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Bush Seeks to Authorize Retaliation
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's anger rising and the death count climbing, President Bush (news - web sites) is pledging to mount a global war against terrorism following attacks on ``freedom and democracy'' in New York and the nation's capital. And Congress is hastening to join the fight.

``This battle will take time and resolve,'' the commander in chief said Wednesday as reached out to leaders around the globe to join the cause. ``But make no mistake about it. We will win.''

Administration officials cautioned that no military action was imminent, but that that did little to slake the thirst for revenge.

``I think everybody is so angry they want to hit somebody,'' Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said as lawmakers discussed an initial installment in the $20 billion range for the anti-terrorism effort. ``But before we hit somebody we need to know who that is.''

There was no indication when that might happen.

Numerous officials said intelligence information pointed toward a coordinated attack masterminded by Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), a Saudi millionaire expatriate living in Afghanistan (news - web sites). Despite an intensive investigation and widely televised police raids on hotels in the Boston area, Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said no arrests had been made in connection with attacks that left the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center in rubble and the Pentagon (news - web sites) badly damaged.

Adding insult to incalculable injury, he added, ``A number of hijackers were trained as pilots in the United States.''