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Bush Orders Government to 'Hunt Down' Perpetrators
By Sonya Ross
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. –– As chaos unhinged New York and Washington, President Bush deplored the acts of "a faceless coward" and commanded the United States military to high-alert status worldwide. "The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass this test," Bush declared Tuesday as terrorist strikes on the nation's centers of commerce and government forced him into virtual hiding. "Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended," he said. With the White House itself under threat of attack, the president's whereabouts were kept secret. He made a brief statement from a conference room here, assuring Americans that he is in regular contact with his command post in Washington: Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the White House national security team. "Our military at home and around the world is on high-alert status and we have taken the necessary security precautions to continue the functions of your government," Bush said, his back to a pair of American flags and the portraits of Air Force leaders. "We have been in touch with the leaders of Congress and with world leaders to assure them that we will do whatever is necessary to protect America and Americans." He then boarded Air Force One at 1:30 p.m. EST for a destination unknown. The Boeing 747 taxied down the runway at Barksdale, near Shreveport, but the small pool of reporters on board were ordered off their cell phones and, contrary to normal practice, no journalists were allowed on base to watch the plane lift off. The president had landed here just 90 minutes earlier under escort by military fighter jets, arriving from Florida where he had intended to make an education speech. At the first reports of attacks on New York's World Trade Center, Bush told his Sarasota elementary school audience that he was hastening back to Washington. All of that immediately changed – and he was diverted to Louisiana – when a plane slammed into the Pentagon, and Washington, too, was under attack. Secret Service agents took the extraordinary step of "sweeping" White House aides for explosives and weapons before they were allowed to board the president's plane for his flight out of Sarasota. On Capitol Hill, first lady Laura Bush, who was to have made her debut testifying before the Senate on education, tried to soothe a horrified nation. "Parents need to reassure their children everywhere in our country that they're safe," she said grim-faced as she and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., announced their hearing was postponed. Mrs. Bush and a handful of aides were whisked by motorcade straight to a secure location away from the White House, which had been evacuated but for the small corps of foreign policy advisers who manned the basement Situation Room. Mrs. Bush and her sequestered group huddled around a single TV in their hide-out and channel-surfed for the latest news, according to one person in the group. She spoke with her husband by a secure military phone line before he took off from Sarasota, Fla., and also checked with her twin daughters at college to make sure they were safe. ––– Associated Press writer Sandra Sobieraj contributed to this report from Washington. |
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