9/11 remembered
Bells tolled at special services and other observances were held across the United States on Saturday.
Besides New York, events were held in Washington, Boston and Los Angeles, where many victims on the doomed planes were from, and elsewhere. In many places, a simple moment of silence was observed.
In Washington, President Bush marked the anniversary in a live radio broadcast from the Oval Office. Surrounded by victims’ relatives, firefighters and police officers, Bush described the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as a turning point. “We saw the goals of a determined enemy: to expand the scale of their murder, and force America to retreat from the world,” he said. “And our nation accepted a mission: We will defeat this enemy.”
Earlier, Bush and his wife, Laura, along with Vice President Cheney and his wife, Lynne, attended a prayer service at St. John’s Episcopal Church. They then joined members of Congress, other officials and victims’ families on the South Lawn of the White House for a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. – the time that, three years earlier, American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
In the Pennsylvania field where Flight 93 crashed, two large bells rang as the names of each 40 passengers and crew on board were read. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told the victims’ families that “no words, no memorials, nothing can take the place of all that you have lost.”
Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, marked the anniversary Saturday by paying tribute to victims in his home state of Massachusetts.
At Boston Public Garden, he laid white lilies wrapped in red, white and blue ribbons at a granite 9/11 memorial, where he read the engraved names of Massachusetts victims of the terrorist strikes. Kerry later spoke to more than 100 family members of 9/11 victims at the newly restored Boston Opera House.
“While Sept. 11th was the worst day we have ever seen, it brought out the best in all of us,” he said. “And we must always remember that we will only defeat those who sought to destroy us by standing together as one America.”
Saturday’s anniversary was also marked around the world.
In Pakistan, a radical Islamic group used the day to protest American policies in Iraq.
In Japan, a top government spokesman acknowledged the loss of “many precious lives, including those of 24 Japanese” in the Sept. 11 attacks.
“We are entering a period in which one terrorist attack leads to another,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told reporters. “Each country should make efforts and also work closely globally to prevent this despicable crime of terrorism.”
In Jerusalem, about 1,200 people took part in a rally in memory of the Sept. 11 victims. Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders presided at the event, held in a park across the street from the U.S. Consulate.