This war will not be easy - Bush

WASHINGTON (AP):

PRESIDENT George W. Bush vowed yesterday that U.S. troops will hunt down terrorists and "smoke them out of their holes" in a long, unrelenting response to Tuesday's ghastly attacks. Americans must brace themselves for great sacrifices, he said, "because the conflict will not be easy."

He said simply: "We're at war."

For the first time, Mr. Bush identified Osama bin Laden as a suspect in the attacks on Washington D.C. and New York, plus the downing of a commercial plane over Pennsylvania.

"If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies he will be sorely mistaken," the President said. "Those who make war against the United States have chosen their own destruction."

Weary rescue workers sifted desperately through rubble in New York and outside Washington with diminishing hopes of finding survivors. At the Pentagon, workers discovered a large number of bodies, both from the jet liner that crashed into it and from the crushed military complex.

"We are now getting into the heart of the crash site," said Arlington County Fire Chief Ed Plaugher. "It's just not capable of putting in words that type of destruction, that type of death that you're seeing."

Echoing the words of his father, former President George Bush, after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the President said, "This act will not stand" and vowed vengeance for the worst terrorist attack on America."

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