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US Pledges Sustained Military Response to Terrorist Attacks
The United States pledged Thursday that it will respond to terrorist attacks on New York and Washington with a sustained military campaign.
The U.S. military is now studying a range of options from heavy bombing to use of elite troops in preparation for retaliation against those who struck the World Trade Center in New York and the Defense Department building in Washington on Tuesday.
"One thing that is clear is you don't do it with just a single military strike, no matter how dramatic," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday.
Wolfowitz would not say what U.S. military strikes might target or discuss specific military options.
"We're going to keep after these people and the people who support them until this stops," he said.
Wolfowitz said part of the 20 billion U.S. dollars in emergency funds President George W. Bush is seeking from Congress will be used to strengthen U.S. military readiness for the fight against terrorism.
Pentagon officials, mindful of this week's stern warning from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld not to discuss classified information that might compromise and endanger U.S. forces, flatly refused to discuss planning for any attacks.
"The president has a whole range of options in front of him," Wolfowitz said, making clear that those options were on both military and diplomatic fronts.
Other U.S. officials, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that the Pentagon's Joint Military Command and other commands, especially with oversight for the Middle East region, were considering everything from strikes by heavy B-2 stealth bombers to cruise missiles and even possible use of elite Special Operations troops.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell identified Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi hiding in Afghanistan, as a prime suspect in the terrorist attacks, saying he would press neighboring Pakistan for information on his operations.
President George W. Bush has called Tuesday's terrorist attacks "an act of war" and it has brought to the forefront many of those military contingencies which have been on drawing boards for months and even years in some cases.
The officials refused to be specific on possible timing or targets, which Bush and other U.S. leaders have warned could include not only a responsible organization but also any state guilty of harboring or supporting the guilty group.
Defense experts have said that high on any list of targets is likely to be Afghanistan, believed to be the headquarters of accused Guerrilla mastermind bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi dissident scorned by his country of birth.
"Use of any options, of course, will hinge on the outcome of the investigation" into who was responsible for the devastating attacks involving hijacked airliners against both New York and Washington, one official said.
On Wednesday, Rumsfeld said in a message to U.S. troops worldwide that "in the days ahead" some among them would be called to join the battle against terrorism.
"We face powerful and terrible enemies, enemies we intend to vanquish," Rumsfeld said in a videotaped message to U.S. forces around the globe. He called the attacks the first great crisis of the 21st century and said it would demand a response from those in uniform.
"The task of vanquishing these terrible enemies and protecting the American people and the cause of human freedom will fall to you," he said.
The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon by terrorists in hijacked jetliners were "the definition of a new battlefield," he said.
"It is a different kind of conflict," Rumsfeld said. He spoke to reporters in a grave tone in a Pentagon briefing room that still reeked of acrid smoke from the smoldering fires.
Meanwhile, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier sailed into the waters off New York's Long Island on Wednesday and other warships stood guard off the East Coast as the U.S. military remained on high alert against further terrorist attacks.
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