Posted on 09/12/2001 3:20:58 AM PDT by Clive
NEW YORK CITY, N.Y. -- America is at war. Declared or undeclared, this superpower was scarred deeply and perhaps permanently by at least four terrorist attacks using hijacked aircraft yesterday.
Shock turned to deep unease and anger as the world awaited U.S. response to the worst terrorist attack in its history.
President George Bush warned that when that response does come, the U.S. will "make no distinction between the terrorists who commit those acts and those who harbour them."
Bush's words came in the wake of a series of lightning strikes which left tens of thousands of Americans missing and presumed dead in the heart of Manhattan, which took the brunt of the assaults.
Shocked and sullen police and fire crews trudged away from the rubble of the mighty twin World Trade Center towers. From boots up to their facemasks they wore a blanket of dust and debris.
"I thought we would be safe here. I thought no one could reach us here," said Roy Shaw, a 59-year-old employee of the New York Transit Authority who was helping in the rescue effort. "I see it and I still don't believe it."
What he saw, what the world saw, was indeed unbelievable. Here at Ground Zero, where once stood the twin 110-storey skyscrapers, there is only an everlasting plume of white smoke.
Through a sequence of highly-organized strikes, four passenger jets were hijacked -- one apparently at knifepoint -- yesterday morning from eastern airports and three willfully crashed into U.S. symbols of power.
Two of the planes struck and destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center; a third hit the country's military nerve centre in the Pentagon while a fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania amid reports it was headed toward Camp David.
News that the planes were diverted by terrorists wielding "knife-like instruments" came from a dramatic phone call to U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson from his wife Barbara. It is believed she perished in the subsequent crash.
As the day drew to a close, three key questions remained unanswered: Who did this, how many people died and has the immediate threat passed?
With no clear answer to the first question, U.S. President George Bush swiftly pledged to "hunt down and punish" those responsible. The president was reading to schoolchildren in Sarasota, Fla., when he first learned of the attack. From there, he was whisked to an undisclosed location before returning to Washington last night where he addressed the nation at 8:30 p.m.
A calm but determined Bush gave notice to those responsible that Americans had a "quiet unyielding anger" over the attacks and that the "search was underway for the persons behind" them.
In the meantime, he said, they would "take every precaution to protect our citizens at home and around the world from further attacks."
The president's address to the nation came as speculation mounted that terrorist Osama bin Laden, who is wanted for a 1998 bombing of the World Trade Center which killed six people, was responsible for this precisely planned swath of destruction.
He has sought and received asylum in Afghanistan, which is governed by the Taliban, a hardline Muslim regime.
While officials there speedily moved to condemn the destruction they also defended bin Laden, saying he would not have the wherewithal to organize such a lightning campaign from inside their borders.
There were mixed reports out of the country's capital city of Kabul last night, where an apparent bomb had detonated an oil refinery. While initial reports assumed the U.S. had launched a retaliatory strike, American authorities denied any involvement leading to speculation that the raging fires may have been the result of the ongoing civil war there.
Reaction to the catastrophe was swift and decisive across North America. The U.S. borders were sealed in places; all government offices were evacuated and, for the first time in history, all flights to and from all airports were grounded until at least noon today. Chemical warfare experts made preparations in case the air attacks were followed by wider-spread assault.
Closer to home, reverberations from the tragedy were felt throughout the city as Toronto's core virtually became a ghost town. Office towers emptied; the CN Tower was evacuated and trading was halted on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Some U.S. flights were diverted here and Pearson airport was closed to all but emergency landings.
TD Bank's Jeff Keay said everyone in both the TD and the Canada Trust towers had been sent home for "employee comfort." Just after 11 a.m., a similar e-mail was delivered to all Bank of Montreal workers.
In offices which stay open, work ground to a halt as people, many of them in tears, tried to get a sense of the monumental horror which has struck our neighbours to the south. As the evening wore on, television stations broadcast the number for Canadian Blood Services as hospitals in New York and Washington had already sent out a plea for help.
TTC officials also started the afternoon rush-hour routes early to handle the flow of workers from the downtown core.
Authorities at the CN Tower shut down the 553-metre building as precaution. It was also a gesture of respect to the victims in the World Trade Center.
The courthouse at 361 University Ave. was shut down over the lunch, as well as neighbouring Osgoode Hall. Up the street at Queen's Park, the Ontario government was working feverishly to offer its assistance to its devastated New York friends. Premier Mike Harris personally called the office of New York Gov. George Pataki to pledge support.
In Ottawa, security was stepped up at the downtown U.S. embassy while down the road at 24 Sussex Dr., the RCMP said they had increased security.
While it may be days, if not weeks, before the exact death toll is known, the first eyewitness reports out of Manhattan's financial district painted a picture of unspeakable horror.
The first plane to strike the twin towers was American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 which was hijacked en route from Boston to Los Angeles. The plane, carrying 81 passengers, nine flight attendants and two pilots, disintegrated on impact. A second plane, also an American Airlines jet, en route from Dulles to Los Angeles with 64 people aboard, suffered the same fate 18 minutes later.
The upper floors of the 110-storey buildings instantly became a ball of fire which raged out of control for almost an hour. People on fire were leaping from the windows to certain death, including a man and a woman holding hands. Some jumped from as high as the 80th floor. People on the ground screamed and scrambled for cover as the debris rained down. Then, to the horror of those watching around the world, the towers simply collapsed.
Eyewitnesses described the scene on the ground as something out of nuclear winter, with first a roar, then an eerie silence. This was followed by a thick layer of ash which floated from the sky and covered the ground.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said 2,100 people -- 1,500 of them "walking wounded" and 600 others were taken to 70 area hospitals. The numbers seem pitifully small when you consider that some 50,000 people are routinely in the buildings on any given working day.
"I have a sense it's a horrendous number of lives lost," Giuliani said. "Right now we have to focus on saving as many lives as possible."
As night fell, New York City authorities announced that 78 policemen and 200 firefighters were missing. It is believed these heroes perished in the tower collapses after they had rushed into the buildings to rescue survivors.
Those who were lucky enough to escape wandered the streets in a daze while clusters of people stood around and listened to the news. A short time later, Giuliani went public urging those who were mobile to walk north to safety, away from the flying debris and choking ashes.
A similar scene played out in Washington where the Pentagon took a direct hit from a third jetliner. It was aboard this plane that Barbara Olson twice called her husband, U.S. Solicitor General Olson, from her cellphone.
She described some details of the hijacking, telling him that the attackers were using "knife-like instruments." In a brief interview from his home, Olson confirmed the calls.
'ON THE PLANE'
"She was on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon," he told Associated Press. "She called from the plane while it was being hijacked. I wish it wasn't so but it is."
That crash was almost simultaneous to the one which took place in Pennsylvania, about 130 km southeast of Pittsburgh. There, a plane, believed to be a 747, left a huge crater in the ground. It's believed the hijackers were targeting Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.
As the scope of the tragedy began to sink in, international support for the U.S. and its citizens continued to pour in from around the world.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien said he was horrified by the attacks, calling the terrorists "cowardly" and "depraved."
Chretien offered "any assistance" necessary to the Americans as federal government departments, including the military, the RCMP and Transport Canada, held an emergency security meeting.
In the Middle East, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his top aides watched events unfold on television in Gaza City.
"I send my condolences to the president, the government and the people for this terrible incident," Arafat said.
Restrictions on all flights are expected to continue until at least noon today and, for the foreseeable future, security measures in all airports will be extremely tight.
When are we going to control our borders?
Thank you for nothing, Paid-Off Gore/KKKrinton NTSB, FBI, FAA, "administration" criminals -- and for allowing America's airlines to evade the responsibility to airport security demonstrated lax by the ease with which the TWA bomb was walked on.
For a CIA Hell-bent on God alone knows what -- and for an abjectly politisized, unconstitutional, unlawful and illegal FBI, Hell bent only on extending its own -- and your -- criminal power.
And thank you, Paid-Off Gore/KKKrinton DemocRAT criminal gang, for the sewed wind of eight years of your brazenly treasonous, criminal control of America's feral-gummint apparatus.
And for the consequential whirlwind which Our Fraternal Republic, perforce, will reap.
Good question. Controlling both legal and illegal immigration better is now unquestionably a national security issue. The likelihood is these terrorists found safe haven in certain communities in this country, and may have even been given support from them. You can bet a lot of the members of these communities applaud this action. Why are we ending up with so many immigrants that despise us?
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