WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — President Bush struck back on Wednesday at critics of his decision to put the country on national security alert over the next week, saying he had made the call to protect vulnerable areas and assets.
“I put the country on alert for a reason,” Bush told board members of the National Association of Manufacturers at the White House.
“I wanted our law enforcement officials to know we had some information that made it necessary for us to protect U.S. assets, to protect those areas that might be vulnerable.
And that’s exactly what’s taking place today,” Bush said.
Bush’s statement was his first public comment on the warning issued on Monday by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, and it represented a show of support for Ashcroft amid criticisms the warning was vague and alarmist.
The alert on Monday warned of more attacks against the United States or U.S. interests over the next week. Some lawmakers and others have said the alert was too vague to be useful in preparing a defense.
They also said it alarmed a public already jittery over the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 4,800 people and over the ongoing anthrax threat.
“This is a very unusual period in American history, obviously,” Bush said. “We’ve never been attacked like this before. We’re still being attacked.”
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Wednesday a no-fly zone around U.S. nuclear plants had been expanded as a result of the new threat alert.
He said the administration had stepped up security arrangements to ensure “continuity in government,” or an orderly succession in the event of an attack on multiple members of the administration.
But he declined to confirm a CBS News report that at times since Sept. 11 some Cabinet secretaries had been taken to secure locations as part of these arrangements. The
White House has already acknowledged Vice President Dick Cheney has spent periods in an unspecified secure location.
“Many of those types of security arrangements to protect the continuity of the government have been beefed up since Sept. 11. I’m going to leave it at that,” Fleischer said when asked about the CBS report.
The White House said Wednesday investigators still did not know who was responsible for an outbreak of anthrax that claimed its fourth victim earlier in the day.
Fleischer said the inhalation anthrax death of a New York hospital worker, identified as Kathy Nguyen of the Bronx, raised concern.
Fleischer offered Bush’s condolences and sympathies to the Nguyen family.
“Our heart goes out to anybody who suffers in America,” Bush told the business leaders.
“And so we’re bolstering our homeland defense. We’re disrupting and denying anybody who wants to harm the American people. We spent hours tracking down every possible lead of somebody who would come into this country or who might be buried in this country trying to hurt any American.”
Nevertheless, Bush said, Americans were also going about their daily lives. This included “going to World Series games or shopping or traveling to Washington, D.C.”
Bush went to New York on Tuesday to throw out the first ball in Game Three of baseball’s World Series.
