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Powell Back in Washington, Cuts Short Peru Visit
US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived back in Washington from Peru on Tuesday after cutting short a South American trip in response to the attacks in Washington and New York.
He kept in touch with Washington during the long and somber flight and said he would immediately start contacting leaders around the world in the aftermath of the attacks.
Powell was at a meeting with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo on Tuesday morning when he heard that hijacked planes had hit the World Trade Center towers in New York.
"It was an initial report. It wasn't accurate but it was serious enough to give me a sense that something terrible had happened," Powell told reporters during the seven-hour flight back from Lima to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
At the end of the meeting, around 9 a.m. Lima time (10 am EDT/1400 GMT), Powell decided he had to leave. "By then it was clear that a major disaster was unfolding back home, so I immediately made a decision to return home," he said.
While his aides packed up at one hotel and moved baggage to the airport, Powell went to another hotel for a scheduled ministerial meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS), called to sign a Democracy Charter.
Foreign ministers from American countries gathered around him to express their condolences and the meeting began with a long moment of silence for the American victims.
On the news from the United States, Peruvian authorities deployed extra security around the hotel as a precaution.
Powell, speaking earlier than planned so that he could leave in good time, said the perpetrators were "terrorists who do not believe in democracy, people who believe that with the destruction of buildings, with the murder of people, they can somehow achieve a political purpose".
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