ABC Nightline Thursday: Bush, Blair, and more attacks [View All]

[Bozita]

NO Jacko tonight.


 
Nightline Daily E-Mail
November 20, 2003


TONIGHT'S FOCUS: Thousands of demonstrators are in the streets of London, as President Bush meets with Prime Minister Tony Blair. But the cost of supporting the U.S. has been brought home to England today as the British consulate in Istanbul and a London-based bank were bombed, with more than two dozen killed and hundreds wounded.

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We had planned to look at the president's visit to England and how it related to Iraq, and what is going on there. But, as seems to happen so often these days, I woke up to news of another terrorist attack, again in Turkey. And the toll in the two bombings today is truly horrendous. It's hard to believe that this was not tied directly to President Bush's visit to Britain. The assumption is that al Qaeda, or at least a group sympathetic to al Qaeda, is responsible. Looking at what has been happening the last couple of months, it certainly appears that al Qaeda has re-emerged with a vengeance. It is clearly capable of pulling off sophisticated and coordinated attacks. And that's bad news.

And what does that mean for the war on terrorism? Is the world safer now? It's hard to say "yes." And feelings in England were already running high. Tens of thousands of protesters are taking to the streets to protest against U.S. policies, and Tony Blair's support for those policies. Today's bombings make it clear that support comes with a price.

ABC News correspondent David Wright is in Istanbul, and he'll be reporting on the bombings for us tonight. Richard Gizbert is in London, and he'll wrap up the events of the last couple of days. Ted will anchor tonight, and we're still working out who our guests for tonight will be. It's becoming increasingly difficult to look ahead with any sort of optimism. As Ted pointed out in our meeting this morning, the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize. And it certainly seems to work. What the long term effects will be are hard to see right now, but clearly the toll of innocent lives lost will continue to rise.

Leroy Sievers and the Nightline Staff
ABCNEWS Washington bureau

 
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