Three speechwriters set to work, and Bush had a draft by the appointed time. It needed work, but Bush was becoming convinced that it was the right time to speak out. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others weighed in; Rice helped tune the ultimatum to the Taliban, and with the speechwriting team, made sure that sad little Valentines were sent to Pakistan and Iran. Both countries were included in a short, careful list of eight that were acknowledged for losing their nationals in the World Trade Center. By Wednesday lunchtime, Hughes was convinced that her team had written a great speech. Bush agreed, and that day and the next, he practiced his delivery three times, marking changes with a black Sharpie pen. By the time he arrived at the Capitol Thursday evening after dining with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell, the President was as ready as he could possibly be.

Bush's speech was designed for the population at large, to explain to a people thirsty for the quick fix of vengeance the virtues of patience. But of necessity, the translation of goals into practice depends not so much on the mobilization of millions as on the detailed staff work of a few score. Bush's world begins with his closest advisers, extends to Cabinet officers and military commanders and then reaches his friends and allies in other countries. All must be engaged, all must do their part, if Bush's war is to be won.

In the White House--where grief counselors have been made available and the morning prayer meetings are better attended than they recently were--there has been some reordering of responsibilities. Josh Bolten, the deputy chief of staff, now chairs a group called the Domestic Consequences Principals Council, charged with reviewing the need for everything from an economic stimulus package to the parlous state of the airlines. Bush himself, in addition to his regular national security briefings (there's now an afternoon meeting as well as one in the morning), meets each day with FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft to hear how the manhunt is going and assess new threats.

Some of the quotidian expressions of political activity, like party fund raising, have been curtailed. Karl Rove, the President's chief political strategist, continues to make sure that key constituencies are not forgotten; but for the first time in Bush's political life, Rove and Hughes no longer attend the President's most important meetings. Vice President Dick Cheney, whose star had dimmed since the spring, is back, front and center. If Bush is taking the role of the outside player, the public spokesman, the emotional leader of the Administration and the nation, Cheney is the inside man, the operations guy. Think of a train: "The President," says an adviser, "is the engineer. Cheney is the guy shoveling the coal."

Bush is lucky to have a team with experience in wartime. To be sure, he and everyone else who has had the chance--including Powell and Rice--have been at pains to point out that this crisis is not like the one in August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, and that this war will not be like the one fought in the Arabian desert five months later. But it doesn't hurt to have around you men and women who have gone through the fire. Apart from Cheney (Defense Secretary 10 years ago) and Powell (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff back then), Bush can call on Rice, an NSC staff member in his father's Administration, and Paul Wolfowitz, now Deputy Secretary of Defense and then Cheney's policy aide. Army General Hugh Shelton, who holds the job that Powell had 10 years ago, retires next week, but Shelton will be succeeded as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs by his deputy, Air Force General Richard Myers. Pentagon officials are relieved. "If the new Chairman was a field commander," says one, "it would be tough bringing him into this."

Powell, sources say, is in his element. His State Department aides describe a man who looks after the basics, allotting specific tasks to his team. "Colin's at the center of gravity," says a senior European diplomat who has seen him up close. But that doesn't mean that Powell has always got his way without argument. The national security team met with Bush at Camp David for seven hours on the weekend after the attacks--with maps and charts spread out over tables and easels, and a mood that Card described as "like a war council"--and then continued their discussions in Washington. At the heart of the debates were two linked questions: Who was responsible for the atrocities on Sept. 11? And what immediate actions can and should be taken against those so identified? The Administration insists the attacks were the work of bin Laden's network. "The evidence we have gathered," said Bush before Congress, "all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al-Qaeda." But when dealing with a cellular organization, proving hard evidentiary links between different operatives is like trying to build a garden wall out of wet tissue. Bin Laden has denied any involvement, and the Taliban says the restrictions it has placed on his movements and communications make it impossible for him to have masterminded the attacks. Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist who claims to be bin Laden's biographer, says that on Sept. 11 he was handed a written message, purportedly from bin Laden: "I am not involved in these attacks, but I support them," he said.

The Administration pours cold water on any other theory. Relying on intelligence intercepts of bin Laden's known associates discussing the hijackings, and on links between some of the suicide squad and elements of al-Qaeda, it continues to finger bin Laden. British intelligence too is convinced that al-Qaeda is responsible: "The evidence is pretty good, better than circumstantial," says a British source. For Powell, all of this has meant that policy on retaliation should proceed in a step-by-step approach, focusing first on bin Laden and the Taliban. Right from the start, however, some in the Administration argued for a wider response. And even if it doesn't come immediately, Bush's careful but ambitious rhetoric on terror suggests it will one day arrive. There have been intelligence reports that Iraq helped train the hijackers and that one of them met with an Iraqi agent in Europe. Israeli intelligence sources, however, tell TIME they have nothing tying Saddam's regime to the attack. But the mere possibility that Saddam might have been involved got Wolfowitz's juices flowing. The leading advocate within the Administration for a policy of "regime change" in Baghdad, Wolfowitz has been convinced of Iraq's menace since long before the Gulf War. In 1979, as an analyst in the Pentagon, he authored a secret report warning of Saddam's dangerous ambitions. Now, supported by his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and by Cheney's chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Wolfowitz argued for a far-reaching military response beyond anything Powell had envisioned. Targets would include not only Saddam's regime but also other states that have supported terrorism in the past, like Syria and Iran.

If that prospect has alarmed the State Department, which hopes to accomplish much by words instead of bombs, it positively terrifies some of Washington's allies. The French have been jittery from the start about the Administration's use of the word war, and anything that might turn that war into a contest between "the West" and half the Islamic world makes their blood run cold. A top British diplomat acknowledged that London had heard the case to widen the war but said, "What we see in terms of policy is very measured. We have seen no evidence of hasty rushes to judgment or pounding the sand." Still, the argument over the nature of the Iraqi regime has been running through Washington during five presidencies. It would not take much evidence of Iraqi complicity in the atrocities of Sept. 11 to resuscitate it.

For now, however, the Administration is committed to Powell's plan, one that a senior European diplomat calls "ruthless prioritization." The short-term priority is to deal with the Taliban and its response to Bush's ultimatum. The longer-term goal is to build a strategy for concentrating on terrorism itself. "There's a sequence to follow," says the European source. "You've got to take them one at a time." In its initial phases, the military plan hence concentrates on Afghanistan. Last week the preparation for presenting the final options to Bush hit a brief snag. On Thursday, Shelton reviewed the plans with Army General Tommy Franks, commander of Central Command, and with the commanders of the U.S. special forces. There was something in the plans that Shelton didn't like--"He wasn't comfortable with the targets," says a source--but by Friday the brass was ready for a presentation to the President; it took place in the White House at 1 p.m.

The U.S. has the ability to wage terrifying war on Afghanistan. There are already several hundred American warplanes in the region, based in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and aboard two aircraft carriers, the U.S.S. Carl Vinson and the U.S.S. Enterprise. Washington wants to conduct the air war from a new command center just outside Riyadh, but the Saudis are balking. (If the past is any guide, the U.S. will eventually get its way.) Another pair of carriers, the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk and the U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, could be ready to attack within a week. The Pentagon and the State Department have arranged for basing bombers and refueling planes in Bahrain and Oman. B-52 and B-2 bombers, flying from the U.S. and the tiny speck of Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean, will also be serviced by tankers flying out of Thailand. Air Force Special Operations MH-53J Pave Low helicopters may be based in both Uzbekistan and Pakistan, close to Afghanistan's borders. (After initially seeming enthusiastic about basing rights, the Uzbeks appear to have had second thoughts.) The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit is sailing to the theater, with 2,000 Marines and support helicopters; it will join another similar unit already in the region. Three guided-missile destroyers are on their way, and the Pentagon has readied active-duty ground forces for possible deployment. The core of such forces are likely to come from the Army's 18th Airborne Corps., which includes the 82nd Airborne Division, based at Fort Bragg.