New York President Barack Obama will meet with survivors and family members of those killed in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history Thursday, days after American commandos killed the leader of the group behind that massacre.The trip will include a presidential visit to New York's ground zero, where the World Trade Center's twin towers stood before the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. Obama will also attend a wreath-laying ceremony and visit a New York firehouse that lost 15 people in the collapse of the twin towers, but the president will give no speeches, the White House said.
The visit comes four days after the pre-dawn raid in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whose followers turned hijacked jetliners filled with fuel and passengers into missiles aimed at New York and Washington. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said "the shoulders of New Yorkers, Americans and people throughout the world stand a little taller" after bin Laden's death.
"This is a turning point in the war on terror," Schumer told CNN's "American Morning" Thursday. "When bin Laden did his evil deeds and the towers went down, we said, 'Can we win this war? It's so different than the previous wars we fought, with suicide bombers and no lines of battle.' People feel we'll win this war. We haven't won it yet, but we are."
Former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time of the attacks, will not appear alongside his successor. A spokesman for Bush said the former president turned down an invitation to travel to the site of the 9/11 attacks.
"He appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight," spokesman David Sherzer said in a statement.
A U.S. Navy SEAL team killed bin Laden early Monday (Sunday afternoon ET) with rapid shots to his chest and forehead, according to a U.S. official who has seen military reports about the raid. But the al Qaeda leader's death leaves about 130,000 U.S. and allied troops in battle with his followers and his Taliban allies in Afghanistan, which hosted the terrorist movement before the 9/11 attacks.
New details of the raid continued to emerge Thursday. A senior U.S. official said when the Americans entered bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, they encountered initial heavy fire from one person on a lower floor, but the fighting tapered off as the SEALs killed the first four people they encountered.
In the initial hours after the president's announcement of bin Laden's death, U.S. officials described the fighting as intense and sustained -- but the senior official said now that more reports have come back from the field, they have a better idea of what actually happened.
Officials have said bin Laden was killed at the end of the nearly 40-minute raid. And it appeared he had contingency plans while he stayed at the fenced compound.
He had 500 euros (about $745) in cash and two telephone numbers sewn into his clothing when he was killed, a congressional source present at a classified briefing on the operation told CNN Wednesday.
In Rome, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said bin Laden's killing "sent an unmistakable message about the strength of the resolve of the international community to stand against extremism and those who perpetuate it." But she added, "the battle to stop al Qaeda and its affiliates does not end with one death."
"We have to renew our resolve and redouble our efforts not only in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, but around the world," Clinton said. "Because it is especially important that there be no doubt that those who pursue a terrorist agenda -- the criminals who indiscriminately murder innocent people -- will be brought to justice."
Clinton was among the top U.S. officials who monitored the progress of the assault on bin Laden's compound from the White House Situation Room -- "thirty-eight of the most tense minutes I have ever known," she said.
The raid has turned an uncomfortable spotlight on Pakistan, where a walled compound with a three-story home had been built to house bin Laden in Abbottabad, about 50 km (31 miles) from Islamabad and a short distance from a leading Pakistani military academy. U.S. officials have said Washington did not give Pakistan any notice of the planned assault, because they feared the word would leak.
Pakistan backed the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban's rule over most of Afghanistan before 9/11. U.S. officials have warned that some elements of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency remain supportive of extremists, even as the country battles its own Taliban insurgency.
But Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir told reporters Thursday that any suggestion that the intelligence service or the government were covering for bin Laden "is absolutely wrong." In fact, he said, the ISI alerted U.S. intelligence agencies to the presence of al Qaeda operatives in Abbottabad as early as 2004.
"I want you to know much of the media critique on the ISI is not only unwarranted, it cannot be validated by one solid argument," Bashir said.
Clinton said the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is "not always an easy" one, but "it is a productive one for both of our countries."
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"We are going to continue to cooperate between our governments, our militaries, our law enforcement agencies -- but most importantly between the American and Pakistani people, where we have made a commitment to helping them meet their needs and trying to establish a firmer foundation for their democracy," she said.
But CIA Director Leon Panetta told U.S. lawmakers in a closed-door session Tuesday that Pakistani officials were either "involved or incompetent" in bin Laden's case -- and, "Neither is a good place to be." And Schumer warned that Pakistan has "fundamental problems," and the nuclear-armed south Asian nation "is doing a lot wrong."
"There are people in Pakistan allied with us, and there are people in Pakistan allied with the terrorists," Schumer said. "Our job is to strengthen the hand of those allied with us."
Bin Laden was shot twice during the raid, once in the chest and once in the forehead just above the left eye, another official told CNN. The head shot left his skull partially blown away, according to two sources who have seen a photograph of bin Laden's body.
Because bin Laden was buried at sea, the Obama administration has been under pressure to release a photo as proof of death. But the president has decided not to make public photographs of his remains, telling CBS News, "We don't need to spike the football."
"That's not who we are. We don't trot out this stuff as trophies," he said.
Obama noted that few credible people have questioned the death and that conspiracy theorists would not be satisfied with a photo, a senior Democratic official said. That position was supported by Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the official added.
Investigators, meanwhile, pored over materials gathered at bin Laden's hideout -- including 10 hard drives, five computers and more than 100 storage devices, such as disks, DVDs and thumb drives, a senior U.S. official told CNN. The materials might provide clues on al Qaeda members and plots for future attacks.
The commandos also recovered five cell phones, audio and video equipment, paper documents and five guns, including AK-47s and pistols, a U.S. official said.
"As we glean information from that material, we will make appropriate decisions with regard to who might we add to the terrorist watch list, the no-fly list, all those things," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday.
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