Military

DATE= 9/12/01

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE= PENTAGON / RETALIATION (L ONLY)

NUMBER=2-280401

BYLINE= ALEX BELIDA

DATELINE= PENTAGON

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The Bush Administration is promising retaliation for Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. But, as V-O-A Correspondent Alex Belida reports from the Pentagon, Defense officials are not discussing what they might do and when they might do it.

TEXT: Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke says one of the U-S military's top priorities is to determine who was responsible for Tuesday's terrorist attacks and to decide what response the United States should take.

But Ms. Clarke will provide no details on either this crucial security question or the movement of U-S forces.

///CLARKE ACTUALITY///

We are not going to be talking about military operations from this podium or elsewhere. We are not going to be talking about intelligence matters from this podium or elsewhere. It is not helpful.

///END ACTUALITY///

Nevertheless suspicions about who was responsible for Tuesday's attacks on the Pentagon and New York's twin trade towers are already focused on Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization.

He has been linked to the attacks on U-S embassies in East Africa in 1998 and to last October's bombing of a U-S destroyer in the Yemeni harbor of Aden.

In the meantime, search and rescue operations are continuing at the Pentagon, but officials are holding out no hopes of finding any survivors trapped in the rubble.

A Pentagon statement said anyone who might have survived the initial impact of the hijacked airliner and the subsequent collapse of a portion of the building could not have survived the fire that followed.

The Pentagon is still refraining from issuing any casualty figures. Unofficial estimates on the number of dead have ranged as high as 800. (SIGNED)

NEB/BEL/MAR