Six months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush said the war on terrorism is shifting from Afghanistan to countries where remnants of Al Qaeda’s network are regrouping and threatening further violence against the United States.
“We have entered the second stage of the war on terror, a sustained campaign to deny sanctuary to terrorists who would threaten our citizens from anywhere in the world,” Bush said Monday on the South Lawn of the White House at a somber ceremony commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks. Memorial services also were held in New York and Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon.
“Every terrorist must be made to live as an international fugitive, with no place to settle or organize, no place to hide, no governments to hide behind, and not even a safe place to sleep,” the president said. Behind him, the flags of 179 nations allied with the U.S. against terrorism snapped in the breeze while hundreds of diplomats, soldiers, firefighters and survivors of the attacks looked on.
“I’ve set a clear policy in the second stage of the war on terror: America encourages and expects governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their countries and peace of the world,” Bush said.
Fighting in Afghanistan will continue, and additional U.S. casualties are likely, he said. But he vowed to press the fight in other parts of the world, focusing primarily on nations and terrorist networks bent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Bush did not name those countries, though he has in the past identified Iran, Iraq and North Korea as likely suspects.
“Some states that sponsor terror are seeking or already possess weapons of mass destruction,” Bush said. “Terrorist groups are hungry for these weapons and would use them without a hint of conscience.”
As part of the second phase of the war, Bush is dispatching U.S. troops to the Philippines, Georgia and Yemen.
More than 500 U.S. soldiers are training and equipping Filipino troops to repel Al Qaeda terrorists trying to establish a military regime in the southern part of that country, Bush said. Another 150 Americans will train Georgian soldiers to fight Al Qaeda forces in the Pankisi Gorge near the Russian border. So many Al Qaeda fighters have fled to Yemen, Bush said, that it could become “a second Afghanistan.”
“We will not send the American troops to every battle, but America will actively prepare other nations for the battles ahead,” he said, outlining a strategy that may allow him to dodge criticism that he is stretching U.S. forces too thinly to fight Al Qaeda, a network spread over 60 countries.
Day that changed the nation
Monday in Washington was as bright and clear as that morning in September when terrified office workers poured into the streets, clogging sidewalks and roads, overloading cellular communication networks and fueling fears with false rumors that more attacks were imminent.
As Bush spoke Monday, a jetliner from nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport droned overhead, a sound that captured the attention of 1,400 attendees and a small army of Secret Service agents.
Bush spoke at 10 a.m. EST, about the time six months ago that the World Trade Center and Pentagon were ablaze from jet fuel. His speech was the centerpiece of the administration’s commemoration of an event that fundamentally changed the fortunes not just of the United States, but of Bush himself, propelling him from a president whose legitimacy was being questioned into a commander in chief with a nation united behind him.
Elsewhere in Washington on Monday, Tom Ridge, Bush’s director of homeland security, told the National League of Cities that work is nearly complete on new guidelines to help local, state and federal officials define future terrorist threats.
The administration has been criticized for putting the nation on high alert for another terrorist attack four times, frightening already jittery Americans and frustrating law-enforcement agencies without being able to spell out where or when such an attack could occur. Ridge said a five-stage, multicolored scale would be used to assess threat levels in the future. Local and state officials would be advised on how to respond to each threat level.
Highlighting non-military aspects of the war, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill announced Monday in Washington that the United States, working with the Saudi government, had cut off funding for two offices of an international charity that O’Neill said were funneling money to Al Qaeda organizations.
O’Neill said the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation’s offices in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Somalia were targeted. The charity, based in Saudi Arabia, has offices in 50 countries. It said it raises money to build schools, mosques and other facilities.
Bush capped the day with an Oval Office ceremony at which he unveiled a new 45-cent stamp featuring three firefighters raising the American flag over the rubble of the World Trade Center. Eleven cents from each stamp sold will go to emergency workers injured and families of firefighters and police killed in the attacks.
Notable omissions
Bush’s speech also was noteworthy for what he did not say.
The president omitted any mention of the “axis of evil,” his designation for Iraq, Iran and North Korea, nations he said are developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons they could make available to terrorists. The designation worried U.S. allies, who feared it was a signal of an impending military attack. The allies’ concern is troublesome for Bush, who would like their support if the U.S. moves to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Bush also did not mention by name the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. He has omitted bin Laden’s name in the past to make the point that the war on terrorism is not limited to targeting a single man.
The president also made no mention of the escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians, which many Arab leaders said must be addressed as part of any plan to thwart terrorism on a global basis.
Vice President Dick Cheney, who appeared Monday in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, explicitly dismissed any connection between the fighting in the Middle East and the war on terrorism.
“They’re linked in some minds, but the fact of the matter is we need effective policies to deal with both situations,” Cheney said at the start of his 10-day, 12-nation tour of the Mideast.
