going to hit somethingand it hit and exploded inside,” hesaid.

Two towers, two direct hits.The chaos was immediate.Dicerbo led his 44 colleagues

down 47 flights of stairs. He stag-gered away from the building, hisclothes torn; the workers werestunned, dazed and coughing.

“The minute I got out of thebuilding, the second building blewup,” said Jennifer Brickhouse, 34,from Union, N.J., who was goingup the escalator into the WorldTrade Center when she “heard thisbig boom.”

“All this stuff started falling andall this smoke was coming through.People were screaming, falling, andjumping out of the windows,” fromhigh in the sky.

Emergency vehicles flooded into

lower Manhattan. No one knewwhat happened; the towers, targetof a terrorist bombing in 1993,seemed to be ground zero onceagain.

Three miles away in Brooklyn,sheets of office paper fluttered outof the sky.

President Bush, visiting school-children in Sarasota, Fla., heard ofthe attack at 9:05 a.m. Less than30 minutes later he appeared ontelevision to reassure a countrythat hoped this day would nevercome.

“Two airplanes have crashedinto the World Trade Center in anapparent terrorist attack on ourcountry,” the president said. “I’veordered that the full resources ofthe federal government go to helpthe victims and their families andto conduct a full-scale investigationto hunt down and to find thosefolks who committed this act.”

About 9:40 a.m., an aircraftcrashed at the Pentagon in Wash-ington. The nerve center of thenation’s military burst into flamesand a portion of one side of the five-

sided structure collapsed, sendingbillows of smoke over the capital.

The White House’s West Wingwas evacuated about 15 minuteslater, when Secret Service agentslearned that it too, might be a tar-get of the terrorist attacks. Soonthousands of government employ-ees were leaving their offices allover the city.

By then, the Federal AviationAdministration had grounded airtraffic nationwide. But nothingcould be done for the hundreds offlights still aloft. How many ofthem would reach their destina-tions?

At 9:50 a.m. — an hour after thefirst crash — One World TradeCenter collapsed.

There were reports of an explo-sion soon before the tower fell,then a strange sucking sound, and

then the sound of floors collapsing.Then an incredible surge of air, fol-lowed by a vast cloud of dirt,smoke, dust, paper and debris.Windows shattered. Peoplescreamed and dived for cover.

In Midtown, several miles away,office workers could look down theAvenue of the Americas and seethe gray shroud that enveloped theremaining World Trade Centertower. What they could not see wasthe carnage, as people stumbledaway from the devastation caked indust, pieces of cloth clutched totheir faces. Ash two to three inchesdeep blanketed the streets andsidewalks like snowfall.

It was like the aftermath of anunimaginable natural disaster.Only this catastrophe was man-made, and it wasn’t over yet.

Around 10 a.m. one of those stillairborne planes, a United Airlinesflight from Newark to San Fran-cisco with 45 aboard, crashed 80miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

Then, at 10:30 a.m., the secondtower of the World Trade Centercollapsed.

The top of the building explodedwith smoke and dust. There wereno flames, just an explosion ofdebris and dust and smoke, andthen more vast clouds swept downto the streets. People were knockedto the ground onto their faces asthey were running from the build-ing toward cover. And then thesame huge clouds of smoke, dustand debris and came through thebuildings and blocked out the sun.

“I just saw the building I workin come down,” said businessmanGabriel Ioan.

At noon, United Airlinesannounced that another of itsplanes had gone down. No locationwas given; it was not confirmedwhether this was the plane that hitthe Pentagon or one of the twothat had hit the World Trade Cen-ter.

“I just can’t believe what’s hap-pened. God, my heart goes out toall of these people, believe me. Ijust hope there is justice,” saidMartha Ridley, whose daughterdied in the April 1995 OklahomaCity bombing.

Attacked: ‘All this stuff started falling’CONTINUED FROM E1

SOURCES: NBC; compiled from AP wire reports AP

World Trade terrorOne of two planes that crashed into the upper floors of both WorldTrade Center towers was hijacked after takeoff from Boston in anapparent terrorist attack Tuesday, according to U.S. officials.

Minutes later, a secondplane was seen over theHudson River headedtowards the south tower.

The plane crashed into thesouth tower, creating afireball of flame and smoke.

Shortly before 9 a.m., aplane crashed into thenorth tower of the WorldTrade Center leavinggaping holes in its side.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Brenda Parker, left, comforts her mother, Shirley Pendleton, as they watch thecollapse of the World Trade Center on TV at Oakland International Airport inCalifornia. Both women were grounded at the airport because of the FAA flighttravel ban.

U.S. embassies toldthey can shut downBY GEORGE GEDDATHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — Inresponse to the terroristattacks in New York andWashington, the StateDepartment gave U.S.embassies worldwide permis-sion to shut down and urgedthem to take all necessarysecurity precautions.

Several U.S. embassies inthe Middle East decided toclose indefinitely. The Ameri-can Embassy in Japan optednot to open today.

Secretary of State ColinPowell cut short a visit toPeru and was returningTuesday to Washington. Hewas in Lima for an Organiza-tion of American States con-ference on democracy.

Powell canceled a visit toColombia planned for Tues-day.

In Italy, the U.S. Embassywarned American tourists tobe vigilant and take appro-priate action to increasesecurity and reduce their vul-nerability.

It was late Tuesday in theMiddle East when the

attacks occurred. In Cairo,Egypt, the U.S. Embassydecided to suspend nonessen-tial operations at govern-ment facilities in Cairo andAlexandria today, accordingto a message posted on theembassy Web site.

The embassy strongly rec-ommended that Americans inEgypt keep travel to a mini-mum and avoid public placesand large gatherings.

Embassies in Yemen,Kuwait, Oman and theUnited Arab Emiratesannounced that as of today,they were closing indefi-nitely. The embassy in Qatarwas undecided. The embassyin Saudi Arabia will remainopen.

The U.S. Embassy inKuwait was closing as a signof mourning for the fatalitiesof Tuesday’s terror attacks,Egypt’s Middle East NewsAgency reported.

In Zagreb, Croatia, theembassy said it was closingtoday “out of respect for thevictims of the tragic terroristincidents.”

The ambassador,Lawrence Rossin, said on

Croatian state-run television,“I can assure you that peoplewho did this can never sleepand have a safe night in theirbeds.”

The U.S. Embassy in Swe-den closed early Tuesday andwas to remain closed to thepublic today. The downtownbuilding and the ambas-sador’s residence were cor-doned off by Swedish riotpolice.

In Oslo, Norwegians leftbouquets of flowers in a parknear the U.S. Embassy.

NATO and EuropeanUnion institutions also tookspecial security measures,including partial evacuations.

The Israeli Embassy inWashington closed for two tothree hours after first evacu-ating nonessential staff.

Spokesman Marc Regevsaid Israel has offered theU.S. government any techni-cal help it needs from theIsraeli Army, because “unfor-tunately, we have people withpractical experience inpulling people out of bombedbuildings.”

“I just saw the building I work income down.”

GABRIEL IOANManhattan businessman



Palestinians fire weapons in the air at the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp near the southern port city of Sidon on Tuesday. Palestinians in Lebanon’s refugee campscelebrated the attacks in the United States with all kinds of weapons.

World watches in horrorBY BETH GARDINERTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

People around the worldwatched in horror as images ofterror in the United States filledtheir television screens Tuesday.On the West Bank, Palestinianscelebrated but most world leadersexpressed solidarity with anAmerica that looked more vulner-able than ever.

Iraqi television played a patri-otic song that begins “Down withAmerica!” as it showed the WorldTrade Center’s towers falling.

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulerscondemned the attacks andrejected suggestions that sus-pected terrorist Osama bin Ladencould be behind them.

“It is premature to level allega-tions against a person who is notin a position to carry out suchattacks,” said Abdul Salam Zaeef,the Taliban ambassador in Pak-istan. “It was a well-organizedplan and Osama has no such facil-ities.”

In the West Bank city ofNablus, thousands of Palestinianspoured into the streets to cele-brate, chanting “God is Great”and distributing candy to passers-by, even as their leader, YasserArafat, expressed horror over theattacks.

Audiences everywhere weretransfixed by the devastation, asboth World Trade Center towerscollapsed in New York and thePentagon took a direct hit from anaircraft.

Key indexes sank on worldstock markets and some Europeanairlines canceled flights to theUnited States and recalled planesalready in the air.

Canada tightened security inmajor cities and along the U.S.border. A Canadian ForeignAffairs spokesman said on condi-tion of anonymity that the border

had been sealed, but traffic con-tinued to flow at a crossing pointat Buffalo. The U.S. border withMexico remained open.

Many countries beefed up secu-rity at American embassies. TheU.S. embassy in the United ArabEmirates closed indefinitely andthe ambassador in Egypt sus-pended nonessential operations atU.S. facilities there.

Europeans offered condolencesat American embassies — Norwe-gians left bouquets of flowers in apark near the embassy in Oslo,Russians placed flowers near theMoscow mission, and in Budapest,there were dozens of candles.

U.S. armed forces in Europeand Asia were put on high alert.In Brussels, NATO called anemergency meeting for 3 p.m.while European Union institu-tions took special security mea-sures, including partial evacua-tions.

Israel closed its airspace to for-eign flights and evacuated stafffrom diplomatic missions andJewish institutions around theworld.

In Paris, Moscow, Warsaw andBerlin, police and security wereput on high alert.

“It is impossible to fully com-prehend the evil that would haveconjured up such a cowardly anddepraved assault upon thousandsof innocent people,” said Cana-dian Prime Minister Jean Chre-tien.

Russian President VladimirPutin expressed condolences tothe American people, calling theattacks “terrible tragedies.”

“This mass terrorism is thenew evil in our world today,” saidBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair.“It is perpetrated by fanatics whoare utterly indifferent to the sanc-tity of human life, and we thedemocracies of this world aregoing to have to come together

and fight it together.”U.N. Secretary-General Kofi

Annan said “there can be nodoubt that these attacks are delib-erate acts of terrorism, carefullyplanned and coordinated, and assuch I condemn them utterly.”

Queen Elizabeth II said shewatched developments in “grow-ing disbelief and total shock” andoffered her prayers to Americans.

President Jacques Chirac ofFrance called the attacks “mon-strous.”

“There is no other word for it,”he said in a televised statement.

Palestinian leader YasserArafat and his top aides followedthe events at his seaside office inGaza City, gathered around a TVset.

“I send my condolences to thepresident, the government andthe people for this terrible inci-dent,” Arafat said. “We are com-pletely shocked. It’s unbeliev-able.”

The leaders of Northern Ire-land’s joint Protestant-Catholicgovernment, Reg Empey and Sea-mus Mallon, also offered condo-lences.

“As a society that has sufferedfrom the effects of terrorism forover 30 years, we have somerecognition and understanding ofthe hurt being felt by the Ameri-can people,” they wrote. “It ishard to comprehend what couldmotivate anyone to cause suchmisery, destruction and deliberateloss of human life.”

Egyptian President HosniMubarak condemned called theattacks “horrible and unimagin-able.”

In Berlin, German ChancellorGerhard Schroeder said “my gov-ernment condemns these terroristattacks to the utmost.”

Airlines including British Air-ways, Scandinavia’s SAS and Bel-gium’s Sabena canceled flightsacross the Atlantic and recalledplanes that were already in theair.

In Puerto Rico, people scram-bled for news of relatives andfriends in New York, where anestimated 2 million Puerto Ricanslive.

Groups gathered on the cornersof cobble-stoned streets in thecolonial city of San Juan, clingingto strangers in search of moredetails.

“Dios mio, have mercy!”exclaimed a whited-haired man,making the sign of the cross as hewatched the second tower explodeon TV.

Broadcasters around the worldbroke into programming to showimages of the disaster. “It’sincredible. I thought I was watch-ing a Hollywood movie,” saidHong Kong school teacher DorisTang.

In the Nigerian capital ofAbuja, aghast hotel workers at thelocal Hilton stopped their choresto watch.

“If this can happen in America,then the whole world is not safe,”said one, Augustine Okweche.

Global leaders denounce attack, but Palestinians rejoice


A Palestinian woman receives free sweets from a vendor asgroups in east Jerusalem’s Old City celebrate the terroristattack.



President Bush watches television as he talks on the phone with New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani and Gov.George Pataki aboard Air Force One during a flight following a statement about the two planes thatcrashed into the World Trade Center in New York on Tuesday.

� At Barksdale AirForce Base, La., Tuesdayafternoon:

Freedom itself wasattacked this morning by afaceless coward, and freedomwill be defended.

I want to reassure theAmerican people that the fullresources of the federal gov-ernment are working toassist local authorities tosave lives and to help the vic-tims of these attacks.

Make no mistake: TheUnited States will hunt downand punish those responsiblefor these cowardly acts. I’vebeen in regular contact withthe vice president, secretaryof defense, the national secu-rity team and my Cabinet.We have taken all appropri-ate security precautions toprotect the American people.Our military at home andaround the world is on high-alert status and we havetaken the necessary securityprecautions to continue thefunctions of your govern-ment. We have been in touchwith the leaders of Congressand with world leaders toassure them that we will dowhatever is necessary to pro-tect America and Americans.

I ask the American peopleto join me in saying a thanksfor all the folks who havebeen fighting hard to rescueour fellow citizens and to joinme in saying a prayer for thevictims and their families.

The resolve of our greatnation is being tested. But

make no mistake: We willshow the world that we willpass this test. God bless.

� In Sarasota, Fla.,Tuesday morning, beforeattacks spread to Wash-ington:

Ladies and gentlemen, thisis a difficult moment forAmerica. I unfortunately willbe going back to Washingtonafter my remarks. SecretaryRod Paige and the lieutenantgovernor will take thepodium and discuss educa-tion.

I do want to thank thefolks here at the Booker Ele-mentary School for their hos-pitality.

Today we’ve had anational tragedy. Two air-planes have crashed into theWorld Trade Center in anapparent terrorist attack onour country. I have spoken tothe vice president, to the gov-ernor of New York, to thedirector of the FBI, and I’veordered that the fullresources of the federal gov-ernment go to help the vic-tims and their families and toconduct a full-scale investiga-tion to hunt down and to findthose folks who committedthis act.

Terrorism against ournation will not stand.

And now if you join me ina moment of silence.

May God bless the victims,their families and America.Thank you very much.

‘The resolve of our greatnation is being tested’


The texts of President Bush’s remarks Tuesday followingattacks on U.S. installations:

Emergency response plan put into action


Emergency workers help a woman after she was injuredin the terrorist attack on the Worl Trade Center in NewYork on Tuesday.

Donors rush to give blood

BY MICHELLE BOORSTEINTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — Victims of the WorldTrade Center attacks streamed to hos-pitals Tuesday as officials in the cityand surrounding states called in everyavailable surgeon and nurse.

Hundreds of blood donors rushed tohelp, even overwhelming blood centersacross the country in Louisiana.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said at least2,100 people had been injured, 600 ofthem taken to hospitals by mid-after-noon. Hospitals said the numberswould rise.

About 1,500 “walking wounded”were taken across New York Harbor toNew Jersey’s Liberty State Park, Giu-liani said. Dozens of ambulances hadraced to the park, near the Statue ofLiberty.

Officials at the trauma centers clos-est to the Trade Center — St. Vincent’sHospital and Medical Center and Belle-vue Hospital Center — said the rela-tively low numbers of victims they hadseen were only temporary.

They said had received only peoplewho were injured outside the TradeCenter towers, and that the numberwould likely rise dramatically once res-cue workers started digging into therubble.

“It’s a catastrophe of unparalleledproportions,” said Bellevue medicaldirector Eric Manheimer.

Amid the early rush to get thewounded to treatment, St. Vincent’sand Bellevue hospitals counted onlyfour dead.

A triage area was set up at PennStation in Newark, N.J., to evaluate

some of the hundreds of injured peopletaken across the Hudson River, mostby ferries.

Officials in Washington said at least100 people were injured at the Penta-gon. At least 10 were taken to northernVirginia’s Inova Alexandria hospital, ingood to fair condition, and 26 went toVirginia Hospital Center in Arlington.

Washington hospitals had 40 bymid-afternoon, seven in critical condi-tion.

Hundreds of blood donors lined upoutside Beth Israel Medical Center inManhattan, and the line of donors atSt. Vincent’s wrapped around theblock.

“It’s a crisis. You must help. There’snothing else to do,” 19-year-old donorJessica McBlath said at St. Vincent’s.

New York Blood Center officials saidthey were running low on O-negativeblood. It can be given to any patient,but only 5 percent of people have it todonate.

The American Red Cross did not callfor emergency blood donations, sayingit had 50,000 units ready to ship toNew York if needed. However, it urgedblood donors throughout the country tokeep any appointments they have thisweek to give blood.

Donors in Washington lined up fortwo- to three-hour waits at WashingtonHospital Center, including RomanCatholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

“Since I can give blood, this is one ofthe ways I can be helpful,” McCarricksaid.


Blood donor Johanna Moran, bottom center, presses gauze on herarm after giving blood as Charge Nurse Mary Campbell, right,handles the packet of blood at the American Red Cross DedhamDonor Center in Dedham, Mass., on Tuesday.

Victims of attacksfile into hospitalsin N.Y., Washington

BY LAURA MECKLEERTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON — PresidentBush and congressional leaderswere whisked to secure locations asthe government evacuated federalbuildings across the capital, sentout search-and-rescue teams inNew York and called in volunteerdoctors and nurses.

Government agencies sent inmedical supplies, dogs to sniff forvictims and portable morgues.

The government began imple-menting an emergency response

plan, in the works for decades,immediately after two airplaneattacks on New York’s World TradeCenter. Minutes later, a third planecrashed into the Pentagon.

Bush, who started his day at aSarasota, Fla., elementary school,was flown to military bases inLouisiana and Nebraska beforeplanning to return to WashingtonTuesday evening.

The Secret Service took immedi-ate steps to ensure that the presi-dent, Vice President Dick Cheneyand House Speaker Dennis Hastertwere safe, said Karen Hughes, a

top Bush aide. Agents also tookprecautions for members of thenational security team, the Cabinetand senior White House staff.

Top congressional leaders werereturning to Washington afterbeing sent to a secure governmentfacility 75 miles west of Washing-ton.

The House and Senate eachplanned to convene at 10 a.m.today for the sole purpose of pass-ing resolutions condemning theattacks. They will recess untilThursday morning, when normalbusiness resumes.

Across the globe, Americanforces and embassies went on highalert.

Transportation Secretary Nor-man Y. Mineta and other seniorWhite House staffers gathered at aWhite House command center,where they coordinated with otherbranches of federal government.Secretary of State Colin Powell wasreturning to Washington fromSouth America.

The Federal Emergency Man-agement Agency activated eighturban search-and-rescue taskforces for New York and four for

the Pentagon. The 62-memberteams provide emergency medicalcare, help stabilize damaged build-ings and include dogs trained tosearch for victims.

FEMA’s emergency responsehas been plan in place since theearly 1990s, spokesman Marc Wolf-son said.

“We have had exercises, we havehad training, we have had meet-ings with the agencies involved,”he said. “Now it’s a matter of get-ting through this situation. We willbe here to help.”


GULNARA SAMOILOVA (4)/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ON THIS PAGE: New York workers make their way along the debris-filled streets near theWorld Trade Center towers on Tuesday. The second of the 110-story towers collapsedmoments before these photos were taken.

U.S. comes to gripswith its vulnerabilityBY CALVIN WOODWARDTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Any notion of America beinginvincible died in the monstrousrubble.

With the twin towers crum-bled in New York, the Pentagonburning, a jetliner down in Penn-sylvania, a morning’s cruel workended the nation’s normalcy.

“America is forever changed,”said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.“America is in for a long fight.”

On the confused streets ofWashington, where police gazingskyward stood with guns drawn,where much of the nation’s lead-ership went into hiding, wherepockets of pedestrians wouldstart running but not knowwhere or even why, the allusionthat so many reached for wasPearl Harbor.

But even that great shocker ofAmerican history was not com-pletely apt, for this time theinvader was unknown.

The enemies were simply“they.”

“So devastating, so frustrat-ing, what can you do?” askedAjay Kapoo, a software engineerwho saw the World Trade Centerexplosions from his office twoblocks away.

“How could they pull this off?”Joyce Jackson, an AT&T securityexpert in Washington, asked witha sigh. “This country is supposedto be able to protect againstsomething like this.”

So many questions. So muchdanger come improbably to thedoorstep.

For the nation’s security andhis own safety, President Bush,flying from Florida in skies emp-tied of regular traffic because ofthe attacks, put off his return tothe White House.

He worked for a time out of aLouisiana air base, then wentinto the deepest heartland,Nebraska.

Congressional leaders, someadministration officials and firstlady Laura Bush were whisked toa place or places undisclosed — arare if not unprecedented secu-rity veil drawn over top govern-ment officials. The sort of veilmeant for nuclear war.

They were taken to a “securelocation.”

Kevin O’Keefe, a college stu-dent in Washington, rushed tothe Red Cross to give blood. Thecrowd of donors grew.

“I can’t believe I’m in down-town D.C., in the middle of a ter-rorism crisis,” he said. “Thisshows how vulnerable we are.”

John Croom, 69, a retiredArmy staff sergeant, watched inbewilderment from his hilltophome as the smoke poured fromthe Pentagon.

“I don’t understand how theycould do this,” he said. “Theyflew so low. I was in the militaryfor 20 years. I thought Washing-ton was protected.”

Delusions of invincibility havebeen dashed before and at thesame ground zeros — in the 1993World Trade Center bombing,

when six people died, and in themad actions of people withgrudges or demons shooting gunsat the White House and at Con-gress.

The Oklahoma City bombingthat killed 168 people, attacks onAmericans abroad — all havecontributed in myriad ways tothe fortification of public placesand made people more alert.

But there has been nothingremotely like this.

“Every single American, nomatter where you live, the wholecountry’s on edge,” said LindaWilson, 42, of Denver.

“This has the capacity tochange the way we live our livesin this country,” said Rep. TedStrickland, D-Ohio. “I don’tthink we will ever feel as secureas we have in the past.”

Where would it end? manyasked.

“They could be hitting allmajor cities at this point,” saidChristie Nitsch, 39, from Colum-bus, Ohio. “How do you know?”

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.,the top Republican on the SenateIntelligence Committee, said theattacks have set off “a war with-out boundaries, but it’s totalwar.”

“We’ve been very lucky up tonow,” he said.

One cruel morning made theAmerican debate over a nationalmissile defense seem absurdlyabstract, even as it pointed todangers from abroad.

Death came from the sky, allright, but in hijacked commercialplanes.

ANALYSIS



Rescue workers look over damage at the Pentagon on Tuesday. The Defense Departmentheadquarters burst into flames and a portion of one side of the five-sided structurecollapsed after the building was hit by a jetliner.


Firefighters and emergency personnel investigate the scene of a fatal crashinvolving a United Airlines Boeing 757 with at least 45 passengers Tuesdaymorning near Shanksville, Pa.


Craig McFarland of Los Angeles holds his head at the ticket counter ofAmerican Airlines on Tuesday at Logan International Airport in Boston.McFarland, who exchanged his ticket, says he was supposed to leave onAmerican Flight 11 which left Boston for Los Angeles and was reportedlyhijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.


Vineyard Christian Fellowship member Philip Low, rear,the Rev. Mark Klepac, assistant pastor, on ground, andmember John Campbell pray for the victims of the WorldTrade Center attack, at a service held behind Wickliffe(Ohio) City Hall on Tuesday.

CASEY CHRISTIE/THE BAKERSFIELD CALIFORNIAN

Steve Swarts holds up a sign in downtown Bakersfield, Calif., onTuesday in reaction to the terrorist attacks in New York and at thePentagon.


A priest prays over a wounded man outside the west entrance of the Pentagon as emergency workersfrom all services mobilize to help the wounded Tuesday after a terrorist attack in Arlington, Va.



People flee lower Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge in New York on Tuesday following the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Terrorism no new ideaBY LAURA KINGTHE ASSOCIATED PRESS

It is a notion as old as human history,a cold-eyed calculation made by zealotsdown the ages: that the taking of inno-cent lives, or the threat to do so, canserve as a brutally effective means ofadvancing a cause.

Still, the modern age of mass terror-ism — culminating with Tuesday’s dev-astating kamikaze-style attacks againstsome of the greatest icons of Americanprestige and power — dates back only alittle more than three decades.

“You look at the ancient Greeks, atRoman history, at biblical accounts —all the elements are there,” said ArielMerari, a terrorism expert at Tel AvivUniversity. “These are acts that we as aspecies have always been capable of,and we as a species have carried out.But as an international, political phe-nomenon, it’s relatively new.”

The late 1960s ushered in a wave ofcommercial airline hijackings, the firstof them carried out in 1968 by a radicalPalestinian faction, with many othersto follow in the name of what was thenthe relatively little-known Palestiniancause.

With success — in the form of worldattention — a host of imitators sprangup. Left-wing and nationalist groupsproliferated in Western Europe and

Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s,many of them employing terror as atactic. The arena widened to theworld’s far-flung corners, and the tar-get list expanded — airports, cruiseships, embassies.

Terrorism. The very idea is to strikeparalyzing fear into the hearts of anenemy, or a perceived one. To invest anact of violence with far-reaching conse-quences that go beyond the moment’sspectacular display of blood anddestruction.

It requires a chilling degree ofdetachment from the fundamental val-ues upon which civilization is built,ethicists say.

“The world view that undergirdsany terrorist activity is as far removedfrom any ethical philosophy as can beimagined,” said Tom Morris, a formerNotre Dame University professor ofphilosophy. “It involves treating peopleas mere means to ends. It ascribes onlyinstrumental value to people, and no

intrinsic value.”The public revulsion inspired by ter-

ror attacks is part of the point — but ina way beside the point. Terrorism as weknow it today is the product of a mediaage, a calling card of a global culture inwhich fame and infamy are closely cou-pled.

“The whole idea — the only idea, insome sense — is to bring attention tothe cause,” said Rohan Gunaratna ofthe Center for the Study of Terrorismand Political Violence in Edinburgh,Scotland.

Sometimes, the battle over terrorismis a struggle over semantics.

“Terrorist” is an epithet, and eventhe most enthusiastic practitioners ofterror’s black arts bridle at it. Whenthe U.S. State Department periodicallyupdates its list of terror organizationsand the countries that sponsor them,this judgment is often accompanies byhowls of protest.

But it is a two-sided coin: repressive

regimes use the terrorist tag to dis-credit those who struggle against them.So who is a terrorist, and who is a free-dom fighter?

Even decades after the fact, theanswer is sometimes clear, sometimesnot. Nelson Mandela is a universallybeloved and respected statesman. Butwith the Mideast’s latest plunge intoviolence, Palestinian leader YasserArafat’s claim to the title of leader andstatesman is being bitterly challenged.

The line between guerrilla warfareand terrorism has always been a diffi-cult one to define.

Confronted with a powerful foe,rebel movements and guerrilla armiesuse tactics that are in some ways akinto terrorism, relying heavily on stealth,surprise and audacity — and some-times striking at civilian targets ratherthan military ones.

“What some people call terrorismwould probably be better defined aslow-intensity warfare,” said Merari, theTel Aviv University expert.

Tuesday’s horrifying strikes againstthe World Trade Center and the Penta-gon — in which fully loaded commer-cial airliners were wielded as weapons— could herald the start of an era inwhich terror and retribution are hardto distinguish from all-out war.

“You look at the ancient Greeks, at Roman history, at biblical accounts— all the elements are there. . . . These are acts that we as a specieshave always been capable of, and we as a species have carried out. Butas an international, political phenomenon, it’s relatively new.”

ARIEL MERARIterrorism expert

special report: america attacked

Documents

world trade centerwhen

towers weight

towers underconstruction

twin tower

trade centers firstfloor

south tower crashes

hijacked jetliner banks

pressa hijacked jetliner