Six Months Later: Where We Are

The U.S. Has Essentially Returned To Normal

(CBS)  Half a year has passed since the Sept. 11 terrorist attack shook the nation to its core. CBSNews.com's Joel Roberts takes stock:

Despite some minor inconveniences, like long waits at the airport and being asked to wear ID badges at work, life has essentially returned to normal for most Americans six months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

News broadcasts once given over to all-terrorism/all the time are now increasingly dominated by reports on the Enron scandal and the economy. Flag sales are down and outward displays of patriotism on the wane. In Washington, the fleeting sense of political unity that followed the attacks has given way to traditional partisan bickering. The anthrax scare appears to be over.

Half a year since Sept. 11, Americans say they feel safer and think the threat of terrorism has subsided as a result of the success of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

But while the Taliban have been driven from power and the al Qaeda terrorist network has been disrupted, the war on terror is far from over. The past week has seen the fiercest fighting yet, as a massive U.S.-led assault seeks to drive the last al Qaeda diehards from the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Eight American soldiers have been killed in the campaign, code-named Operation Anaconda, which began March 1. U.S. defense officials claim they have inflicted hundreds of casualties on the enemy.

The U.S. is taking the war on terror beyond Afghanistan, too. American advisers or Special Forces are either in or on their way to the Philippines, Somalia, Yemen, northern Iraq and Georgia. As well, some 300 suspected al Qaeda and Taliban fighters remain held for questioning at the U.S Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Recent weeks have also seen the kidnapping and brutal murder of an American reporter, Daniel Pearl, by Muslim extremists in Pakistan.

And, of course, the number one and two most-wanted terrorist villains, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, remain on the loose, their whereabouts unknown.

But there have been no major acts of terrorism in the U.S. in the past six months – although some, most notoriously the alleged attempt by accused shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up an airliner with 197 people on board – have been thwarted.

Incidents of anthrax-by-mail - which led to five deaths last year and caused a nationwide panic - have receded. Authorities now believe the anthrax most likely had a domestic source, and while they've narrowed their list of suspects, no arrests have been made.

Americans, according to a CBS News say they feel safer and their expectations of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil are at their lowest level since Sept. 11. Over seven in ten Americans think it is likely the success of the war in Afghanistan will curb the threat of terrorism in the U.S.

The country remains firm in its support of both the war effort and President Bush, whose approval ratings continue to hover at record levels.

Six months after the terrorist attacks, cleanup efforts at the World Trade Center disaster site are continuing and the remains of victims are still being recovered. Just last week, the bodies of two police officers were found in the rubble and removed from the site draped in American flags. Officially, 158 people are classified as missing. A total of 2,830 people were killed at the trade center on Sept. 11.

City and state officials in New York said the pace of the trade center cleanup is ahead of schedule, but warned that rebuilding plans should proceed cautiously. Recovery workers are now focusing on the last mountain of debris, a heap that used to be part of the south tower.

To mark the six-month anniversary of the attacks, twin columns of light, meant to evoke the destroyed towers, will be beamed into the skies from a spot near the disaster zone.

In nearby Battery Park, a steel-and-bronze sculpture which once stood in the World Trade Center plaza and was damaged on Sept. 11, will be re-dedicated on Monday at 8:46 a.m. – the exact time that the first of two hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said last week that the two memorials, though only temporary, "give us a place to go and reflect and to pray."

Meanwhile, President Bush has announced an additional aid package for New York City that will bring the total federal assistance to more than $21 billion.

The rebuilding effort is also continuing at the Pentagon, where 189 people were killed on Sept. 11. The head of the rebuilding program vowed that by the date of the one-year anniversary of the attack, Defense Department workers will be back at their desks at the very spot where a hijacked airliner crashed into the building.

"We want them sitting at their desks, doing their work" by Sept. 11, 2002, said Walker Lee Evey, manager of the restoration project.

On Capitol Hill, the post-Sept. 11 political detente that held for several months has given way to old-fashioned partisan fights over energy, defense, the budget, campaign finance reform and judicial nominees.

Despite growing signs of economic recovery, Congress last week finally passed a long-delayed economic-stimulus bill that would extend unemployment benefits and provide modest business tax breaks.

Lastly, there's some good news for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Rules for distributing federal money to victims have been expanded to cover more people and give them more money than under guidelines released in December.

The average award will be about $1.85 million, roughly $200,000 more than what was calculated earlier, Kenneth Feinberg, the special master of the victims fund, said last week.

That amount does not include hundreds of thousands of dollars families may receive from charities.

"This is an unprecedented act of generosity by the American people," Feinberg said.