President George Bush is observing the seventh anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks on Thursday at a time when he’s having to dispatch more American troops to fight rising violence in Afghanistan, the launch site for al-Qaeda’s assault on the United States.
Every year since the attacks, Bush has stood in a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House to remember the nearly 3 000 people who died when terrorists crashed hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Centre in New York, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Afterward he was to head to the Pentagon to dedicate a memorial that has 184 benches over small reflecting pools representing each life lost when American Airlines Flight 77 flew into the symbol of US military might on that clear and sunny September morning.
Benches that face the Pentagon commemorate those who died inside the building, while those facing away from the building carry the names of passengers of the ill-fated aircraft.
The moment of silence at the White House on Thursday will occur at 8.46am — the exact time in 2001 that terrorists slammed the first of two jetliners into the World Trade Centre. The Pentagon was struck about an hour later.
Joining the president will be First Lady Laura Bush; Vice-President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne; members of Congress, Cabinet members and military officials; and about 3 000 White House employees and guests.
The Pentagon ceremony will include a wreath laying, music and a reading of the names of the 184 who died on the plane and inside the building.
”The president thinks about 9/11 every single day when he wakes up and before he goes to bed,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said on Wednesday. ”This is what he’s concerned about. He’s always been concerned about another attack on our country. Thankfully, we haven’t had one.”
Barack Obama and John McCain, the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, respectively, will appear together at Ground Zero in New York on Thursday to honour the memory of those who died. The campaigns agreed to halt television advertising critical of each other for the day.
Bush announced this week that he was sending a marine battalion to Afghanistan in November to replace two that are scheduled to leave and an army brigade there by January.
US commanders in Afghanistan say they need another 10 000 troops — about three times as many as they will receive this winter under the troop deployment plan Bush announced. The commanders also urge more non-military aid and say the Afghan government must perform better.
The Pentagon Memorial was built at a cost of $22-million on a 0,77ha parcel of land adjacent to the Pentagon and within view of the crash site.
Ground Zero
New Yorkers got a clearer picture of the turf wars at the site of the destroyed World Trade Centre on Wednesday, with mayor Michael Bloomberg complaining of indecision and infighting among parties involved in the construction of the site.
Bloomberg insisted on meeting the 2011 completion deadline for the memorial, complaining that progress to rebuild Ground Zero has been ”frustratingly slow”.
”Progress on the redevelopment of the World Trade Centre has been frustratingly slow, owing in large part to a multilayered governance structure that has undermined accountability from the get-go,” Bloomberg said in the editorial pages of New York newspapers.
”The rebirth of Lower Manhattan will not be completed as long as Ground Zero remains an open wound,” he said.
Bloomberg said his administration has agreed with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to a joint plan to guard and secure the World Trade Centre site, an agreement that ”will pre-empt any potential turf wars and allow for a seamless integration of police operations at the site and in the surrounding area”.
The authority owns the 6,4ha land parcel at Ground Zero, but the World Trade Centre is leased to a private real-estate company while the city is responsible for streets around the site and security.
The new World Trade Centre is expected to cost more than $10-billion and the memorial close to $1-billion.
Bloomberg wants the memorial to be completed by 2011, saying: ”No more excuses, no more delays.”
Architects and the city on Wednesday unveiled a new design for the memorial, which will evoke the 110-storey twin towers blown up in 2001. The memorial will have two pools resting on the original footprints of the twin towers, which will be surrounded by oak trees. — Sapa-AP, Sapa-dpa