Article: Answers in Attack Could Take Years

Summary

U.S. investigators are beginning the search for evidence pointing to those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. The Bush administration wants a definitive answer soon, but the investigation will likely require thousands of hours of manpower and could take years to complete.

Analysis

Thousands of U.S. law enforcement investigators Sept. 12 began piecing together evidence to reconstruct the events leading up to the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon yesterday. The investigation will take U.S. officials overseas, and the manhunt for those responsible will likely require the cooperation and coordination of law enforcement officials and intelligence agencies from several nations.

The U.S. government, already calling the attack an act of war, is now trying to define the enemy so that it can formulate a response. The FBI's investigation may one day bring some of the conspirators to justice, but it will require thousands of hours of work and could take years to complete. Despite the best efforts of American law enforcement, it also isn't likely to provide either the nation or the Bush administration what is most needed right now -- a definitive target.

The FBI took several people in Boston and Florida into custody Sept. 12 for questioning, but although the agency has leads in Florida, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, FBI Director Robert Mueller said there have been no arrests, Fox News reported. FBI agents in Florida also interviewed several people associated with aviation training schools that were apparently attended by two of the suspected hijackers beginning as early as last year.

According to Mueller, FBI officials have already identified the hijackers, The Washington Post reported. Officials were able to track the suspects by combing a variety of leads including airline passenger lists, airport videotapes, cockpit voice recorders, car rental receipts and hotel registration lists.

As the investigation progresses, each bit of information is vital for allowing the investigators to backtrack, using a paper trail left behind by the attackers, to tie the culprits with their conspirators. The FBI will also be reviewing lists of known or suspected terrorists, or their associates, who might have had access to Canada or the United States.

FBI officials in Boston, where two of the hijacked airplanes used in the attack originated, reportedly have already identified five men who may have been involved in the operation. At least two of the suspects are thought to have traveled from Portland, Maine, to Boston before the hijacking.

Luggage supposedly belonging to one of the hijackers was found and contained a copy of the Koran, an instructional video on flying commercial airliners and a fuel consumption calculator, The Boston Globe reported. Police also reportedly seized a car containing Arabic-language flight training manuals in the airport's central parking garage.

But identification of the dead hijackers will not come fast enough to determine U.S. policy in the days to come. Following the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the United States dispatched dozens of FBI agents to East Africa to launch an investigation. However, former U.S. President Bill Clinton didn't wait until the investigation proved the complicity of other nations before he acted.

Thirteen days after the attackers struck, Clinton ordered missile strikes against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. Although accused of harboring international terrorists, neither nation was ever proven to have participated in the bombings.

President George W. Bush and his national security team are facing a similar dilemma. The president has already vowed to avenge the attacks, but identifying a responsible party and, more important, pinpointing a target Washington can retaliate against will be extremely difficult. Logic dictates the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden's Al-Qa'ida group is connected in some way to the attack, but establishing such ties, if they exist, will not come quickly.

Although Bush met early Sept. 12 with his senior national security advisers to assess the situations in both New York and in Washington, and to determine U.S. options, the question of when and how he will respond remains to be answered.

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