Repairs to the Pentagon, damaged in the hijack attack that left 189 people dead or missing, could cost US$800 million and take more than three years, a Defense Department official said on Tuesday.
A massive slice of the five-sided building was gouged out when the hijacked American Airlines passenger jet, fueled for a cross-country flight, slammed into the side of the structure on Sept. 11, less than an hour after two other hijacked planes demolished the World Trade Center towers in New York.
More than 5,700 people were believed killed in the combined attacks, including 44 who died on a fourth hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
As Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld prepared for a Middle East trip in advance of any US-led military operations in the region, hundreds of Pentagon officials were working virtually nonstop to fix the damage, according to Walker Evey, who is in charge of repair and renovations.
The department earlier announced that British engineering firm AMEC Plc had been awarded US$25 million as the first payment on an estimated US$520 million contract for work on two adjoining wedges of the giant US military headquarters.
Most of that money would go for complete restoration of the first wedge, which had been recently modernized by AMEC as part of a long-planned Pentagon renovation effort. Some of the funds would help prepare the nearby second wedge, also damaged in the attack, for modernization by another company.
The Pentagon had earlier been divided into five wedges for the first major upgrading and modernization since it was built during World War II. Only the first wedge was completed when the attack occurred.
On Tuesday, Evey estimated that repair and renovation of damaged areas of both wedges would probably cost an additional US$200 million to US$300 million beyond the US$520 million.
He said at a briefing that no renovation could take place before the sliced-out part is rebuilt, and that could take 18 months. Renovations could take an additional two years, Evey said.
Evey's team of 300 people now has control of the site, after rescue teams worked to find survivors and recover remains and the FBI collected evidence.
Some portions of both damaged wedges were opened this week, Evey said, but these parts had barely been touched by the attack.
The rest of the Pentagon has been functioning since the attack, even as the smoke-stained exterior can be plainly seen from a nearby highway.
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