Russia and others condemn terrorism

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Russia and others condemn terrorism

National Guard call-up is under consideration

Friday, September 14, 2001

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER NEWS SERVICES

President Bush's call for a global coalition against terrorism gained support yesterday as Russia and other countries expressed anger over the attacks on the United States and called for a worldwide effort to combat such acts.

The U.S. military remained on high alert around the world, and Bush was considering whether to call up members of the National Guard and Reserve. The last such call-up was in January 1991 for the Gulf War.


	Members of the 4249th Port Security Company, an Army Reserve unit in Fort Dodge, Iowa, board a Marine plane for duty at the port of Beaumont, Texas. / Associated Press Click for larger photo

Russia and NATO issued a rare joint statement after a special meeting in Brussels, Belgium, saying "the horrific scale of the attacks of 11 September is without precedent in modern history."

The NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, which oversees relations between the two former Cold War adversaries, said NATO and Russia would "intensify" cooperation to fight the scourge of terrorism.

Russia's support for the United States has been unusually forthright, rooted in what Moscow perceives as a common cause: the fight against Islamic radicalism. Russia has portrayed the civil war in Chechnya as a struggle against fanatic Islamic terrorists.

The Russian government has consistently asserted that the Islamic activity it is fighting on its southern borders has its roots in Afghanistan.

A senior NATO official said Russia had offered the statement, without being asked. The official said that Ukraine was likely to make a similar statement today.

Smaller countries outside NATO also pledged military aid in any counterattack on terrorists.

In Romania, President Ion Iliescu said his country was ready, even though it is not a member of NATO. "It is our duty in the present circumstances to act as a fully fledged member of NATO, with all the obligations that entails," Iliescu said, according to the news agency Rompres.

Bulgaria's foreign minister, Solomon Passi, said his government was "prepared to use all means possible to support a possible strike or retaliation" by the United States.

Wednesday, the 19 members of NATO took the unprecedented step of invoking a mutual defense clause -- pledging assistance if the plot to use hijacked jetliners to smash into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon prove to have been directed from abroad.

In Britain, where Home Secretary Jack Straw said that "hundreds" of British citizens had died in the attack on the World Trade Center, the government announced that its forces were already on the alert for possible retaliatory action.

President Jacques Chirac of France did not specifically mention military action, but he told CNN that polls showed the 96 percent of the French were "in solidarity with the U.S.," something he had never seen before.

"France, I would like to repeat, will be totally supportive," he said.

The NATO decision does not bind any of the allies to any specific action. But it lays the groundwork for NATO to offer assistance, if the United States requests it.

NATO denied reports that it had already drawn up a plan to invade Afghanistan, the refuge of Osama bin Laden, the exiled Saudi millionaire who is suspected of having planned the devastating attacks.

There were no indications yesterday of a buildup of American forces in the Middle East or elsewhere.

But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has asked Bush to call several thousand members of the National Guard and Reserve to active duty in the next few days, a defense official said.

The last presidential call-up was in January 1991 when 265,322 reservists were federalized for the Gulf War.

In a reduction of military activity, recently ordered flights of sophisticated radar planes -- called AWACS -- over the United States have been halted, Rumsfeld said last night on CNN's "Larry King Live."

The decision coincided with the resumption of commercial airline flights Thursday morning.

Rumsfeld also noted that combat planes continue to fly over the New York-Washington corridor. He said he has not decided when those flights should stop. "And we do have interceptors on 15-minute alert across the country on some 26 bases," Rumsfeld told CNN.

Air National Guard reserve pilots have been used in military emergencies on many occasions.

Meanwhile, President Bush's nominee for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was pressed yesterday to explain why the military didn't scramble jets faster to respond to terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers conceded to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the military didn't get any fighters into the air until after a hijacked airliner slammed into the Pentagon on Tuesday.

Myers also said the fighter jets "did not shoot down any aircraft" on a chaotic morning when four passenger aircraft were hijacked and used as guided missiles.

Myers spoke at a hearing on his nomination to become the nation's highest-ranking military officer. The term of the current Joint Chiefs chairman, Army Gen. Henry "Hugh" Shelton, expires at the end of this month.

Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., specifically wanted to know when the Pentagon was notified of the attacks, what response the military took and when it did so.

Myers said that when the twin towers in New York were hit, the U.S. military had "much fewer" aircraft on alert than during the height of the Cold War. Also, the Air Force has few bases around the perimeter of the country, he said.

"It's not just a question of launching an aircraft, it's launching to do what?" Myers said.

There were no military planes in the skies over Washington until 15 to 20 minutes after the Pentagon was hit -- some 40 minutes after the second New York tower was attacked, a defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Myers said fighters approached a fourth commandeered plane over Pennsylvania moments before it crashed into a field. He rejected rumors that the last hijacked plane was shot down.