Nation's armed forces on worldwide alert following terrorist attacks

WASHINGTON -- Air Force F-16s patrolled the skies over Washington, Navy warships were sent to Manhattan, and military commanders ordered forces on highest alert after Tuesday's terrorist attacks.\nPresident Bush, in an Oval Office address, vowed to find those responsible. "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," he said.\nAt a Pentagon briefing earlier, Joint Chiefs Chairman Henry H. Shelton said, "I have no intention of discussing what comes next. But make no mistake about it, your armed forces are ready."\nSome 10 hours before that briefing, a Boeing 757 plowed into the Pentagon, after two hijacked airliners had struck the towers of New York's World Trade Center.\nBut what would happen next -- including potential retaliatory strikes -- wasn't exactly clear.\nPresident Bush put U.S. forces around the globe on the highest possible alert, "Threatcon Delta."\nDefense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld denied that U.S. forces were responsible for the explosions heard Tuesday night near Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. "In no way is the U.S. government connected," he said at the Pentagon briefing.\nA senior defense official said the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, which was due to come home from the Persian Gulf, was ordered to remain in the area indefinitely. A second carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, remains in the area as well, the official said.\nOfficials at military sites across the country reported that only essential military personnel would be permitted on their bases. All unnecessary military flights were canceled, and the North American Aerospace Defense Command took steps to protect the military's computer systems from hackers, a spokesman said.\nAround the country, fighters, airborne radar and refueling planes were scrambled, according to an Air National Guard spokesman at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla.\nNORAD was also on its highest alert.\n"We have all of our air sovereignty aircraft -- fighters, surveillance and other support aircraft -- ready to respond," NORAD said in a statement.\nAir Force fighter jets scrambled over Washington shortly after the attack.\n"We did have F-16s up," Pentagon spokesman Adm. Craig Quigley told reporters who had gathered across a highway in full view of the still-smoking Pentagon.\nThe Navy dispatched the carriers USS John F. Kennedy and USS George Washington to New York to assist with defense and medical needs.\n"We have been attacked like we haven't since Pearl Harbor," said Adm. Robert J. Natter, the commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet at Norfolk Naval Station.\nThe carriers, bristling with dozens of fighter aircraft, also contain full medical units and operating rooms. The USNS Comfort, a hospital ship in Baltimore harbor, also was being sent into action, Navy officials said.\nNatter put all installations under his command on the highest security condition. He is in charge of 188 ships, 1,223 aircraft, 37 shore stations and more than 125,000 sailors, Marines and civilian employees. The Atlantic Fleet provides combat-ready forces to support American and NATO commanders in regions of conflict throughout the world.\nMissouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said he had been told by military officials there were about 100 casualties at the Pentagon. He said he had no details on whether they were deaths or injuries.\nRumsfeld, who was in his offices on the second floor when the aircraft tore into the opposite side of the building, pledged that the Pentagon -- the workplace for some 24,000 men and women -- would function Wednesday.\nBush visited a number of military sites Tuesday, heading first to Barksdale Air Force Base, La., and then to Orfutt Air Force Base, Neb., where he visited the deep underground bunkers of the U.S. Strategic Command.