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WASHINGTON, Sept 11: Sad and tearful, the United States remembered on Wednesday the victims of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks as people across the country marked the solemn occasion with a moment of silence.
In Washington, President George W. Bush joined senior members of his cabinet in observing a moment of silence at the south lawn of the White House.
About 12,000 people gathered at the Pentagon where 189 people were killed this day last year in the attack.
Bush, echoing another president confronted with horrific loss of life, said those killed in the Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks “did not die in vain.”
“The murder of innocents cannot be explained, only endured,” he said. “And though they died in tragedy, they did not die in vain.”
Standing before the Pentagon’s west facade, which has been entirely rebuilt in the year since the attacks devastated it, Bush also looked forward, signalling a continuing war against forces, including Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who officials claim could threaten the country.
“Their loss has moved a nation to action in a cause to defend other innocent lives across the world,” he said of the Pentagon dead. “This war is waged on many fronts ... Yet there’s a great deal left to do. And the greatest tasks and greatest dangers will fall to the armed forces of the United States.”
Bush’s tone, sadness mixed with what Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Americans’ “fierceness and resistance,” was the order of the day as the country and the world marked the anniversary of the terror attacks with ceremonies, speeches and, perhaps most poignantly, silence.
Some of the most powerful words spoken were simply names — the names of some 2,800 people who were killed when two hijacked planes hit the twin towers. The memorial roll was read after Governor George Pataki recited President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and its vow that “we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.”
After speaking at the Pentagon, Bush was en route to Shanksville, Pa., where passengers fought hijackers for control of their plane, which crashed in a field. He was then to fly to New York for laying a floral wreath at Ground Zero along with his wife. In the evening he would join other world leaders at a candlelight vigil at the Battery Park.
GROUND ZERO: At Ground Zero, tears filled mourners’ eyes as former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and others read out the names of all 2,800 killed when hijacked planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
A clear blue sky canopied the mourners while a bright sun shone on them, exactly like a year ago when thousands of workers were hurrying down to the World Trade Center unaware of the calamity that was about to hit them.
Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish names followed each other as a reminder that the terrorists were friends to no nation or religious group — their victims came from 90 nations from across the globe.
People had started gathering at the site — where once the twin towers of proudly stood — at dawn. Some had come all the way from California to share in the grief.
Bands in military and police uniforms walked into the centre of Ground Zero, called the Pit, from a special ramp built for them, playing “Amazing Grace” and holding high the American flag.
“Those dead shall not have died in vain,” declared New York Governor George Pataki. The state built “for the people, of the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth.”
COMMEMORATION: The commemoration at Ground Zero began exactly at 8.46am EDT, the moment when the hijackers flew the first hijacked plane into the WTC. Another key moment, 9.03am, when the second plane hit the WTC, rolled by as people read out the names of the victims. Bells were rung twice during the name reading, exactly at the moments when each of the two towers fell.
Elsewhere in the city, churches had started ringing their bells earlier. The first to do so were the churches in Jackson Heights where many of the WTC victims lived.
“Again today we are a nation that mourns ... with our minds full of those who fell we join President Bush and the rest of the nation in a moment of silence,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
