Web Video: September 11, 2001

GWEN IFILL, Moderator: Thanks, Jim. Welcome to a special edition of Washington Week. Joining me tonight to take stock of today's terrible events are four reporters who've been covering the story. Joining me here in the studio are David Broder of the Washington Post and Doyle McManus of the Los Angeles Times; plus still on the job in Washington tonight, Martha Raddatz, who covers foreign policy and intelligence for ABC News and Tom Gjelten, who covers the Pentagon for National Public Radio. David and Doyle, let's start here with you. What was your sense of what the President did? Did he do what he had to do?

DAVID BRODER, The Washington Post: Well, I wrote down three things that I thought the President had to do before this speech began. He had to display strength, compassion and give reassurance. I think on the first two he did well. I don't think that given the way in which these events have unfolded he provided great deal of reassurance, that we know how to prevent it from happening again. As Bill Kristol said, when it came to the strategy for countering this kind of terrorism, he was at this point silent.

GWEN IFILL: He needed a bigger response, a more Presidential response?

DAVID BRODER: Well, I think he did what he could do at this moment. But there is much more that needs to be done.

GWEN IFILL: Doyle, what is your take on it?

DOYLE McMANUS, Los Angeles Times: I think David is right. All day long we have heard the terms of the debate over terrorism policy essentially laid out. Is this law enforcement? Or is it war? If it's law enforcement, you do limited things. If it's war, you step up to a much higher level. The President did not resolve that question tonight. He basically said it's a little bit of both. We're going to continue to treat it essentially as law enforcement. He didn't talk about vast new resources coming into this. He basically said we're going to do it what we would do for....

DAVID BRODER: But the sentence that Tom Oliphant focused on is a very significant sentence if it is translated into policy. Let's be blunt. United States has been squeamish up to this point about saying to countries that harbor terrorists, "you have a problem as long as that terrorist is living within your borders." We have not taken that kind of strong pre-emptive stand. If the President's sentence means that we are now about to draw that line clearly with those countries, which Richard Holbrook was saying earlier so, we know are harboring terrorists, then it is a very significant shift.

DOYLE McMANUS: Exactly. To be more specific, if it turns out that this is Osama bin Laden's operation, as most of the initial fragmentary evidence indicates, the harboring country there is Afghanistan. Until now the United States has carried out only limited sanctions against Afghanistan under the United Nations Security Council. If the President means what he said, then we are coming close to a state of war of some kind with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

GWEN IFILL: Well, let's turn to Tom Gjelten over in downtown Washington tonight. But today when all of this happened it was actually inside the Pentagon. Tom, give us some sort of sense about what it was like.

TOM GJELTEN, National Public Radio: Gwen, as you say, I was inside the Pentagon but I was on the complete opposite side of the building. To tell you the truth I didn't at first feel it. That gives you an idea of the size and scale of this massive fortress, the Pentagon. It's two miles all the way around, remember. But nevertheless, there was an evacuation order that we all heard and within moments, within minutes the 20,000 people who work at the Pentagon had poured outside. By the time we got outside, smoke was billowing over the courtyard and around the building. I think none of us really realized at first until we saw that a whole chunk of the building had been taken out, a chunk of that massive fortress with the thick, concrete walls. But we now know, of course, Gwen, that the plane that hit that had taken off from Dulles Airport for Los Angeles, meaning it was loaded with fuel. And, as someone said, a commercial airliner loaded with fuel is like a flying bomb.

GWEN IFILL: Now, prior to the plane actually hitting the Pentagon, was there a concern, was there alert within the Pentagon about the earlier bombing that had already, not bombing but the earlier crash that had already happened at the World Trade Center?

TOM GJELTEN: Of course there was, Gwen. In fact they had already realized that it was a hijacking. They had a sense, in other words, that this was a terrorist action. Yet, significantly the Pentagon itself had not yet been put on high alert. There was a little bit of a lag. I mean there wasn't a lot of time between the World Trade Center bombing and the time the plane hit the Pentagon, of course. Nevertheless, when I entered the Pentagon, which was just a few minutes before the plane hit, it really seemed like quite a normal day.

DOYLE McMANUS: Tom, I gather you weren't able to get back into the building after you left. How much of the Pentagon, how much of the national military command is functioning?

TOM GJELTEN: Well, the national military command center is located inside in the bowels of the building; it was not affected by this. Smoke did get in there but it was not enough smoke that they actually had to evacuate the command center. So the command center, which is like the war room of the Pentagon, it was staffed throughout and operations there were, of course, continued right through the whole crisis.

DAVID BRODER: Tom, do you have any sense about the casualties at the Pentagon itself?

TOM GJELTEN: No, I don't, David. There were five or six stories that were completely collapsed. There were dozens of offices in there. Now we heard one report from a Congressman who said he had heard that 100 people were killed, and, of course, hundreds more injured. The Pentagon has not released any casualties. The one little piece of good news as far as the Pentagon is concerned is that that portion of the building was under renovation and had recently been renovated. Many of the offices there were still unoccupied. If there was one spot on the Pentagon that an aircraft could have hit with relatively fewer casualties, that was, in fact, the spot.

GWEN IFILL: That's really interesting, Tom. But I'm also curious about what happens tomorrow. I noticed today there were two news briefings at the Pentagon, one at a gas station across the street. One in what was described as a makeshift pressroom.

TOM GJELTEN: They actually bussed reporters back into the Pentagon to the briefing room and then bussed them back out again. So the briefing room itself was not damaged, not affected. As I say this is where the reporters hang out. It's on the complete other side of the Pentagon. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said the Pentagon will be open for business as usual tomorrow. Not quite as usual, of course, a big chunk of it has been taken out of commission. But much of the building remains usable.

GWEN IFILL: By the end of this extraordinary day in Washington, the country's leaders had gathered to send a single strong message to those listening at home and to those abroad. That message that the United States was wounded but not fatally. In addition to the President's (no audio).

(Excerpt from video)

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.

(End of excerpt)

GWEN IFILL: In addition to the President's address tonight, we heard from members of Congress and the cabinet. Congressional leaders received intelligence briefings and gathered at the Capitol, which had been evacuated earlier today to show solidarity with the President, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went before the cameras in the damaged Pentagon late today to say that the nation's military operations are still up and running.

GWEN IFILL: Martha Raddatz, you have been covering the State Department, you've been covering Colin Powell and you've been covering the intelligence community. What is the latest information on what they think of this terrorism issue?

MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC News: All I can say, Gwen, is everyone in the intelligence community at the State Department seemed stunned, bewildered, completely caught unawares by this. There had been a worldwide caution released on September 7, updated on September 7, last Friday, warning Americans traveling abroad that military facilities might be hit, civilian facilities might be hit. I talked to one administration official today. I said what about that? Did that have anything to do with this? He said that had absolutely nothing to do with this. They had no information about that. We were evacuated at the State Department this morning shortly after the plane hit the Pentagon, and there were several people out in front. The special envoy to the MidEast, William Burns. I said, did you have any information about anything like this happening? He said none at all.

GWEN IFILL: What's the most startling thing? It seems the enormity of this act is part of what's so amazing about this whole day. Is that what has people consumed about what to do next?

MARTHA RADDATZ: I think what the intelligence community will do, I can hear myself a little bit coming back in my ear -- if they can make that stop. I think what the intelligence community has to do now is look and listen to itself at this point and the Defense Department. All we've been hearing all afternoon is we're on the highest state of alert. Security... Everyone's is to batten down the hatches. And yet four aircraft took off, three hit these buildings. There is a new security problem in this country. Certainly Americans had been warned. Certainly people were saying, look, this can happen anywhere on our soil. We never know when they'll hit. But there is a new security problem here. And this is the kind of thing they really don't know how to fight. Remember a few years ago there was an airplane, a small plane that went into the White House. And I remember talking to a lot of security officials about that then saying what could you possibly do about a plane going into the White House? They said really there's nothing we can do. I'm sure there were a lot of conversations today. In fact, when we left the State Department, there were reports, credible reports, that a plane was on its way to Washington perhaps going for another building when we were standing outside. And I'm sure there were conversations around Washington on whether or not they would shoot down an aircraft, a passenger airplane if it was headed for a crowded building. Those are the decisions that they're going to have to look at in the future and how they can stop this because at this point this is obviously something they don't know how to do.

DAVID BRODER: From your diplomatic sources, could you make any early judgment as to how much international support there would be for an American policy that is the President... That, as the President says, makes no distinction between terrorist and the country that is harboring the terrorist?

MARTHA RADDATZ: I too was struck by that statement. I'm sure they have discussed this with the allies before they... Before President Bush went on the air tonight. They were probably well aware of what the President was going to say. Obviously that's the kind of support they're going to have to rally in the coming days. As you probably know, Colin Powell was not in town, was not in Washington. He has been on a trip to Peru and Colombia was and was called back immediately. He is now back in Washington. I'm sure all the foreign policy apparatus will rally and try to rally the allies as well.

GWEN IFILL: What about the reactions from other foreign governments? We talk about this need for some sort of consolidated response. Have we gotten any indication that we'll get that?

MARTHA RADDATZ: I think the opinion is still coming in. The broadcasts I heard today and the wires I read from overseas and what I was hearing from diplomatic sources here is that they're certainly condemning this bombing. But frankly, the world is as stunned as the United States at this point. They want to put on the best face possible. As you heard, Donald Rumsfeld said the Pentagon will be open tomorrow for business. I'm sure Washington will try to rally up. Bull it's a ghost town tonight. They're reaching out to whoever they can.

DOYLE McMANUS: One of the things this event is clearly going to do is to turn Washington's agenda upside down a little bit. Up until now in the last few weeks we had all been talking about how there wasn't going to be any money left for new defense spending. The sentiment on that is likely to change. In terms of threats there at the State Department, worries have been about china, about the problem of missile defense. Terrorism of this nature hasn't really been that high on the radar screen. Have you begun to see the focus move already?

MARTHA RADDATZ: I think what you've begun to see is the conversation moving already. People are already wondering what this will do to a national defense system because certainly people on the Hill will say, wait a minute, that doesn't appear to be the problem. There will be budget battles back and forth. I've already heard people today saying, look, you know one of the reasons the intelligence had no inkling anything like this would happen is because we didn't get enough money. I think you're going to hear those kinds of arguments in the coming months.

GWEN IFILL: We actually started hearing some of those arguments tonight on the NewsHour… Tom Gjelten, you were at the press conference that Donald Rumsfeld gave this evening and I'm wondering if you -- what you took away from that and whether you think he is setting himself up for some big statement. There was a flurry of activity involving some bombing in Kabul Afghanistan which it turned out the United States said it had nothing to do with. What's your sense from being at the Pentagon today what the Pentagon is prepared to do?

TOM GJELTEN: Well, I was told by a Navy admiral that what happened at the Pentagon was, quote, a full assault on United States of America. When you have language like that, you can be certain that there will be a response commensurate with that kind of attack. Of course, General Shelton says that he was appearing... General Hugh Shelton, the chairman, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was at Rumsfeld's side said that he would not say what would come next but make no mistake about it, your armed forces are ready. So while indeed they did say definitively that the United States was not behind the strikes in Afghanistan, there is virtually no doubt that there will be a response.

GWEN IFILL: It also sounds like they were saying that there's no such thing as a response that's too small.

TOM GJELTEN: Well, when you have an attack like this described as a full assault on United States it's not any longer in the category of a terrorist incident. It is in practical terms it is an act of war.

DAVID BRODER: Tom, I'd like you to give me a reality check on a theory that Doyle has already kind of alluded to. This budget gridlock that is facing Congress, my hunch would be now that any amount of money that the Bush administration asks for to beef up the defense and intelligence that there won't be ten votes against that in the Congress and that all of this sort of hang-up about whether or not we are touching the sacred Social Security Trust Fund now disappears. But give me your perspective.

TOM GJELTEN: I fully agree with you, David, but the point I was going to make a little earlier is that this is, in fact, coming, as you say, in the midst of this budget debate. What I do anticipate is that there will be a lot of debate about how that money should be spent. Indeed you're absolutely right. I'm sure that there won't be any doubt that there will be more money for defense and probably just as much as the administration is seeking. But I would guess there will be some debate and some disagreement about how the money in that budget should be allocated -- whether as much should go for a national missile defense when we have just seen an example of a much lower-tech terrorist attack on the United States -- or whether should be some shifting of the money within that defense budget perhaps more for intelligence, more for national guard operations to beef up preparations for terrorist attacks. So I think that there is going to be some debate about how to respond to this in a budgetary fashion.

GWEN IFILL: Martha, I'll get to you in a moment. I want to ask everybody this question and I want you all to take turns responding, which is: Doesn't this change the context for every debate in Washington not just for the debate over the defense budget or the debate over Social Security? David?

DAVID BRODER: Absolutely. I mean, we've been dealing with issues that were pretty abstract, whether or not to touch a supposed trust fund. This is real. It's going to become ever more real as we learn the human cost of today's events.

GWEN IFILL: Doyle.

DOYLE McMANUS: In fact I think it becomes the key challenge for George W. Bush's presidency for the foreseeable future. It's one thing to debate whether you want to put money into a tax cut, into education or into missile defense. When you're looking at war and peace, that's the real test of leadership.

GWEN IFILL: Martha.

MARTHA RADDATZ: I was struck today, Gwen, thinking about foreign policy. As I watched this special MidEast envoy standing out front thinking nobody's really going to be talking about the MidEast peace process anymore. This is a domestic issue. Americans will want to know who did it and why they did it and get them back. But I don't think you'll see as much focus on what's happening in other parts of the world for months and months and months.

GWEN IFILL: What if, Martha, this turns out to be a retaliation for our stand in the Middle East peace process?

MARTHA RADDATZ: Which that would certainly talked about a bit today as well. Then focus will be on the MidEast. But in terms of what Washington talks about the rest of the world, where Colin Powell will be focused, where other secretaries in the building will be focused -- I think you'll see them focusing just on this for a long time to come.

GWEN IFILL: Well, Tom Gjelten, it seems as if there's not a whole lot of choice but to focus on this one issue right now especially at the Pentagon which is going to be the lead act inner whatever happens next.

TOM GJELTEN: That's right, Gwen. I would just reinforce what others have said. I mean if President Bush now does decide to go after Afghanistan as the country that is harboring Osama bin Laden, that will be essentially declaring war on Afghanistan. The United States will be at war and that condition, that experience, will just overwhelm everything else.

GWEN IFILL: So, Doyle, what are the big challenges which now face the United States as it attempts to grapple with this especially not only domestically but also with our international relationships?

DOYLE McMANUS: Well, of course, the first ones are the basic intelligence problems of figuring out who did it and coming up with a reasonable response. But the big diplomatic problem is going to be most of the world has not embraced the notion of going to war with the sponsoring country or of something Israel pioneered and some people in the Bush administration are even talking about-- although not officially yet-- and that is preventive attacks -- going after them before they hit you. The rest of the world, which wasn't touched in this, would rather keep it a limited law enforcement kind of operation with a lot of international cooperation in terms of intelligence sharing. We are going to find some pushback, potentially, from some of the allies.

GWEN IFILL: When you talk about intelligence, before you can even plan to do something before they do it to you, don't you have to know what's going on? That seems to have been a big gap today.

DOYLE McMANUS: Well, you have to know what's going on. Of course one problem in previous retaliatory strikes was when you try to do a precision strike you may miss the people or the person that you're going after. One of the lines we haven't crossed yet is whether to go into a much larger and less discriminate kind of strike. One of the questions here now is will the American public and the allies be willing to tolerate larger military strikes that, yes, would harm innocent people?

DAVID BRODER: That's the key point. That's what I meant when I said we had been... Our policy in the past had been squeamish because a very important criterion was no collateral damage, no civilian casualties. If you're really going to treat the harboring country in the same terms as you treat the terrorists' organization itself, then there are going to be civilian casualties. Whether or not we have the will as a people to say to those countries that harbor the terrorists, this is your problem, it's not our problem. You have to deal with these terrorists in your borders or your people are going to feel the pain.

GWEN IFILL: Tom and Martha, when you go back to work tomorrow over at Pentagon and State, what do you expect to be happen something what questions will you be happening?

TOM GJELTEN: Well, the first question I'll be asking is to find out how U.S. troops around the world will be responding to this, what kind of mobilizations there will be, what kind of troop movements, what kind of ships and so forth. Clearly we're all going to be waiting for the military response.

MARTHA RADDATZ: And certainly the State Department -- we want to know what the Arab countries are saying about this, what the response has been internally away from the cameras. You saw a lot of people out front today condemning the bombing. The Arab world has not been too happy with the United States and has seen it siding with Israel. We know we had the U.N. Racism Conference last week where the U.S. walked out, the Arab countries weren't happy with that and wanted to condemn the United States for that. So that will be very interesting to see.

GWEN IFILL: Tom and Martha, thank you very much. Stay safe. David and Doyle, thank you as well. We'll leave it there for now. It's been a tough day. Now for more of our continuing PBS coverage, we head back to Jim Lehrer.