Opinion polls indicate that the US public is ready for the "long war" called for by President George W. Bush, who on Sunday angrily vowed retaliation for attacks in New York and Washington, saying they were likely perpetrated by Osama bin Laden, according to reports.
Even as efforts continued to recover the bodies of the estimated 5,000 people killed on Tuesday, Bush met his top security advisors at his Camp David retreat to plot the US military response.
"I will not settle for a token act. Our response must be sweeping, sustained and effective. We have much to do and much to ask of the American people. You will be asked for your patience, for the conflict will not be short," the president said in a radio address Saturday before the meeting, quoted by AFP.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that Bush told the American military to get ready for a long war against terrorism, and vowed to "do what it takes to win."
In a brief appearance with his senior advisers at Camp David, where they met to plan the new offensive, Bush said point-blank: "We're at war. There's been an act of war declared upon America by terrorists, and we will respond accordingly."
"My message is for everybody who wears the uniform to get ready," Bush said.
Shortly afterward, in his weekly radio address, he warned that "those who make war on the United States have chosen their own destruction." He told Americans to steel themselves for "a conflict without battlefields or beachheads."
Victory, he said, "will not take place in a single battle, but in a series of decisive actions against terrorist organizations and those who harbor and support them."
The American people overwhelmingly agreed.
According to the latest poll by New York Times/CBS News, the majority of American citizens say the nation should take military action against those responsible for the terrorist attacks.
That sentiment declines at the prospect that thousands of innocent civilians abroad could be killed. Still, a majority of Americans support engagement by the military even under those circumstances.
The crisis has spurred the public to put aside its past reservations about the leadership of President Bush and instead to rally wholeheartedly behind the relatively new president and express confidence in his ability to guide the nation. His job approval rating has soared to 84 percent, compared with 50 percent just over a month ago, the poll shows.
Americans say they are ready to alter their lifestyles, and even sacrifice some of their own liberties, for safety considerations. They say they would be willing to arrive three hours early for domestic airline flights to pass through heightened security and would withstand long lines at public events and in public buildings to pass through metal detectors and inspections by guards.
The public also supports changing the law to allow for the assassination of people in foreign countries who commit terrorist attacks.
Although more than half the respondents said they did not think Arab Americans were any more sympathetic toward terrorists than other Americans, the public is expecting a backlash against Arab Americans, Muslims and immigrants from the Middle East.
Hundreds of incidents of harassment and threats against Arab and Muslim Americans have been reported, despite their insistence that they have nothing to do with the attacks, and the fact that they have joined Muslims around the world in condemning them.
In follow-up interviews many respondents in the Times/CBS poll said they backed military action, even if that meant American casualties.
Underscoring the degree of commitment, 68 percent of Americans said they believed the United States would go to war.
Eighty-five percent said the United States should take military action against whoever is responsible for the attacks. Seventy-five percent of those people said the action should be mounted even if innocent people were killed. Almost all of them said they would favor going to war with a nation that was harboring those responsible for the attacks.
Sixty-two percent said they were "very confident" in the ability to capture the people who planned the attacks; 29 percent said they were "somewhat confident."
CONGRESSMEN BACK MOVES, SAY US STILL VULNERABLE
The US Congress has given the government an extra $40 billion and permission to call up 50,000 reservists to both boost defensive measures and use "all necessary and appropriate force" to respond.
Although no country has been given as a target, strikes by the United States and its allies are almost certain to be conducted in Afghanistan, whose fundamentalist Muslim rulers, the Taliban, have been harboring Bin Laden.
Foreigners have already left the country, and neighboring Iran and Pakistan were reportedly closing their borders, according to AFP.
Pakistan has also, under intense US pressure, dropped its support for the Taliban and promised to abide by a series of secret US demands believed to include intelligence assistance in tracking down bin Laden and his network, as well as help in strikes against Afghanistan.
Other reports have said the United States wants Pakistan to allow the use of its territory or airspace for attacks on Afghanistan. The Taliban has warned Pakistan it faces war if it does so.
At the Camp David meeting, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who in 1991 was the top US military commander during the Gulf War, hailed Pakistan's "willingness to assist us in whatever might be required in that part of the world, as we determine who these perpetrators are."
Speaking to reporters, Bush made it clear Powell was talking about bin Laden.
"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken," he said.
"We will find those who did it. We will smoke them out of their holes, we'll get them running, and we'll bring them to justice," he said.
US officials have taken no notice of a denial from bin Laden that he masterminded the attacks. They believe the Saudi-born dissident was also behind the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa and last year's blast that crippled the warship USS Cole in Yemen.
The investigation into Tuesday's devastation continued, with US Justice Department officials saying 25 people had either been arrested or detained in connection with the attacks.
Two lawmakers who receive intelligence briefings warned that the zone in and around Washington remained a high-risk zone for other attacks, said the agency.
Congressman Porter Goss, chairman of the House intelligence committee, told CNN late Saturday that there were "other easy targets, vulnerable targets ... filled with innocent people," while Senator John McCain, a member of the Senate armed services committee, said the country still faced "a variety of threats ... including missiles and nuclear weapons and biological and chemical warfare."
America, meanwhile, began the somber process of burying the dead.
Away from lower Manhattan, federal, state and local dignitaries attended funeral services Saturday for some of the firefighters who are being acclaimed for their acts of heroism in Tuesday's carnage.
Emergency workers have pulled 159 bodies from the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center, but New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani said more than 4,900 people were still missing. Most are thought to have perished. Another 189 people are missing and presumed dead in the Pentagon, including the 64 people on the plane that smashed into it.
ALLIES READY TO ASSIST
Allies Britain, France and Germany stressed they stood by the United States but indicated the final decision on whether to participate in a US-led offensive was up to them, said AFP.
Russia is keen to promote a worldwide effort against "international terrorism" but has been hesitant to loan facilities for US strikes.
And Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a longtime enemy of the United States and the only Arab leader not to have condemned the terror attacks, departed from his customary diatribe against the United States to advise Washington against using force in retaliation.
"The United States needs common sense and not force," Hussein said in an open letter addressed to the West.
Arab countries said they were prepared to fight terrorism, including countries accused of sponsoring terrorist groups like Sudan and Syria – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
