Scores of police will form a human ring around the Capitol building. All streets to the Capitol will be closed.
All the security coordinated by a new million dollar police and military command post.
22 surveillance screens and a phalanx of cameras will keep watch on the city.
Although there is no specific threat, police believe terrorists consider the Capitol a high priority target.
We feel very strongly based on intelligence reports that the Capitol was a target on 9-11.
And at a time when war with Iraq appears more likely, police say they are worried about the potential for violence from those sympathetic to Saddam Hussein.
You have to play smart and you have to look at reality. And today I think the reality is you cannot be too secure. There is no such thing as overkill.
As a result, one senior police official tells ABC News every military and police agency in Washington, D.C. will be assisting tonight.
Pierre Thomas, ABC News, Washington.
When we come back this evening, some of the day's others stay to the union news, why there will be an empty chair in the President's box tonight. It's about remembering.
We'll take a closer look at what the President promised a year ago and ask the inevitable question, are Americans better off than they were then?
And immediately when we come back, the biggest fight in almost a year in Afghanistan.
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In Afghanistan today, there's been some of the heaviest fighting in nearly a year
between American troops and Afghan fighters.
Near Spin Bullback, close to the border with Pakistan.
Afghanistan was the U.S. military's prime focus at the time of the President's State of the Union a year ago.
It's still a very difficult operation. ABC's John McGrathie is at the Pentagon.
John?
After 24 hours of some pretty nasty combat, Peter, that operation is continuing tonight.
U.S. forces in the area captured a prisoner on Monday who told them there were 80 enemy fighters
holed up in mountain caves near the town of Spin Bullback.
An Apache helicopter probed the area, took ground fire, and then sources say all hell broke loose.
The U.S. ordered 500 troops into the area, U.S. and Afghan, and a heavy air bombardment,
including AC-130 gunships, B-1 and B-52 bombers, and F-16 fighters.
The enemy forces were engaged throughout the night, and the action still continues.
At least 18 enemy personnel have been killed.
U.S. troops took 11 prisoners. Inside a series of caves, troops discovered an enormous cache of weapons.
The fighters appear to be loyal to a renegade Afghan warlord named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,
who has been trying to overthrow the current Afghan government with remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Officials had hoped that this operation, they might just capture or kill Hekmatyar,
but so far, Peter, indications are he was not there.
Thanks, John. John McGrathie at the Pentagon.
In the overseas briefing tonight, an election in Israel.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud party has done better than anyone expected,
though he will still have to form a coalition government, probably with parties further to his political right.
The largest opposition party, Labor, suffered its worst defeat in its history.
And Pakistan said it had shot down an unmanned Indian plane that crossed into Pakistani airspace in the disputed region of Kashmir.
The military said it was on a spying mission. The Indian government said it did not happen.
When we come back this evening, the small town that heard the president's promises during the last State of the Union.
He made many who will take a closer look at how things turned out for them this year.
I try to swim a couple laps every morning, but never the long way, just from here to there.
I did an all-garlic diet, lost some friends that night.
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A terrible diet, because midnight, every night I was eating the next meal.
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We're going to take a closer look tonight at how it has been for many people
since the President was last up.
Here to report on the State of the Union.
A year ago when he was at this end of Pennsylvania Avenue,
he said that the State of the Union had never been stronger
and the terrorist leaders were running for their lives.
This being an anniversary, we asked ABC's Jim Wooten to do some checking on the mood.
What sort of a year has it been?
Osama bin Laden is still at large.
If he's alive, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has lost 1800 points since then
and many, many jobs, as many Americans know, have been lost.
Jim has been in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Last year he was stern, firm.
Our war on terror has well begun.
North Korea, Iran and Iraq, he said, constitute an axis of evil.
A tough speech for tough times.
We will win this war.
But with this promising assurance,
we'll protect our homeland and we'll revive our economy.
Still, it's also been pretty tough in this neck of the American woods.
Wheeling, West Virginia.
Once a rich, pretty little city, but now, well now it isn't.
Steel mills closed, coal mines gone, the downtown deserted.
But most of these people voted for Mr. Bush
and many of them seem reluctant to blame him.
I think he's got a very difficult job to do and he's doing as well as he can.
Protecting the country against terrorists?
I will not wait on events while dangers gather.
He's trying hard, they say.
Nurse Christy Tarr is impressed with the smallpox vaccination program.
It's an awesome task for the amount of hospitals,
county health departments and states that all have to coordinate
and it is definitely a coordinated effort.
At a local fire station?
Bioterrorism training with a little federal money for some equipment and gear.
The chief says he needs a little more.
We're better off, but are we ready?
I'm not sure that any of us are.
But they are ready for the president to fulfill this pledge from last year.
When America works, America prospers
so my economic security plan can be summed up in one word, jobs.
On that point, there is some local angst.
And no wonder, for in the years since the president's last State of the Union address,
unemployment here in Wheeling has increased more than anywhere else in the country.
Your claim you're still valid?
Yeah.
In fact, with the jobless rate up here by more than 50%,
the unemployment office is a busy place.
Eleanor Feeyock, unimpressed with Mr. Bush.
I'm on the unemployment line, what's that tell you?
And if young Americans are sent to war with Iraq...
When it's all said and done and they come away victorious,
what kind of colony are they going to come home to?
So far these Americans, like most, are being patient with the president.
But on matters economic, that window may be slowly closing.
Jim Wooten, ABC News, Wheeling, West Virginia.
When we come back this evening, a note on the importance of that chair in the president's box.
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Just a brief review of our main story today. President Bush will give his State of the Union address.
This, as the country faces the prospect of war and the economy in the many, American's opinion is truly struggling.
The new ABC News poll finds that two-thirds of Americans believe the U.S. should give the U.N. weapons inspectors more time to look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the U.S. invades.
And finally this evening, the empty chair.
At every State of the Union for many years now, the President at the time has been able to focus the nation on something he feels strongly about by having someone special in the presidential box.
President Reagan had a man named Lenny Scutnick in the box.
Mr. Scutnick dove into the freezing waters of the Potomac River to save people after an airplane crashed on takeoff.
President Reagan was emphasizing heroism.
Tonight there will be an empty place in the President's box, Mr. Bush's way of focusing on those people who cannot be here because they died on 9-11.
Something else has changed here since 9-11. At every State of the Union in recent years, a member of the Cabinet stays away lest there be a catastrophe up here.
He or she would be the surviving member of the administration.
But now we know that every day since 9-11, one member of the Cabinet has had to be away from Washington, just in case.
And behind him or her is an entire shadow government in a bunker somewhere, just in case.
That is our report on world news tonight. We'll be here of course for the President's State of the Union address and the Democratic response as well.
I'm Peter Jenick. We hope you enjoy the rest of the evening. Good night.
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