‘ACTS OF WAR’

President Bush declared Wednesday that the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington were “acts of war” and vowed that the United States “will use all our resources to conquer this enemy.”

“This battle will take time and resolve, but make no mistake about it: We will win,” Bush said after meeting with national security advisors. “This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil, but good will prevail.”

The president’s tough language appeared to reflect a rapidly hardening resolve that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon demand an aggressive U.S. response. By declaring the attacks “acts of war,” Bush took a step toward a longer, costlier and bloodier battle against terrorism than any of his predecessors was prepared to wage.

Bush asked Congress for $20 billion in federal spending to pay for rescue operations, repair work and stepped-up counter-terrorism operations, one day after hijackers commandeered four U.S. jetliners, crashing three of them into the landmark office complexes.

In other developments:

* Bush’s spokesman said the president himself might have been a target of the terrorists. Ari Fleischer said the government has obtained credible information that the plane that struck the Pentagon “was originally intended to hit the White House.” Another target, Fleischer said, was Air Force One.

* New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said the city had asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for 6,000 body bags, as rescuers combed the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center and pulled out a few survivors. More than 40 bodies were recovered from the Pentagon, where fires continued to burn Wednesday.

* Congress convened in the Capitol for the first time since the attacks, and other government offices reopened. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill sought to reassure investors, saying that “our nation’s financial markets are strong and resilient.”

* Most air traffic remained grounded indefinitely. The only plane movement allowed Wednesday was to get Tuesday’s diverted flights to their destinations.

* NATO invoked a mutual defense clause for the first time in its history, opening the way for a possible multination military response to the attacks against the United States.

As recently as Tuesday night, Bush--like earlier presidents--cast the fight against terrorism as long-distance law enforcement, with the goal of arresting individual perpetrators and bringing them to justice.

But faced with the size and horror of Tuesday’s attacks, the president and his advisors appear to be enacting what scientists call a paradigm shift: redefining terrorism as war and treating it that way. That means the U.S. goal would no longer be merely to punish terrorists but to disable their organizations completely.

“The last three administrations, including Bush’s father’s, dealt with this problem as a criminal act,” said Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA terrorism expert. “But if it’s dealt with as a criminal act, you just get the soldiers rather than the generals. . . . Bush’s language portends a different response.”

Weighing Options for a Response

Administration officials insisted that they have made no decisions on a military response to the attacks, in part because they have not yet fixed blame on any suspects.

But they were working on several fronts, laying groundwork for the equivalent of an undeclared war, among them:

Launching a large-scale effort to enlist other nations to fight terrorism; winning declarations of support from the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization; joining with Russia to exert pressure on the terrorism-linked Islamic Taliban regime in Afghanistan; and discussing aggressive military options, including use of special forces to capture or kill terrorist leaders, defense experts said.

“All these [military] options are now open,” said retired Army Gen. George Joulwan, a former commander of NATO forces. “We’ve got to get these guys.”

Recent U.S. presidents have calibrated their responses to terrorism to punish--but not destroy--the chosen adversary. In 1986, President Reagan ordered airstrikes against Libya to avenge a bombing attack against U.S. troops. But after Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi survived the raid, he was not pursued further.

In 1998, after terrorists blew up U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Clinton ordered the launch of Tomahawk cruise missiles at Bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan and at a Sudanese factory suspected of making chemical weapons. But the operation ended there, amid public debate over whether it was justified at all.

Tuesday’s suicide attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon appear to have quickly convinced Bush, his advisors and congressional leaders from both parties to seek more aggressive action--and more ambitious goals.

In his first statements Tuesday, Bush was more reserved. He called the attacks “mass murder” but avoided calling them “war.”

But when he met with his advisors for 80 minutes in the Cabinet Room on Wednesday morning, he found them unanimous that a more assertive tone was called for, one official said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, normally the most cautious of Bush’s top foreign policy advisors, was notably unyielding.

“We have to make sure that we go after terrorism and get it by its branch and root,” he said at a news briefing Wednesday. “And so we will hold accountable those countries that provide support . . . to these kinds of terrorist groups. Now, yes, we believe that acts of war have been committed against the American people, and we will respond accordingly.”

Fleischer, asked about the change in Bush’s language, acknowledged obliquely that the president had acted on his Cabinet’s advice.

“The president will share his thoughts with you as his thoughts develop as a result of the conversations he has with his security team and as he thinks this matter through,” Fleischer said.

Counter-terrorism experts who have long sought to mobilize a national effort behind tougher measures applauded the change in tone.

“For years, we’ve tried to treat this as a law enforcement problem, because that’s easier for us to do,” said Cannistraro, a National Security Council official in the Reagan administration. “It costs less and risks less. But the trouble with that approach is that it deals only with the periphery of the problem, not the center. To stop a terrorist network, you have to destroy the command and control.”

If the administration fixes blame on Bin Laden, such a crusade might take several forms, experts said.

It could include airstrikes--more sustained than before--against Bin Laden’s training camps and other facilities.

Officials said it also could include action against countries that harbor or support terrorists--in this case, Afghanistan.

Those moves are likely to begin with diplomatic efforts, including possible joint action by the United States and Russia. Washington and Moscow joined forces last year to co-sponsor a U.N. Security Council resolution to tighten sanctions against the Taliban regime. At the time, Russian officials floated the idea of joint military action.

Moscow charges that the Taliban actively supports the Muslim rebels in Chechnya who have battled the Russian army and, Russian authorities say, carried out terrorist bombings in Moscow.

Afghanistan refused to comply with last year’s U.N. resolution, which demanded that the Taliban turn over Bin Laden for arrest.

“Unfortunately, the U.N. has no effective mechanism for dealing effectively with an Osama bin Laden,” said Michael Glennon, an expert on international law at UC Davis.

“The United States exercised great restraint when the Afghans refused to extradite Osama for the embassy bombings in 1998. But in retrospect, it’s clear that sanctions weren’t adequate; they just became a game of cat and mouse with countries that gave safe harbor to terrorists.”

The possibility that Bush was a target in the terrorist attack was disclosed at a White House news briefing Wednesday.

Fleischer told reporters, “We have specific and credible information that the White House and Air Force One were also intended targets of these attacks.”

He would offer no details about the information or when the administration obtained it. But he said the plane that struck the Pentagon “was originally intended to hit the White House.”

He said he did not know what caused it to change its target.

Bush was in Florida on a trip promoting his education reform legislation when Tuesday’s attacks occurred. He spent much of the rest of the day either in the air aboard Air Force One or in secure areas at Air Force bases in Louisiana and Nebraska, before returning to Washington in the evening.

Bush spoke with his father, former President George Bush, from aboard Air Force One, the White House said.

Conferring With Heads of State

Bush began his day Wednesday at 7:05 a.m. when he arrived at the Oval Office. By the end of the day, he would speak twice with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin for a total of 12 minutes and, in separate calls, with his counterparts in China, Britain, France, Germany and Canada, expressing thanks for their messages of support.

There was no indication Bush had spoken with any leaders of Arab nations. But Fleischer said Bush would seek out other leaders “as he builds his coalition” to fight the threat of terrorism.

Bush met with Republican and Democratic House and Senate leaders, held two conferences with national security advisors, had lunch with Vice President Dick Cheney and, in the evening, made a quick trip across the Potomac River to examine the damage at the Pentagon and speak to employees and rescue workers there.

He said he was “overwhelmed by the devastation.”

“Coming here makes me sad, on the one hand,” Bush said. “It also makes me angry. Our country, however, will not be cowed by terrorists.”

Shortly before he arrived, workers unfurled a huge U.S. flag over the side of the heavily damaged building.

Fleischer said Bush wanted to visit New York, but the timing of such a trip remains uncertain. Bush did not want to do anything that would hinder the search for survivors in the rubble of Manhattan’s World Trade Center, he added.

Asked whether Bush would seek a declaration of war from Congress, Fleischer said the situation confronting the country differs from any it has faced before because “we are dealing, at least at this point, with nameless, faceless people, and it is a different type of war that it was, say, when you knew the capital of a country that attacked you.”

In another indication the administration is beginning to think of itself at war, Fleischer said the attacks mean that Bush no longer considers himself bound by his pledge to avoid spending surplus Social Security revenues.

Previously, the president had said he would dip into the Social Security surplus only in the event of a recession or a war.

Now, Fleischer said, “the situation has changed.”

Times staff writer Paul Richter also contributed to this report.