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US marks five years since 9/11
10/09/2006 23:30 - (SA)
James Hossack
New York - The United States formally launched ceremonies on Sunday marking five years since the September 11 terrorist strikes killed about 3 000 people and upended Americans' view of their place in the world.
President George W Bush - who launched the global war on terrorism and the invasion of Iraq in response to the attacks - kicked off two emotional days of global commemorations by laying wreaths at Ground Zero.
Accompanied by his wife, Laura, Bush laid flowers on the site where each of the World Trade Centre towers once stood, as
bagpipes played in the background.
A few dozen protesters greeted Bush, who has seen his approval rating dip sharply as the unpopular war in Iraq continues.
Also, a divided US public is worrying whether it is safer five years after the devastation wrought by the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, the terrorist mastermind who remains at large. Saddam 'linked to network'
On the eve of the anniversary, US administration officials admitted that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was not behind the al-Qaeda attacks on US targets, but defended the decision to invade, insisting Saddam was linked to the network.
"We've never been able to confirm a connection between Iraq and 9/11," said vice-president Dick Cheney on NBC, but said that a connection with al-Qaeda was "a different issue".
"There are two totally different propositions here.
"People have consistently tried to confuse them," he said, calling Saddam a state sponsor of terror and noting that al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before the US invasion.
Defining moment
Five years after the attacks left the world's superpower reeling, September 11 remains the defining moment of Bush's presidency and a watershed in recent American history, spurring the United States to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
But despite the billions of dollars spent on the military campaigns, bin Laden - believed to be hiding in the rough, mountainous region straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border - remains at large.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that his trail had grown "stone cold".
The newspaper said no tips, human or electronic, had led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader, citing unnamed US and Pakistani officials.
Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice acknowleged that the United States did not know bin Laden's precise location, noting that he was in "apparently, very remote areas". 'Fewer places to hide'
"He doesn't communicate, apparently, very much," she said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday.
"And, it is not easy to track someone who is determined to hide in very remote areas."
But, she said, there are "fewer and fewer places for him to hide".
Bush has called for flags to fly at half mast on Monday and for people across the country to observe a moment of silence at 08:46 (12:46 GMT), the exact time that the first of two planes ploughed into the World Trade Centre.
Bush will lay a wreath in the Pennsylvania field where a third jet crashed after passengers fought back against their hijackers. Despite this, 40 people were killed.
Roll call
He will then fly to the Pentagon for commemorations there.
In what has become an annual ritual, husbands, wives and partners of the 2 749 people, who perished in the World Trade Centre, will read a roll call of the dead, pausing only to mark the moments the planes struck and the towers collapsed.
As evening falls, two giant beams of light symbolising the collapsed towers will illuminate the Manhattan sky. A candle-lit vigil is planned at Ground Zero.
For only the fifth time in his presidency, Bush will deliver a televised address to the nation from the White House in the evening, in what has been billed as "a non-political speech about what September 11 has meant to the nation".
- AFP
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