WASHINGTON — Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, previously branded by the Bush administration as the "prime suspect" in the Sept. 11 attacks on America, is now being labeled as the mastermind of the operation.
"I am absolutely convinced that the al-Qaida network, which he heads, was responsible for this attack," Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"He is a murderer," Powell added, promising that the administration soon will release evidence to back the accusation.
Administration officials also said Sunday they don't believe assertions by leaders of the Taliban, the ruling regime in Afghanistan, that they don't know where bin Laden is hiding in their country.
Powell's harsh words came on a day when the nation continued to be filled with signs and symbolism of a country struggling to return to normal.
National Football League fans, under heightened security, returned to stadiums around the nation. But one of the nation's most famous sports venues — Yankee Stadium — was packed with thousands of people attending a memorial service.
Sunday morning, President Bush and first lady Laura Bush stood silently with their right hands over their hearts as Old Glory was returned to full staff at Camp David. Flags around the nation had been at half-staff since the attacks.
Bush declined to answer questions later Sunday after the Marine One helicopter touched down at the White House. The Bushes were accompanied by Commerce Secretary Don Evans as the helicopter arrived amid the sounds of aircraft patrolling the area.
The return to normalcy also was punctuated by a Federal Emergency Management Agency report that 7,000 workers remain involved in the recovery missions at the World Trade Center site in New York and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, where drivers slowed down on adjacent highways to get a look at the charred portion of the building.
Also very much out of the ordinary was a one-day ban Sunday on crop-dusting from airplanes in domestic airspace. The Federal Aviation Administration imposed the ban, concerned about the possibility of chemical attacks.
But the administration urged Americans to look ahead and get back to business.
"We need to get back to work. We need to get back to ball games. We need to show the world that America is strong," Powell said on ABC's "This Week."
While Americans were trying to get back to normal, preparations continued abroad for military action against bin Laden. A U.S. Defense Department team led by Air Force Brig. Gen. Kevin Chilton, Pentagon director of strategic planning for the Near East and South Asia, arrived Sunday in Islamabad, according to sources quoted by The Associated Press.
That team will be followed today by a high-level European Union delegation, which is making Islamabad its first stop on a weeklong diplomatic tour through Islamic countries.
Meanwhile, Bush's top lieutenants, as well as congressional leaders, were dispatched to the Sunday talk shows to talk about — but not in detail — the evidence against bin Laden and the need for the nation to get back to something resembling business as usual.
The nation's case against bin Laden will be substantial, administration officials said Sunday.
"I think in the near future we'll be able to put out a paper, a document, that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack," Powell said on "Meet the Press."
"But also, remember, he has been linked to earlier attacks against U.S. interests, and he's already indicted for earlier attacks at the United States."
U.S. officials believe bin Laden was involved in deadly attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa and the USS Cole in Yemen.
"I think his guilt is going to be very obvious to the world," Powell said on ABC's "This Week." "I think we will put before the world and the American people a persuasive case that there will be no doubt when that case is presented that it is al-Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden who has been responsible for this terrible tragedy."
Powell declined to say whether there is any law that would prevent American forces from killing bin Laden.
"An interesting question," he said. "There are a number of authorities that are in place, executive orders and the like, that we are examining to make sure that we have all the freedom of action we need to bring him
to justice or to bring justice to him, as the president has said."
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, appearing on CNN's "Late Edition," said the evidence against bin Laden would soon be offered to "friends, allies and the American people and others."
"We have very good evidence of links between Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida operatives and what happened on Sept. 11," she said.
But Rice insisted that killing or capturing bin Laden is not "job one." "Job one is choking off this terrorist network from what it likes to do, hiding in the shadows, using the financial system that we think of as so open," said Rice.
"We've got to go after the guts of this," she said. "If you just cut off its head and it regenerates another head, that's not going to be very helpful."
Also Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it is not credible that Taliban leaders don't know where bin Laden is. Rumsfeld also cautioned against speculation that bin Laden would be captured or killed as a result of a massive military action.
"Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person? No, it's not likely. That isn't how this is going to happen," he said.
"This is going to happen over a sustained period of time because of a broadly-based effort where bank accounts are frozen, where pieces of intelligence are provided and where countries decide that they want to change their policies and no longer create a hospitable environment for people that are running around, driving airplanes into World Trade Tower and the Pentagon, and that they want to expel those kinds of people."
Rumsfeld confirmed that military officials had lost contact with an unmanned aircraft over Afghanistan, but he disputed Taliban claims that its fighters had downed the plane.
Rumsfeld acknowledged that the end of the struggle may be difficult to pinpoint.
"The ultimate victory in this war is when everyone who wants to can do what everyone of us did today, and that is get up, let your children go to school, go out of the house and not in fear, stand here on a sidewalk and not worry about a truck bomb driving into us, and be able to be free in speech and thought and activity and behavior. And that's victory," said Rumsfeld.
Later Sunday, on CBS' "Face the Nation, Rumsfeld said Americans must remain vigilant about all forms of attack, including chemical and biological weapons. He said nations that have harbored terrorists also have developed those kinds of weapons.
"So reasonable people have to say to themselves that when you find that kind of information it ought to cause us to recognize that those are dangers that we need to worry about," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report