Bush puts government on highest alert, says terrorists will be brought to justice

WASHINGTON -- President Bush and congressional leaders sought to calm a shaken nation and show the government was functioning and determined after Tuesday\'s deadly terrorist attacks. From the Oval Office, Bush pledged to \"find those responsible and bring them to justice.\"\nAs fires still smoldered at the Pentagon less than a mile away, Bush told the nation, \"Our way of life, our very freedom, came under attack\" when hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and severely damaged the Pentagon.\n\"The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger,\" Bush said.\nThousands died in the attacks, he said.\nAdministration officials and members of Congress said they suspected fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden, who has been sheltered in Afghanistan. Afghanistan\'s hardline Taliban rulers rejected such suggestions.\n\"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them,\" Bush said without elaboration.\nHe began the day in Florida. For security reasons, Bush was taken to air bases in Louisiana and Nebraska before returning to the nation\'s capital at dusk.\nBush and other top administration officials and congressional leaders of both parties presented a united front in the face of what Attorney General John Ashcroft called \"one of the greatest tragedies ever witnessed on our soil.\"\nAcross the Potomac at the Pentagon, which was still partly ablaze, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, \"The Pentagon is functioning. It will be in business tomorrow.\"\n\"Make no mistake about it, your armed forces are ready,\" said Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.\nHouse Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., standing at twilight with dozens of other lawmakers on the steps of the Capitol, said it was still not clear who was responsible \"but we have our suspicions.\"\n\"And when that is justified ... we will act. We will stand with this president ... and we will stand as Americans together throughout this time.\"\nThe lawmakers then sang, \"God Bless America.\"\nSecurity officials had moved quickly to put the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and Hastert out of harm\'s way. Hastert is next in the line of presidential succession after Cheney.\nHastert and other top congressional leaders were taken to the safety of an underground government bunker in Virginia\'s Blue Ridge Mountains, about 75 miles west of Washington. Once the military and the Secret Service issued a green light, the congressional leaders and the president headed back to town.\n\"None of us will ever forget this day,\" a solemn Bush said in his Oval Office address, which lasted about five minutes.\nHe quoted the Bible\'s 23rd Psalm: \"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.\"\nHe told his audience, \"Tonight I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened.\"\nEarlier, Bush told his national security advisers in a telephone conference, said spokesman Ari Fleischer, \"We will find these people and they will suffer the consequences of taking on this nation. We will do what it takes. No one is going to diminish the spirit of this country.\"\nExplosions were heard Tuesday night near Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, but U.S. officials denied any responsibility. \"In no way is the U.S. government connected,\" Rumsfeld said.\nMilitary police in combat fatigues guarded streets in the center of Washington Tuesday night. Major thoroughfares that normally have a steady flow of cars were almost empty.\nHealth and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said the federal government was making emergency medical supplies available in both New York and Washington and sending \"disaster mortuary response teams\" to both scenes.\nThe government ordered all civilian air traffic ceased until noon Wednesday, at the earliest, after directing all planes in the air to land after the attacks.\nRoads leading out of Washington became clogged with commuters as the government sent home all nonessential workers. Inbound lanes on bridges leading into Washington were closed. Workers traveling out of the city over the Potomac River could see dark plumes of smoke still rising from the Pentagon.\n\"While some federal buildings have been evacuated for security reasons and to protect our workers, your federal government continues to function effectively,\" White House Counselor Karen Hughes said a a midafternoon briefing at the Justice Department.\nThe White House, a few blocks away, had been evacuated, as had other top federal buildings, including the Capitol, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency.\nBush was in Sarasota promoting his education program at the time of the attacks. He took part in telephone conferences with his national security team during the day and called New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani from his plane.\nCheney remained in a nearly deserted White House, in a secure basement bunker, with a few other top aides, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.\nBlack-uniformed Secret Service agents with machine guns patrolled the White House grounds. Fighter jets circled over the city.\nBush ordered the nation\'s military to \"high-alert status.\"\nRumsfeld, in his Pentagon office when a jetliner blasted a gaping hole in the west side of the building, rushed to the scene and helped injured coworkers before seeking the security of a basement command center.\nThe plane took out a huge section of one of the Pentagon\'s five sides, sending up plumes of black acrid smoke and hampering rescue efforts.\nAt the first reports of attacks on New York\'s World Trade Center, Bush told his school audience that \"we\'ve had a national tragedy\" and said he had to hurry back to Washington.\nHowever, he first went to the air base in Louisiana, then to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command. Military fighter jets escorted the presidential aircraft.\nSeveral lawmakers compared the attacks to the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought the United States into World War II.\nThe tragedy reached inside the Justice Department, where Solicitor General Theodore Olson learned his wife was aboard the American Airlines jetliner that crashed into the Pentagon.\nBarbara Olson, a former congressional staffer and Republican activist, was headed to Los Angeles and called her husband as her plane was being hijacked, officials said.\nResponding to criticism of the intelligence community for failing to predict the attacks, CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said, \"The CIA has worked diligently and relentlessly to try to counter terrorism.\"\n\"Our resources are being devoted to determining who was responsible for these horrendous attacks,\" Mansfield said.