America has paused on a day
of deep emotion to honour the victims of the 9/11 attacks, 10 years after the
event.
Nearly 3,000 people died when
four hijacked airliners were crashed into the World Trade Center in New York,
the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
A minute's silence marked
each moment that a plane struck, or one of the WTC's twin towers fell.
President Barack Obama
visited each of the three memorials to victims of the al-Qaeda attacks.
Security was tight following
warnings of a possible new attack by al-Qaeda.
'Lives
cut short'
The first plane hit the WTC's
North Tower at 08:46 (13:46 GMT), the second at 09:03.
The third attack, on the
Pentagon, occurred at 09:37 and it was at 10:03 that the fourth jet crashed in
Pennsylvania.
Speaking to the crowd at
Ground Zero, the president quoted the Bible: "Therefore, we will not fear,
even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the
midst of the sea."
New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg said a "perfect blue sky morning" had turned into "the
blackest of nights" on 9/11.
"They were our
neighbours, our friends, our husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children and
parents," he said of the victims.
"They each had a face, a
story, a life cut short from under them."
These ceremonies around
America are no perfunctory moments of remembrance of an event that has faded in
the popular imagination. These day-long events are designed to recall the
horror and loss of that day, to play on the heart strings of a nation that
cannot forget.
Around New York and
Washington there is a very obvious reminder of the way the country has changed,
a police presence that must be unprecedented, closing down lower Manhattan to
traffic for a day - the reaction to what authorities say is a very real threat
from al-Qaeda.
The American homeland has not
been attacked again since 9/11, the sense of possibility, of vulnerability, the
overwhelming need for security has not gone away. But some things have changed.
Today may have evoked memories of a righteous
patriotic fervour to deal with those who threaten the country and that desire
does still exist but the enthusiasm to reshape the destiny of other countries
to make Americans safer has largely disappeared.
All of the victims' names
were read out amid tears, the five-hour reading punctuated by the solemn
silences, and music.
Bagpipers opened the
gathering, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus sang the national anthem, the cellist
Yo-Yo Ma performed, and Paul Simon played his classic song The Sounds Of
Silence.
Mourners streamed into the
newly opened memorial, which has two reflecting pools, each almost an acre in
size, in the footprints of the twin towers.
They placed pictures and
flowers beside names etched in bronze. Grown men and women sobbed in grief over
the inscriptions.
Behind the memorial could be
seen the gleaming bulk of One World Trade Center, now three-quarters completed.
Mr Obama and his wife,
Michelle, attended ceremonies in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon.
At Ground Zero he joined his
predecessor, George W Bush, to visit the memorial. With bowed heads, they
touched inscriptions.
From New York, the Obamas
travelled to the field on Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the fourth plane was
forced down by passengers who fought back.
The couple laid a wreath of
white flowers at a new marble memorial to the 40 passengers and crew of the
lost plane, before moving on to the Pentagon, outside Washington DC, where
another wreath was laid.
In New York, metal barriers
were erected on roads near Ground Zero, while police in New York and Washington
are stopping and searching large vehicles entering bridges and tunnels.
The CIA received a warning
last week that al-Qaeda might have sent attackers, some of them possibly US
citizens, to bomb one of the cities.
The warning was described by
officials as "credible but unconfirmed".
'New
generation of patriots'
In an earlier speech at the
Pentagon, Vice-President Joe Biden praised the US soldiers who had killed
al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in May of this year.
A "new generation of
patriots" were galvanised by 9/11, he told a military audience.
"We will not stop - you
will not stop - until al-Qaeda is disrupted, dismantled and, ultimately,
defeated."
Sunday's ceremonies began at
the US embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where the flag was lowered to
half-mast to remember those who died 10 years ago, as well as those who have
died since. A piece of the twin towers is buried underneath the flag pole.
No comments:
Post a Comment