The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. It was one week ago today that four hijacked airliners were used to kill thousands of Americans. On the NewsHour tonight, a summary of this day's developments; a report from ground zero in New York; an interview with Joe Allbaugh, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; the story of four passengers on the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon; an update of the investigation; and a look at the foreign response by Robert MacNeil and "New York Times" correspondents in London, Hamburg, Moscow and Cairo.

FOCUS - ONE WEEK LATER

JIM LEHRER: There are now nearly 6,000 people missing or confirmed dead from the hijacked airliner attacks one week ago today. Officials raised the number to 5,600 at the World Trade Center site in New York; another 250 died at the Pentagon in Washington, and on the plane that went down in Pennsylvania. This morning,President Bush led the White House staff in a moment of silence for the victims. Late he thanked rescuers and charity groups in a Rose Garden ceremony. He said Americans have donated at least $ 55 million to relief efforts. In New York, search teams also paused at 8:48 A.M., the moment the first plane struck last Tuesday. Despite their efforts, Mayor Giuliani said the chance of finding survivors was now, "very, very small." In the investigation, Attorney General Ashcroft said it was possible more than four planes had been targeted for hijackings, and he warned again that associates of the terrorists might still be in the country. So far, the FBI has arrested four people as material witnesses and detained 75 others for questioning. In Afghanistan, Islamic clerics delayed 24 hours before deciding whether to hand over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the attacks. Afghan radio called for a Holy War by Muslims everywhere if the United States attacks. Palestinian Leader Arafat ordered a truce with Israel, and said he'd do his utmost to enforce it. Israel then ordered a halt to military operations unless provoked. The United States has been pressing both sides to cease firing as it tries to bring Arab nations into an anti-terror coalition. On Wall Street, the stock market stabilized somewhat following Monday's big sell-off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 17 points to close at 8903; the NASDAQ Index dropped 24 points to close at 1555.

FOCUS - RESCUE EFFORT

JIM LEHRER: Now the details marking the one- week anniversary in New York and Washington. Gwen Ifill reports.

GWEN IFILL: Exactly seven days to the minute after America's tragedy, life at the New York Stock Exchange paused for two minutes of silence. They also paused at the rescue site only blocks away, and at the White House, where President Bush stood with 300 members of his staff on the South Lawn.

SPOKESPERSON: The President of the United States.

GWEN IFILL: At midday, the President appeared with leaders from rescue groups, charities, and the states of New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania to applaud their work.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Last week was a... was a really horrible week for America, but out of our and sadness, we saw the best of America as well. We saw a great country rise up to help. Tens of millions of dollars and thousands of hours and tons of food and clothing have all been donated to help rebuild shattered lives. Last evening marked the start of Rosh Hashanah. In Jewish teaching, this holy day is the anniversary of the creation of the world. It is a season of renewal and of hope, and people of every faith all across America embrace that spirit of renewal and hope. Funds in New York and Washington are providing food, clothing and financial help to husbands and wives and sons and daughters who suffer mightily.

GWEN IFILL: Then, urging Americans to donate, the President promoted one particular charity web site: Libertyunites. Founded by corporate giants like AOL/Time Warner and Microsoft, the site has links to dozens of non-profits, groups that have collected more than $ 57 million since last Tuesday. Later today in New York, Mayor Rudy Giuliani observed day seven of the tragedy with this grim assessment.

MAYOR RUDOLPH GIULIANI: The chances of recovering any live human beings are very, very small now, given the amount of time and the condition of the site. Those chances are not totally, however, ended or over. So we will still conduct ourselves as a rescue effort, as well as a recovery effort. But we don't have any substantial am of hope that wecan offer to anyone, that we're going to be able to find anyone alive.

GWEN IFILL: Giuliani said the New York skyline will eventually be whole again, but he wasn't specific about what that means.

JIM LEHRER: Ray Suarez was at ground zero of the attack in New York today. Here is his report.

RAY SUAREZ: It might help if you think of the crash site as a small city, a heavily armed city with a disaster at its core. There's the constant noise of people coming and going, doing a bewildering array of jobs, a buzzing hive around the smoking wreck of two of the tallest building on earth and the skeletal hulks of the neighborhood around. Though it has been a week, this is still officially and repeated to reporters again and again a rescue operation. Police say it's the only way they can keep working.

BILL BEAURY, NY Police Department: It's a horror to know that they're in there and it's very frustrating that we can't just go to where they are and find them.

MARK DeMARCO, NY Police Department: By right we don't belong here. We belong in there with our friends, our co-workers. But if we came out, then there would be other people in there.

RAY SUAREZ: Donald Hull is from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Los Angeles unit, one of a constellation of such specialist drawn from agencies around the country and now working under the guidance of the New York Police Department.

SPOKESMAN: Make sure that nobody lags behind.

RAY SUAREZ: We caught up with Hull and a California squad of more than 60 men still probing the wreckage for signs of life.

DONALD HULL, FEMA Search and Rescue: What's happening here is the equipment operators are work closely with the rescue crews. We'll have to go in a work the heavy equipment to remove the heavy eye beams and whatnot that we can't move by hand. After the smaller portion of that is removed, we'll send the hand crews in to search void areas or dig by hand to get a little more area out of that way. We just have to wait and have the debris removed enough so we can look and find them. If they're there, we can go in and breach a hole in the concrete, make entry into there and do our search from there.

RAY SUAREZ: Today, there were 11 search-and-rescue teams laboring across this vast space. The FEMA teams are urban specialists, trained for work in collapsed and damaged buildings.

DONALD HULL: I was at Oklahoma City with that rescue effort. It doesn't compare to this one, the magnitude.

RAY SUAREZ: This California FEMA team headed into the lower level shopping mall that once spread out under the World Trade Center site. Other crews are also punching through parts of this enormous underground network: Shops, train stations, parking garages and a police station.

DONALD HULL: It's my personal feeling that there's a lot of void areas in the mall area that could be just a stuck door holding somebody in. We don't know. And that's our hope, that we can find areas that people are just coincidentally stuck maybe in and not involved in the large collapse.

RAY SUAREZ: Since the fires have died down, components of this building have been cut apart and loaded on to trucks. Steel girders, large slabs of concrete, but no matter how the thousands of tons taken away grow in number, as they have throughout the week, it seems like there's still an impossible task ahead. How can you carry away all this debris? As of today, some 50,000 tons of debris have been removed, staggering 100 million pounds of metal and concrete moved away. More and more skilled workers and law enforcement are headed to this project along with the heavy tools of the demolition trade, even as the relentless activity of the reviving city moves closer and closer to ground zero day by day.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: And now to the man in charge of the FEMA effort, the agency's director, Joe Allbaugh. He joins us from New York. Mr. Allbaugh, welcome.

JOE ALLBAUGH: Good evening, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: How would you summarize where matters stand. The rescue and recovery effort -- where does it stand tonight as we speak one week later?

JOE ALLBAUGH: Well, we're just barely scratching the surface to tell the truth here, one week later, as you say. We have a long way to go. We have in excess of 1.2 million tons of debris that's estimated - 1.2 million tons to be removed. And that's going to take quite some time. I just returned from the site this afternoon -- a few minutes ago, as a matter of fact. Thousands of workers headed up by the New York City's finest from the police department and the fire department, along with many people from all across the country - the USAR teams -- working as diligently, as respectfully as they possibly can, noticing possible areas, possible voids where individuals may be still available, but it's very, very dangerous work and time is working against us.

JIM LEHRER: How long... Is it possible to estimate how long this is going to take before you can go through the whole site and ascertain what is there and what isn't there?

JOE ALLBAUGH: I think it's going to be months before we can get through everything. I do think the teams are working as quickly as they can to go in and do their quick inspections looking for those voids, hoping, praying, that there are individuals still alive. And I believe that possibility exists. However, I think Mayor Giuliani is absolutely right: Time is slipping away from us and the longer we go without finding anyone, the less likely that we will in the end find anyone alive.

JIM LEHRER: As a practical matter, the teams go first to a particular area to see if they can find signs of life, and then that area is released and then the debris is removed. Is that how it's working?

JOE ALLBAUGH: That is correct. You may have seen some tape that we released today that was shot over the weekend. I'm sure many people were concerned about seeing the pay loaders lift up debris, but that debris has already been cleared and made sure that no important items were in that debris. It's the quickest and easiest way for us to move large deposits of debris to facilitate the inspection of the rest of the site.

JIM LEHRER: What kind of assistance is being made available to the victims, those who survived, and the families of victims who are either missing or who did not survive for sure?

JOE ALLBAUGH: Well there's a couple of things that I can talk about. Individuals who are displaced, for example, from their homes in Battery Park, they need to call and register with the FEMA hot line. Let me give that to you, Jim. And I want to be specific about this. 1-800-462-9029.

JIM LEHRER: Say it again.

JOE ALLBAUGH: 1-800-462-9029, a free call. That starts the process for temporary housing, unemployment assistance, any medical assistance those individuals may need. Families that are related to victims -- they should probably register with the Department of Justice. And I don't want to confuse people, but there are two important 800 numbers: ours with FEMA and the Department of Justice Office of Victims for Crime Family Assistance. That's 1-800-331-0075. Now it's important... And we will commingle those databases, share information; soall the families are part of a massive database to make sure they get the assistance that they need. But those folks do not need to be afraid of anything. They need to call. That starts the process for all the assistance that will come their way.

JIM LEHRER: Has there been evidence that people are reluctant, families of the victims are reluctant to come forward?

JOE ALLBAUGH: I think there are, Jim. Quite frankly, you know, everyone is hoping for all the best that they possibly can. Once they make a phone call it's almost as if they're acknowledging the harshest possibility. And I understand that reluctance. But at the same time, Jim, there is counseling that is needed by individuals, and we need to identify who those folks are, that we can get that counseling to in a very rapid order.

JIM LEHRER: Much has been said and written about the leadership of Mayor Giuliani during all of this.

JOE ALLBAUGH: Absolutely.

JIM LEHRER: What has been your experience with him these last several days, this last week?

JOE ALLBAUGH: It's been incredible. I've been here since last Wednesday night at 5:00; I stepped out for a day-and-a-half to scoot back down to the Pentagon to make sure we were doing our work there. And we are. And then I came back up yesterday morning. And I can't imagine New York City going through something like this without Rudy Giuliani at the helm. And I can't imagine the city without his leadership. He, along with Police Commissioner Carrick and Fire Commissioner Tommy Vannessen have just provided remarkable leadership. Member, Jim, you know the leadership of the fire department was essentially decimated as a result of this incident so they have rebounded in a remarkable fashion. The whole city has rebounded. I noticed an attitude of lifting of the spirit when I returned yesterday morning. That's what's going to get us through all this is this amazing American spirit. You see it alive and well in Northern Virginia and right here in New York City.

JIM LEHRER: The President said today that this has brought out the best of America. Is there a particular example of this that you would cite, a particular incident that you either witnessed or were told about that stands out?

JOE ALLBAUGH: One thing that I know about, apparently there was a lady who stopped to buy and picked up five or six kids, young kids from a day care. And she's basically becoming their foster mother because we don't know who those kids belong to. I mean that's the kind of American spirit, not asking questions, just acting, and doing - and you don't see many places around the world. It's absolutely incredible. The best thing, Jim, people can do is donate cash right now. The city is overwhelmed with individuals who want to come and help. Of course, we all want to come and help. It's getting very technical down at the site. We need to leave that to the experts. So please donate cash. There's one fireman who lost his life the other day. He has ten children still at home. We have to take care of those kids for their future and their grandkids.

JIM LEHRER: Is that the main need now is money?

JOE ALLBAUGH: I think it's money. I do think it's money, Jim. Of course, it's always good to donate blood because we need to have a ready supply nationwide. I think we're doing well there. Going down to your local fire department or police department and saying thank you, acknowledging what those men and women do on a daily basis, putting their lives on the line is very, very important. It's time to recognize that we can't continue particularly in the fire serviceto cut their budgets and expect them to do what they need to do: Protecting our infrastructure of this country and lives. And we need to give them the money that they need to have the proper equipment and tools to do their job and also give them the proper recognition.

JIM LEHRER: All right. Mr. Allbaugh, good luck to you and thank you very much.

JOE ALLBAUGH: Thank you, Jim.

FOCUS - VICTIMS OF FLIGHT 77

JIM LEHRER: Now, the story of some victims of last Tuesday's attack, and those they left behind. Kwame Holman reports. (Sirens)

KWAME HOLMAN: When American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, taking the lives of all on board, it carried eight members of a National Geographic Society field trip, including students and teachers from Washington, D.C. Leading the trip were Geographic Society staffers Ann Judge, 49, and Joe Ferguson, 39. Lanny Proffer worked with them.

LANNY PROFFER: When I walked in the building and there was Joe's and Ann's photographs in Explorers' Hall, then there was this sudden kind of tightening in my stomach, I said, "oh, my God, how did this happen?"

KWAME HOLMAN: The distinctive cover of the 113-year-old National Geographic Society magazine is recognized around the world. Ann Judge headed the in-house travel department that sent out writers and photographers to bring to life for readers the planet's most remote places. Director of photography Kent Kobersteen:

KENT KOBERSTEEN: She was good-humored and short and feisty and efficient, and our photographers come in with some pretty bizarre travel requests and requirements sometimes, and nothing was too difficult for Ann.

KWAME HOLMAN: For 14 years, Joe Ferguson worked on restoring the study of Geography to a prominent place in the nation's classrooms. Terry Garcia was Ferguson's boss.

TERRY GARCIA: We were disturbed to find at the time that geographic literacy in this country was so shockingly low, and we began a program which was designed to provide the tools that teachers and instructors need in order to train the next generation of leaders.

KWAME HOLMAN: Lanny Proffer says Joe Ferguson approached the mission with dedication and ingenuity.

LANNY PROFFER: He was one of those people where you'd say... Listen to what he'd say, and you'd say, "God, why didn't I think of that? What a neat idea. Let's do that." And I really don't know what we're going to do without him.

KWAME HOLMAN: The trip Ferguson and Judge were to lead offered teachers and students the chance to experience the Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary off Santa Barbara, California.

LANNY PROFFER: He literally invented the kind of training that we offered to teachers. There are thousands, literally thousands of teachers around this country that - for whom Joe was the Society.

KWAME HOLMAN: In a tough neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C., was one of those teachers. In the late 1980's, 58-year-old James Debeuneure switched careers and began teaching at Ketchum Elementary School. Colleagues say "Mr. Deb," as he was known, always looked for new ways to engage his fifth graders. The Geographic Society's program was a natural.

( Singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" )

PEOPLE SINGING: Glory, glory hallelujah...

KWAME HOLMAN: A memorial service for Debeuneure was held Saturday. Gwendolyn Faulkner worked in the geography program at another school and saw the group off at Dulles Airport. She described Debeuneure's arrival at the gate with Rodney Dickens, the 11-year-old Ketchum Elementary student chosen to accompany him.

GWENDOLYN FAULKNER: You would not believethe excitement. In fact, James was so anxious that he didn't bother to stop at the main terminal to check in. He came directly to the gate, luggage and all. I will never forget James and Rodney walking in with their National Geographic caps on as if to say, "we're on official business here." ( Laughter )

KWAME HOLMAN: Last year Debeuneure took Rodney under his wing. An honor student who lived with his mother, the fifth grader was supported by a large extended family that included his father, Rodney, Sr., and stepmother, Leathia who live nearby. Leathia works with us at the NewsHour.

RODNEY HEAITCOATCH: He's very shy, but he's very smart, and he listens a lot. A lot of times Washington kids or inner city kids don't get to go places, but we have very intelligent young kids out there who are going to be our next lawyers, and our next doctors, and maybe even a president. You never know. And he was on that path.

KWAME HOLMAN: Rodney Senior's pride in his talented son is tempered by regret over the things they didn't do together.

RODNEY HEAITCOATCH: I'm just telling all the fathers out there, please spend time with your child. Don't let a tragedy just snatch it up from under you. Spend that time, because your job is going to be there. You have bosses, and you have to have food on the table, but make time, because you can't go back and do it.

KWAME HOLMAN: James Debeuneure raised his daughter, Jalin, after her mother died in 1985. At the memorial service Jalin read a letter to her father.

JALIN DEBEUNEURE: Dear Dad, I know that God is good. I know that He is go because he hired you on Tuesday for a job that was only fit for a special encouraged individual. God was looking for a leader to teach his children in heaven. On one hand, I'm upset that you left me; but on the other hand, I'm proud that you didn't refuse this glorious offer. You were a teacher not only in the classroom, but wherever you felt the need for something to be taught. You taught me to respect myself as well as others. I remember the times when you would say, "baby girl, go put a coat on over those too tight clothes..." (Laughter) "...Or too short clothes." To this day, part of me still believes that you're going to walk through our front door at home, and say, "Jalin, I'm home," and then I jump back to reality and realize that this is not a movie. This is real life and my daddy is gone.

KWAME HOLMAN: All of the victims of the Pentagon attack will be memorialized at a special ceremony later this month.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, mounting a response to the terrorists and terrorism, the investigation and the view from overseas.

FOCUS - PUSUING BIN LADEN

JIM LEHRER: Here's an update on the efforts to get terrorist leader bin Laden out of Afghanistan. Julian Manyon of Independent Television News reports from Pakistan.

JULIAN MANYON: The Taliban have given no clear answer to the demand that they surrender Osama bin Laden. In talks with the Pakistani delegation sent by President Musharraf, they apparently mentioned conditions under which they might consider handing him over, but there has been no agreement and today a Taliban leader again warned the Afghan population to prepare for a possible holy war. The conditions which might or might not be attached to Osama bin Laden's head, are first that he should be handed over for trial in a neutral country-- not the United States-- and second, that the Taliban regime should receive international recognition. But the chances of a deal on those lines still seem remote, and Pakistani officials are warning that efforts may fail.

GEN. RASHID KURASHI: There's a misperception in the West that Pakistan exercises total control over the Afghan government or Afghanistan; it's not true. We do sort of engage them. We try to convince them of world concerns. It's not always that they listen.

JULIAN MANYON: The Taliban are preparing for war. Their army, which is still battling the opposition in the North, is apparently dispersing its units to areas where they might be safer from attack. The call has gone out to young men to leave their religious colleges and join the Mujahedeen. But many ordinary Afghans are still trying to flee. People are leaving the capital, Kabul, and flooding towards the Pakistani border.

RIDAZ MUHAMMED KHAN: Hundreds and thousands of Afghans are leaving cities and heading towards Pakistan.

JULIAN MANYON: These were some of the last to get across. Pakistan has now ordered its troops and police to seal the border areas. The Taliban still say that a grand council of clerics should decide Osama bin Laden's fate. And that council is now due to start its work tomorrow. Some 700 Muslim priests are expected to attend and any decision could take several days.

UPDATE - INVESTIGATION

JIM LEHRER: Officials in Washington continued their efforts on a number of fronts today. Terence Smith reports on that.

TERENCE SMITH: From the site of one of Tuesday's attacks, the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that even capturing Osama bin Laden would be enough to prevent a U.S. military attack in the coming months.

DONALD RUMSFELD: It's not a matter of a single event. We're talking about a very broadly based campaign to go after the terrorist problem where it exists, and it exists in countries across the globe. As I've indicated, this one network, Al Qaeda, that's receiving so much discussion and publicity may have activities in 50 to 60 countries including the United States. Therefore, it will not be quick and it will not be easy. Our adversaries are not one or two terrorist leaders or even a single terrorist organization or network. We'll have to deal with the networks. One of the ways to do that is to drain the swamp they live in, and that means dealing not only with the terrorists, but those who harbor terrorists.

TERENCE SMITH: A few blocks away, administration officials continued to work on pulling together an international coalition to fight terrorism, including Arab states. This morning, Secretary of State Colin Powell said he welcomed moves towards an Israeli- Palestinian truce.

COLIN POWELL: Chairman Arafat has issued some strong positive statements with respect to the situation in the region and the efforts he will be making to reduce, eliminate the violence. And I'm pleased that Foreign Minister Peres and Prime Minister Sharon affirmed to me that they would be doing everything on their side to disengage from the opportunities for conflict with the Palestinians in specific towns and cities so as to have sort of a separation that might encourage a state of nonviolence.

TERENCE SMITH: Meanwhile, as the investigation continued, Attorney General John Ashcroft said this afternoon that associates of the hijackers may still be in the U.S. He said last Tuesday's hijackers may have had other targets.

JOHN ASHCROFT: We are looking at the possibility that there may have been more than four planes targeted for hijacking. But we are not able at this time to confirm that.

TERENCE SMITH: Ashcroft also announced new rules that would take effect for detaining illegal aliens, including those detained in thecurrent investigation.

JOHN ASHCROFT: The regulation previously allowed the Immigration and Naturalization Service only 24 hours in which to decide whether to charge an alien that had been taken into custody because of a violation. The revision announced last night expands the 24-hour time period to 48 hours, or to an additional reasonable time if necessary under an emergency or in other extraordinary circumstances. This rule change will apply to the 75 individuals who are currently detained by the INS on immigration violations that may also have information related to this investigation.

TERENCE SMITH: The Attorney General said so far four people had been arrested as material witnesses. He also announced that new antiterrorism task forces would be created in every major city under the direction of the local U.S. Attorney.

JIM LEHRER: More on the investigation, and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: And for that we're joined once again by Evan Thomas, the assistant managing editor of "Newsweek." Welcome back, Evan. Bring us up to date. What are the most important new developments you think in the last couple of days?

EVAN THOMAS: Well, the most important thing that came out today was that Mohammed Atta, who is one of the 19 hijackers and seems to be a big fish amongst them, apparently met in Europe with one of Saddam Hussein's agents. Now, that is very... potentially very significant because if we can establish that Saddam was part of this plot or somehow enabling this plot, all of a sudden we're in a new ballgame here, the potential of a wider war, the ramifications are endless. Now the intelligence officials who told us about this cautioned that this is not a lay-down case, they don't have final hard evidence, but it's nonetheless very intriguing and I think significant.

MARGARET WARNER: Another interesting development that has been reported today has to do with suspicious stock trading shortly before the....

EVAN THOMAS: Yeah, this is almost too awful to imagine, but the authorities are looking into the possibility that the terrorists bought some insurance stocks and sold them short, knowing that they would plummet. In other words, they were so comfortable in our capitalist world that they can manipulate our stock market to profit off their coming terrorism. That's something that they're investigating. It's not confirmed.

MARGARET WARNER: But how good is the... if that were true, how good is the... I don't know if it's an Internet trail or a paper trail. I mean I suppose the significance would be that they could start to follow the money.

EVAN THOMAS: That's surely what they're trying to do in every possible way. They picked up somebody in San Diego recently who has some kind of money connection to two of the hijackers. You can be sure they're banging on the door of every Swiss bank trying to follow the money here, but it's pretty hard because these cells are quite sophisticated about moving their money.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, we talked about this when you were here on Saturday, but just refresh our memory here about how much investigators have learned about how this network operated in this country.

EVAN THOMAS: Well, there are various horrifying aspects one of which is I think seven of the nineteen had flight training, which goes to their sophistication. It looks like this plot has been in the work for two to three years, so they're patient. There are aspects that are just coming to light that are disturbing. It seems like they took the identities of several Saudis. Now, that could mean any number of things. It could mean that they had some help not at the top of the Saudi government obviously but somewhere in the Saudi government. It speaks of a kind of sophistication which is very worrisome.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, are you saying that they might not have really been Saudis but they established essentially Saudi identities?

EVAN THOMAS: Right. They're checking back to the resumes of some of these pilots, and it appears that the actual Saudis exist; they're real people. Only they stole their ID's. This is confusing and troubling to investigators because the initial assumption was these people were actually traveling under their own names. That appears not to be the case now. And it just adds another layer of uncertainty, and again of deviousness to this whole plot.

MARGARET WARNER: And, also, of course, I could imagine from their perspective, let's say they were Afghans or Iraqis or whatever, to establish Saudi identities, Saudi Arabia known as a big ally of the United

States and they're taking flight training; that would be less suspicious.

EVAN THOMAS: Yeah. I mean people at the flight training school said, well, these Saudi pilots, they're our buddies; we don't worry about their backgrounds.

MARGARET WARNER: Now a Grand Jury has also been convened, and the net it seems of people they've got just under detention, the Justice Department or actually, what -- the Immigration Service has under detention has tripled just since the weekend.

EVAN THOMAS: It's a wide net. I mean they're obviously sweating every girlfriend, wife, friend, casting a wide net just as you would imagine. They do have a few people in particular they're paying attention to. The scariest ones are these guys with box cutters and hair dye who seem to have been targeting a potential airliner for a hijack. The other thing that investigators are very worried about is that one of the people in detention had a fake pilot's license. Now, they think that's not obviously for an airliner. That's for a private plane. That's to take a small private plane some place. Where? Full of what? To what end? That's a very frightening prospect.

MARGARET WARNER: And then John Ashcroft, the Attorney General, and Dick Cheney, the Vice President, said Sunday that they were looking hard at the possibility that there were more than four planes targeted. What leads them to think that?

EVAN THOMAS: Well, just the guys they picked up on a plane from, I think, it was Newark to San Antonio who had the box cutters. So that plane itself may have been a target. They were diverted to St. Louis and nothing ever happened. Did they flinch? Were they moving on to another plane? I mean, we're guessing here. But the fact that they had those weapons, those homemade weapons, tells you something. They weren't... They were probably up to no good. And, again, there is a sense of a second wave. Not only was there going to be possibly another plane that day, but there's this fear that another wave is still to come. Various dates are floating around. I don't know how real any of them are -- September 20, September 22. But this idea of a second wave has got investigators worried.

MARGARET WARNER: And investigators do think that there are other cells, as they call them, of these associates still out there.

EVAN THOMAS: Intelligence officials told "Newsweek" that one of them used 50, which seems like a huge number, another said dozens. That's a lot of cells.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, Evan, thanks very much. Thanks for joining us.

FOCUS - FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS

JIM LEHRER: Next tonight, a look at how America's allies are responding to the attack, as observed by four "New York Times" foreign correspondents. They spoke this afternoon with Robert MacNeil in New York. He has come out of retirement to lend us a hand during this crisis.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: Joining me are four members of the foreign staff of the New York Times: London Bureau Chief Warren Hoge; from Hamburg, Steven Erlanger, the bureau chief for Central Europe; chief Moscow Correspondent Michael Wines; and Cairo Bureau Chief Neil McFarquhar

ROBERT MAC NEIL: Gentlemen, for a week President Bush has been trying to forge a coalition against terrorism. From your different vantage points tonight, has he succeeded? Seen from Britain, Warren Hoge, is there an effective coalition in place, ready to act?

WARREN HOGE, New York Times: He's probably had the greatest success here because of Britain's almost national pride in being America's greatest ally, particularly at moments like this, and particularly with this prime minister, Tony Blair, who showed during the NATO bombing that he would be Europe's greatest cheerleader for America at war. In Britain, there are some voices being raised, sounding worries about the kind of retaliation, the risk of killing innocent people, of thereby creating new recruits for Islamic fundamentalism. But they tend to be pretty marginalized by the forceful and loud voice of Tony Blair.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: And as of the moment, Britain is prepared to send troops, if necessary, to join in a military exercise.

WARREN HOGE: Britain is prepared to send troops, as it has in the past, absolutely.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: From Germany, Steven Erlanger, do you see a commitment as unequivocal there and in Central Europe, a readiness to use force?

STEVE ERLANGER, New York Times: There is a very sharp commitment on the part of the Germans, a kind of solidarity which has I think been very refreshing to Washington, because Germany is a place where its size isn't often matched by its activities, you know, by its commitments. I don't think, however, given the need for the German parliament to support the use of force that the Americans are likely to ask the Germans to participate. But they will want base rights, over flight rights, and the rest of Europe is quite strong; they see this as an attack not just on the United States but on the entire system of western values, of openness, of a free economy, and they know there must be a response. The only worry is that the United States will drag them without proper consultation into a wider war that somehow becomes West versus Islam. But I don't think Washington intends to do that.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: And are they feeling not adequately consulted to date?

STEVE ERLANGER: I think Washington first has to decide what it wants to do. Washington is being very careful that things don't leak. So everyone is talking as if consultation is going on at a high level. I think it will happen later, and it will happen all of a sudden, but no one's pushing the panic button yet, no.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: From Moscow, Michael Wines, how committed are Russia's leaders to the war Washington has declared on terrorism?

MICHAEL WINES, New York Times: Well, I think the extent of the commitment here so far at least is considerably less than you've heard in Germany and in Britain. You know, there is a great uneasiness with the United States here and has been ever since the war in Yugoslavia three years ago. And I think that that in some ways is coming home to roost with the United States right now with the Russians. They're suspicious of American military power. They are not at all happy with the idea of letting NATO forces or American forces into Central Asia. And frankly there is to a certain extent a feeling here, at least among the public, and they say among the elite, that in some ways the Americans have gotten their comeuppance for trying to act like the global superpower. In the end I think the Russians have to make a decision, a very tough decision about whether they want to be part of Europe or not. And in the very end I think they may very well wind up becoming more strongly supportive of the United States. But so far I think it's up in the air.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: We see that today Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and Jiang Zemin of China had a telephone call in which they promised to work together on forming some kind of mechanism to deal with terrorism, including the United Nations, through the United Nations, which was particularly mentioned. Does that mean that Russia is not too anxious to join a coalition, which is American-led and which involves promises from NATO perhaps?

MICHAEL WINES: Well, as I said - I think the NATO element of it makes them quite uneasy, and it is boilerplate for the Russians to say that they want all these sort of operations to be conducted under United Nations auspices. Now, having said that, the Russians have not ruled out, at least as far as I know, allowing European nations and perhaps the United States to either use some of their facilities or the facilities of Central Asian nations. There's been a good deal of back and forth over that. But as the Undersecretary of State John Bolton said here just yesterday, he thinks the Russians have ruled - neither ruled anything in nor ruled anything out.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: In Cairo, Neil McFarquhar, are moderate Arab states, starting with Egypt, willing to join a U.S.-led coalition against terrorism?

NEIL McFARQUHAR, New York Times: They have said that they are willing to join in the fight against terrorism, but they are very leery about the United States attacking anybody before there is proof of who carried out the attack. When you see political cartoons in the newspapers saying things like - there's a group of American generals around saying, okay, the planes are loaded with bombs, and a million soldiers are ready to go, now who do we attack -- and the general in the corner saying, well, just pick a piece of paper out of a hat. So they really don't want it to be any kind of rash action; they really want it to be a considered attack against whoever perpetrated this.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: Do the people you've talked to in Egypt and elsewhere think that Washington has made a case yet for a rationale for pursuing Osama bin Laden through the Pakistanis and into Afghanistan?

NEIL McFARQUHAR: I don't think that the people here are convinced of that, no. I think that while they are horrified by the attack, they really want proof of who's behind it, and they don't want to see a response to be what they consider a knee-jerk attack against the Muslim world for carrying out this kind of attack.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: Warren Hoge in London, do the British feel that Washington has made a case yet for singling out bin Laden?

WARREN HOGE: The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, yesterday said that British intelligence, separately from American intelligence, was also pointing the finger at bin Laden, so I think by and large the British do agree that he's the man. The British also feel that the attack targeted them. So many of their citizens probably died, maybe up to 300, there is emerging now evidence of cells within Britain. As a matter of fact, there is even the fear being expressed here as is being expressed in the United States that those might be active cells, that the next step might be an attack on some British installation, some British place. So I think the British are convinced that bin Laden is the man, and they are certainly convinced of the degree of the threat and eager to bring him to justice, to punish him, but most importantly I think to forestall the possibility of terror coming to Britain.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: And Steve Erlanger, speaking from Hamburg, where according to the FBI and the American government some associates of bin Laden, and people who planned this attack lived and worked - do the Germans - are the Germans convinced of the case Washington is making?

STEVE ERLANGER: Well, they've said they've not found concrete evidence yet that ties the cell here, which was deeply involved in the attacks, to Bin Laden. But senior German intelligence officials do say this attack bears all the signatures of Osama bin Laden. It was against a very symbolic structure; it involved a multinational group of Islamic people who were operating in fairly small cells. It was an attack against a way of life, and bin Laden has never really taken credit for much of any kind of attack. But the Germans are pretty much satisfied that, yes, this was bin Laden. But here, as everywhere, people worry about, you know, bin Laden isn't necessarily the answer; it's not the solution. One bin Laden may be followed by another bin Laden. There needs to be a longer and sustained fight against terrorism, against its financing, against the way it works. People here are also very struck here in the intelligence circle as to how long a planning process this took - this must have taken more than two years to set into motion, and that changes people's ideas of what they're fighting against, as well.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: Neil McFarquhar, since U.S. support for Israel is so often mentioned as a factor in the anger of many Arabs who are not extremists or terrorists, will the apparent cease-fire between Israel and the Palestinians today have an effect on the current situation and the willingness of some Arab governments to side with the United States?

NEIL McFARQUHAR: Well, there have been an awful lot of cease-fires in this conflict since it started about a year ago, and none of them have really held, but I think it's an important issue, because while the television coverage of the attack in New York has been thorough, it has been juxtaposed with the same kind of violence ongoing in Israel, so when people watch the satellite channels in the Middle East, these days on their screen, they're seeing the clean-up in New York, but they're also seeing Israeli tanks firing and protests continuing, so they say - you know both in the streets and in the government - that the United States has to do something about stopping that violence and ending the occupation before they can sell or before they can accept some sort of coalition against terrorism, and they said that was a promise to an extent with the coalition against Iraq in the Gulf War -- and it never bore -- didn't bear fruit, so they are concerned about joining another coalition that leaves that problem unsolved.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: Can I ask each of you how Washington's leadership and behavior is perceived where you are. Warren Hoge, after the first wave of solidarity and sympathy, which was so apparent in Western Europe, and particularly Britain, where the queen led a service in St. Paul's - you've all reported some degree of second thoughts - back peddling - a little - voices of caution raised. How has that been affected by Mr. Bush's leadership, his rhetoric, the actions he's taken so far? Does that inspire confidence and reassurance?

WARREN HOGE: I think Colin Powell inspires more confidence. Many Britons have said to me they feel much more comfortable with George W. Bush now that Colin Powell seems to be permanently at his side. Colin Powell speaks the language of diplomacy; he is somebody who understands both the capabilities and the limitations of military power. This is what the British think -- and so they have a much higher degree of comfort with his kind of talking than the more bellicose language of President Bush - so they're hoping for Bush, they're behind Bush; this is a very pro-American place in Europe, but there's a little bit of worry that he's untested and also that he's surrounded by some other people who might have a little more hotheaded reaction to what must be done now than Colin Powell seems to be having.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: Steve Erlanger, how is Mr. Bush's leadership and his rhetoric perceived where you are, Germany?

STEVE ERLANGER: A little worrying, quite honestly. People are being very polite, but they see often the kind of terror in Mr. Bush's eyes when he goes off - off of his script. They worry he will feel too much political pressure to react too soon and in the wrong way. They are hopeful that he will listen to his senior advisers, and they think that he will, and they have a little bit of odd relief, almost, that for an administration that so far has regarded relations with Europe as very much secondary, if not tertiary, it is now discovering that, as usual, in a crisis America's best friends are on this continent.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: And, Michael Wines, in Moscow, how is the Washington leadership under Mr. Bush perceived?

MICHAEL WINES: Well, I think that there has been a great deal of uneasiness with the unilateralism that the Russians think the United States has displayed mostly in the last year, but, again, going back to Yugoslavia. And I think in this case there is great hope - certainly among Russian people and among the leadership - that this will turn out to be something of a turning point in American/Russian relations, a chance for the Americans to consult with the Russians in reality for a change. The Russians here feel, I think, somewhat ignored in international relations, and so they're hoping for a much more cooperative attitude. But I have to say, so far there is great suspicion and I think they're waiting for the Americans to come up with a plan. And when they see that plan, I think they'll have a better idea.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: And, in Cairo, Neil McFarquhar, how is Mr. Bush's leadership perceived there?

NEIL McFARQUHAR: Across the Middle East the one exception in this whole thing has been Iraq, which has been attacking the United States -- what it calls its "cowboy policies." But the one thing that has upset the Arabs is apparently in one speech, Mr. Bush used the word "crusades." That word is fraught with a lot of terrible memories in the Middle East because, of course, the Crusades were used to attack the region. So there has been a lot of discussion that if this is a new crusade, they don't want to be part of it.

ROBERT MAC NEIL: Well, Neil McFarquhar, and gentlemen in London, Hamburg, and Moscow, thank you all very much for joining us.

JIM LEHRER: And late today French President Chirac said France is ready to do whatever it needed to fight terrorism. He met with President Bush at the White House. Mr. Bush said there had been an outpouring of international support. He also said he was very pleased with the Palestinian and Israeli moves toward a cease-fire.

FINALLY - POETIC RESPONSE

JIM LEHRER: Before we go tonight, a response through poetry. Here is former poet laureate and NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky.

ROBERT PINSKY: Here is one of the many poems that have come to my attention in the time since September 11. One of the themes of these times has been courage. Courage that many have shown and the courage that may be required. Here is Mary Ann Moore's poem "What Are Years?" What is our innocence what is our guilt? All are naked. None is safe. And whence is courage, the unanswered question, the resolute doubt, dumbly calling, deafly listening that in misfortune, even death encourages others and in its defeat stirs the soul to be strong. He sees deep and is glad who accedes to mortality and in his imprisonment rises upon himself as the sea in a chasm, struggling to be free and unable to be in its surrendered finds its continuing. So he who strongly feels, behaves. The very bird grown taller as he sings steals his form straight up. Though he is captive, his mighty singing says, satisfaction is a lowly thing, how pure a thing is joy. This is mortality. This is eternity.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with our continuing coverage of the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you good night.