Politics

Bush Briefs Congress On War Plan

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 25, 2001 / 1:14 PM EDT / CBS

President Bush laid out a rough sketch of his war plans for congressional leaders Tuesday and moved to solidify international support for a long, open-ended hunt for terrorists.

During a breakfast meeting with bipartisan congressional leaders, Mr. Bush outlined the extent of the military deployment for a "war on terrorism" in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington and underscored to the lawmakers not to expect conventional warfare like the 1990-91 Gulf conflict.

"I think the war aims are clear," House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt said after he and other lawmakers met with Mr. Bush at the White House. "In a way, it's meeting guerrilla warfare with guerrilla warfare, but it's also meeting it with financial efforts, and political efforts, and diplomatic efforts," said the Missouri Democrat.

Gephardt said Mr. Bush was taking the right approach in targeting terrorist cells rather than civilians. He said that removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan is not necessarily a goal.

"I don't think it's anybody's goal to topple governments in this," Gephardt said. However, he added, the fact that the Taliban is supportive of bin Laden "gives us real pause, and obviously we'd like to change that position on their part."

Also in the meeting were House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.

The leaders discussed airport security measures, including Gephardt's idea of putting military police or reservists on planes "so that every passenger has a feeling of confidence to go back on the airplanes."

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Gephardt said Reagan National Airport outside Washington, the only airport still closed due to the Sept. 11 attacks, could reopen once planes using the airport are equipped with better cockpit doors.

Mr. Bush indicated he was more than willing to consider Democratic proposals to extend unemployment and health insurance benefits to airline workers, Gephardt said. "There are some people who don't qualify for unemployment because of their status," he said.

The president, his public approval ratings soaring in his response to the Sept. 11 attacks, was also working to bolster an international coalition against Osama bin Laden's network by meeting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

Mr. Bush said Japan will "share intelligence that will work cooperatively" in the diplomatic war on terrorism." Two Japanese newspapers reported Japan will send warships to the Indian Ocean as early as this week to carry out intelligence and surveillance missions. The squadromay accompany the USS Kitty Hawk, an aircraft carrier that left its base near Tokyo on Friday, the reports said.

Later, Mr. Bush visited FBI headquarters on a morale-boosting trip to the center of the investigation of who was responsible for the attacks that left nearly 7,000 people dead or missing.

He used the visit to drum up support for a White House plan to give law enforcement officers expanded powers to tap telephones, conduct searches, seize assets and detain suspected terrorists.

"Now that we're at war we ought to give the FBI tools to track down terrorists," the president said.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer annonced Mr. Bush would travel to Chicago Thursday to meet with airline workers to, among other things, express his concern about the many people who have lost their jobs in the airline industry in the two weeks since the attacks by hijackers caused many Americans to shun flying.

Mr. Bush, in a letter to Congress on Monday, broadly outlined how forces already have been deployed in the Middle East and Asian and Pacific regions.

"It is not now possible to predict the scope and duration of these deployments, and the actions necessary to counter the terrorist threat to the United States," Mr. Bush wrote.

The latest developments come as a CBS-New York Times poll found that the president's handling of the terrorist crisis was supported by 90 percent of those surveyed, and 92 percent expressed backing for U.S. military action in response. At the same time, 78 percent said they believed another terrorist attack was likely in the United States. The survey questioned 1,216 individuals between Sept. 20-23 and had an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.