Thu, Sep 20, 2001 page4

• Pentagon's scars hidden behind tightened security

  DARK CORRIDORS More soldiers on patrol and the strict screening of everyone and everything entering the building are the most obvious changes since the suicide attack

  • REUTERS
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Compared to the open wound of New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon keeps its worst scars hidden, with most damage from last week's hijack attack kept away in dark corridors behind yellow crime scene tape.

  But signs of the assault that left 189 people dead or missing at Defense Department headquarters are plain to see -- from increased security checks to halls blocked off with plywood to the acrid smoky odor near the damage site.

  

  This Federal Emergency Management Agency photo, which was released Tuesday, shows urban Search and Rescue crews from Montgomery County, MD, working to clear debris and shore up the Pentagon at the the crash site last Thursday

  PHOTO: AFP

  Although dwarfed by the thousands believed killed in New York, the Pentagon toll of dead and missing, 189 by Tuesday's count, is higher than the 168 who perished in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 146 US military personnel who died in the 1991 Gulf War.

  The dead included a three-star general, Army Lieutenant General Timothy Maude of Indianapolis; television pundit Barbara Olson, wife of US Solicitor General Theodore Olson; and others ranging from Ada Mason, a 50-year-old civilian worker from Springfield, Virginia, to Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew Michael Flocco, 21, of Newark, Delaware.

  Unlike the desolate New York site, about 20,000 people returned to work in the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 attack, some of them in areas close enough to where the suicide plane hit to smell smoke and chemicals a week after the attack.

  Stairway doors, normally closed, stood ajar, with signs that read "Keep this door open [increases flow of breathable air]". Office workers near Wedge One, the area of the building that took a direct hit, kept their doors open too, and many had electric fans standing in their thresholds .

  "Not much to see except for broken glass," Marty Sigmund, a National Guardsman, said at his post near the closed-off area.

  Sigmund and fellow National Guardsman Eric Bokinsky, both in camouflage fatigues, looked out over a landscaped inner courtyard that in peacetime featured a concession stand known with jaunty defiance as the Ground Zero Cafe, since that was where the Soviet Union's missiles presumably were thought to be targeted.

  The cafe remained closed on Tuesday, and the courtyard was host to emergency personnel and vehicles on the side closest to Wedge One. But most of the work was done away from public eyes, and the dominant image of the Pentagon attack was the slice gouged from the building's side.

  "We're trying as hard as we can to get back to regular operations in this building," Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood said. But he added, "Security, of course, hits you in the face right away."

  Security was so tight that generals have sometimes lost their choice parking spots close to the building, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters.

  "It takes a lot of dogs to check under cars and, even though a car may belong to a perfectly responsible individual, it is not necessarily physically in their custody 24 hours a day," Rumsfeld said when asked about the generals' parking problems. "And they may not be aware of something that could have been done to the vehicle."

  Some 4,000 Pentagon workers have been displaced to offices in nearby Crystal City and Rosslyn, Flood said.

  Those who come to Pentagon face their first security guards at the subway turnstile exit, where every building pass is checked. The regular escalators directly into the five-sided building were locked, and commuters headed up a side route past newspaper boxes with pre-attack headlines from Sept. 11.

  The usually pink Financial Times was faded to tan with a headline that read "Rumsfeld to wage war on Pentagon red tape," while the racier New York Post featured a photo of Mick Jagger's daughter Elizabeth, "dressing down" in New York City.

  Once inside, the first sign that greets those who enter is a discreet "Force Protection Charlie" posted by an X-ray machine for screening parcels and briefcases. This is the second-highest state of alert, down one notch from Force Protection Delta, which prevailed on the day of the attack.

  About 20 percent of the building's 27km of corridors were dark after the attack, which caused well over US$100 million in damages. The Pentagon, the world's largest office building, was completed in 1943 after 16 months of construction.

  For your information

  Pentagon destruction

  * Officials say the attack caused over US$100 million in damage, leaving 20 percent of the building's 27km of corridors darkened. * The highest-ranking officer believed killed in the attack was Lieutenant General Timothy Maude. * Approximately 20,000 people have returned to work at the Pentagon. * Over 4,000 workers have been displaced by the attack and are now working at offices in Crystal City and Rosslyn. Source: Reuters
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Eurovision Song Contest triggers surge in betting interest

  • 2

    Barcelona crowned champions

  • 3

    Napoli close in on title despite Parma stalemate

  • 4

    Sinner cruises past Ruud, Gauff battles into final

  • 5

    Entertainers questioned amid military service furor