Shadow Of Fear

Monday, Oct. 22, 2001 By NANCY GIBBS
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We can argue over when the enemy decided to wage war against us--was it the moment the Ottoman Empire fell or when U.S. troops arrived in Saudi Arabia? But we know exactly when we went to war with them: 12:30 p.m. E.T. on Sunday, Oct. 7. Now our pilots are shredding Afghanistan, and the waiting is over, and you didn't need to be in New York or Washington or Kabul to feel like a soldier--or a target. The clock becomes a time bomb: we were warned that retaliation is now certain; we wait, move to higher alert; time passes, tick, tick; see anything suspicious? And we come to realize that something sinister has been planted in our midst, not just the threat but also the fear of the threat.

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By the time President Bush appeared in prime time to invite the country officially both to buck up and freak out, the war at home was already well under way. Haz-mat teams from coast to coast were being called out two and three times a day to decontaminate buildings because someone worried about powder in a package. The Governor of Tennessee put a $10,000 bounty on the head of anyone calling in a bomb hoax because the schools were having to be evacuated so often. A pilot returned to the gate because a passenger switched seats too many times. Donald Trump was reported to be shopping for parachutes.

The President's dilemma--like the country's--was plain. We are at war now, called to fight unseen enemies on multiple fronts. Report anything unusual or alarming, Bush said, in the hope that 280 million investigators have a better chance of foiling the next plot. But we are not trained for this, and an unmarked catering truck on a quiet street prompts three different neighbors to call the cops. "Be on the lookout for mysterious health symptoms," said health czar Tommy Thompson, but who doesn't have those? We were told last week not to panic but to be prepared; to get on with our lives, even though we barely recognize them now that there are F-16s overhead and National Guardsmen at the train station. The Vice President is in the witness-protection program, and the FBI initially coded its Thursday warning of an imminent attack "skyfall." Officials were vague about the target but precise about the timing. They had "certain information" that there would be more attacks, somewhere, "over the next several days." And so people who by last week felt they had regained their footing, who found it liberating to get on an airplane and luxurious to go to a football game on a gorgeous fall day, also found that the path out of our private caves is not a straight and steady one. You can feel cold again just by turning on the news. Or opening the mail.