´óÏó´«Ã½

Washington: , probably in reaction to media speculation. He told a meeting of his most senior security advisers last week that pulling out was not an option: it wasn't on the table.

Now he has used his meeting with senior politicians of both parties on the Hill to make it clear he's not going to slash troop numbers or narrow the goals to only targeting the top terrorists. That's according to one White House source at least.

So he's ruled out what some said was the preferred approach of his vice-president. But he won't be drawn on whether there will be more troops sent to Afghanistan. It's also worth noting that the administration is putting a lot of emphasis on Pakistan. Remember this was an "Afpak" strategy. They say they know al-Qaeda leaders are hiding in safe havens along the border, but on the Pakistan side.

They expect the government there to "dismantle" these safe havens. Today's meeting with top security officials will focus on Pakistan, looking at the economic and diplomatic relations, which I take it means "how do we make sure they deliver?".

New York: At Ground Zero, I talk to Theresa Uva, who was director of nursing at a New York hospital on the day the planes hit the Twin Towers.

"It was a beautiful day just like today," she tells me. We're standing in front of "the sphere", a globe-like structure symbolising peace which stood between the towers, and which somehow - amazingly - survived, battered and broken. It now stands in a park near Ground Zero.

It was of course because of this attack on America that the ground war began eight years ago today. It's why the president says it is a war of necessity to keep America safe; it is why he is struggling with what the future strategy should be. At Ground Zero, gigantic cranes fluttering the Stars and Stripes continue work on the memorial pools that will mark the foundation of the towers. A fire engine goes by with a sticker in its window that reads "support our troops". But would people support more troops? I am interested in what someone who was at the heart of events in New York that day makes of the current debate.

Theresa tells me that as the towers crashed down she was helping treat more than a thousand wounded who crowded into the hospital. The noise, she says was like bombs. She looked at the doctor and they both thought New York was being bombed, and they were about to die.

She supported the air strikes, as did 94% of Americans, and the invasion, as did 75%, according to ABC opinion polls.

But now she questions what the aim of the war was. She says she thought the aim was to kill Osama bin Laden and stop the terrorists striking again. But she says terrorists can hide out in Africa, Europe and indeed America itself. And now, she says, it seems the plan is to turn Afghanistan into a Western-style democracy and she doesn't think this can work.

She would support the president sending more troops if it was for just one year, and there was an end in sight. But, she says, "we all need aims in life, and I don't know what our aim is in Afghanistan, I am conflicted."

Of course, this is just one voice. But from what ABC's director of polling, Gary Langer, tells me, it is pretty typical of the concerns that people express. Since the summer, opinion polls indicate that a narrow majority of 51% think the war "not worth fighting". . He argues that people can be persuaded to support a continuation of the conflict and even more troops, but that the job of persuasion has to be done.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?