BIDEN’S PLANS
Fresh fears loom over solemn day of remembrance
Joe Biden will again visit sacred landmarks of loss. But this time, he will do it as commander in chief.
NEW YORK — He will again make the ritual journey to sacred American landmarks of loss. He will once more bow his head in silent prayer. He will repeat words of comfort for those whose lives changed forever on that brilliant September day two decades ago.
But this time, Joe Biden will hold the rank of commander in chief as he marks the anniversary of the nation’s worst terror attack. Now, he shoulders the responsibility borne by previous presidents to prevent future tragedy, and must do so against fresh fears of a rise in terror after the United States’ exit from the country from which the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were launched.
This 9/11 comes little more than two weeks after a suicide bomber in Kabul killed 13 U.S. service members as the military concluded its withdrawal from Afghanistan. And as Afghanistan returns to Taliban rule, there are fresh concerns that the country could again be a launching pad for attacks that Biden’s government will be charged with preventing.
But for Biden, like his predecessors, the 9/11 anniversary can also present an opportunity to try to reclaim the sense of national unity that followed the attacks, a spirit long faded amid the divisive politics of the U.S.
“For Biden, it’s a moment for people to see him not as Democratic president, but as president of the United States of America,” said Robert Gibbs, who served as President Barack Obama’s press secretary.
The president will commemorate the solemn anniversary on Saturday by paying his respects at the trio of sites where the hijacked planes struck, puncturing the United States’ air of invincibility and resulting in the deaths of 3,000 Americans.
First will be a stop in New York City, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were toppled as a horrified world watched on television. Then, a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a plane fell from the sky after heroic passengers fought terrorists to prevent the hijackers from reaching their Washington destination. And finally, the Pentagon, where the world’s mightiest military suffered an unthinkable blow to its very home.
Afghanistan will shadow the day.
Osama Bin Laden used that nation as a haven to mastermind the 2001 attacks, ushering in an expanded era of terror attacks on soft targets — hotels, office buildings, nightclubs — in cities across the West. Al-qaida was routed from Afghanistan in the months after Sept. 11. But other groups have taken up the cause, including the Islamic State group in Afghanistan, believed to be responsible for the Kabul attack last month.
Biden will be the fourth president to console the nation on the anniversary of that dark day, one that has shaped many of the most consequential domestic and foreign policy decisions made by the chief executives over the past two decades.
The terror attack defined the presidency of George W. Bush, who was reading a book to Florida schoolchildren when the planes slammed into the World Trade Center.
The following year, Bush chose Ellis Island as the location to deliver his first anniversary address, the Statue of Liberty over his shoulder as he vowed: “What our enemies have begun, we will finish.”
“In the ruins of two towers, under a flag unfurled at the Pentagon, at the funerals of the lost, we have made a sacred promise to ourselves and to the world: We will not relent until justice is done and our nation is secure,” Bush said.
At that time, the nation had been on war footing for months, one conflict raging in Afghanistan and another looming in Iraq. America’s “war on terror” reshaped its citizens’ daily lives and expanded the powers of its government as it sought, at times on shaky legal grounds, to prevent further attacks.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still deadly when President Barack Obama visited the Pentagon to mark his first Sept. 11 in office in 2009.
“No words can ease the ache of your hearts,” said Obama. “We recall the beauty and meaning of their lives,” he said. “No passage of time, no dark skies can dull the meaning of that moment.”
By the time Obama spoke at the 10th anniversary, bin Laden was dead, killed in a May 2011 Navy SEAL raid. Though the nation remained entangled overseas, and vigilant against terror threats, the anniversary became more about healing, as a stunning memorial and soaring skyscrapers rose at ground zero, symbols of remembrance and rebirth.
President Donald Trump pledged to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan, but his words during his first Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony in 2017 were a vivid warning to terrorists, telling “these savage killers that there is no dark corner beyond our reach, no sanctuary beyond our grasp, and nowhere to hide anywhere on this very large earth.”
On Saturday, as Biden visits all three sites, Bush will pay his respects in Shanksville while Obama will do the same in New York. Trump, meanwhile, will be delivering ringside commentary at a boxing match at a casino in Hollywood, Florida.