Looking back at Sept. 11

WASHINGTON — President Bush marked the six-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks with a plaintive appeal for the world's nations to keep an unflagging commitment to the fight against terrorism.

With flags of many world nations at his back on an enormous stage, Bush said the global coalition must not weaken in the face of terrorists who are brazen enough to try attacks similar to those carried out in New York and Washington last fall.

"Against such an enemy, there is no immunity, and there can be no neutrality," Bush said.

"September the 11th was not the beginning of global terror, but it was the beginning of the world's concerted response. History will know that day not only as a day of tragedy but as a day of decision when the civilized world was stirred to anger and to action. And the terrorists will remember September the 11th as the day their reckoning began."

Bush spoke to members of Congress, top administration officials and relatives of some 300 victims who were there to commemorate the day six months ago that New York's World Trade Center, and the Pentagon just outside Washington, were attacked. Also present were more than 100 ambassadors, some of whom publicly restated solidarity with Bush's fight against terrorism.

Jibril Aminu, Nigerian ambassador to the United States, told Bush, "Even as you are doing what has to be done on the war front, . . . it is reassuring that you are also sensitive to the need to move on, so the unpleasant past will not be allowed to oppress and retard the future."

Sung Chul Yang, Korean ambassador to the United States, recalled how the United States defended South Korea against communist aggression. Americans lost 33,746 of their sons and daughters in the Korean War, he said.

"As we then fought side by side and shoulder to shoulder, now the Korean people actively support the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism — and will do so until it is eradicated. Terrorism is the scourge of mankind," Sung said.

U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan have removed the Taliban government, behind which terror networks hid to carry out their plots, and now have the upper hand in fierce fighting with holdout warriors in the hills of Afghanistan, Bush said.

But this is still just the start, Bush said. He made clear he will carry the fight into other, unspecified nations with the goal of denying terrorist networks any safe haven, "no governments to hide behind, and not even a safe place to sleep."