President’s tears as USA mourns the victims of 9/11
US PRESIDENT Joe Biden sought to make the 20th anniversary of the September 11 atrocity a solemn moment of national unity yesterday.
President Biden was joined in new York by former leaders Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at a ceremony where grieving relatives read out the name of everyone who died when two hijacked planes tore into the World trade Center.
Mourners also gathered at the Pentagon in Washington dC where another of the hijacked planes crashed. A total of 2,996 people died in the attacks. An estimated 1,000 of them had irish-American links, while six were born in ireland itself.
George W Bush, who was president at the time of the attacks in 2001, broke down in tears at a ceremony in Shanksville, Pennyslvania, where one of the hijacked planes crashed.
Marking the anniversary here, taoiseach Micheál Martin said ireland and the US are bound by family and friendship: ‘today we remember the almost 3,000 lives lost on September 11. ireland and America and nations bound by family and friendship. On that day there was no ocean between us. We shared the loss, and sense of shock. We honour the irish citizens, and all those lost, 20 years ago.’
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney laid a wreath at the Survivor tree at the 9/11 memorial and museum in new York on thursday.
the reading of the names of the dead was punctuated by six-minute silences – two to mark the moments the towers were hit, two to mark the other planes crashing and two to mark when the towers collapsed.
the ceremonies were moments of reflection for a nation bitterly divided over vaccine plans and shaken by the debacle of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, which the US invaded after 9/11 to hunt down Al Qaeda’s leaders.
in a video address to the nation released before yesterday’s anniversary, Mr Biden pointedly recalled the ‘true sense of national unity’ in the aftermath of 9/11. George W Bush told those gathered in Shanksville of his pride in the ‘amazing, resilient, united’ America he led after the atrocities.
Former president donald trump was not at the official ceremonies but later visited new York to meet firefighters and police. earlier he released a video attacking the ‘inept’
Biden administration who ‘surrendered in defeat’ in Afghanistan.