By: Jennifer Loven
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Marking what he called
simply a "sad anniversary," President Bush
intends a deliberately low-key Sept. 11 of sober,
quiet remembrances.
He planned no formal remarks or appearances
at official memorial ceremonies and was not leaving
Washington.
The president's schedule for the second anniversary
of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was beginning with
an early morning prayer service at
St. John's Episcopal Church, only a block
from the White House.
Bush and his wife, Laura, then were to go back
across the street, to join White House staff members
on the South Lawn at 8:46 a.m. to observe with a
moment of silence the time when the first plane
hit the World Trade Center in New York City.
In the afternoon, the president, still accompanied by the
first lady, was to travel a few miles to the
Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a private session
with soldiers being treated there for wounds suffered in Iraq.
The White House even scotched for Thursday the
normal daily on-camera briefing with Bush's chief
spokesman, Scott McClellan, in observance of
Patriot Day, the name given to Sept. 11 by
presidential proclamation.
It is a time, the president said Wednesday, to honor
the victims' families, those who still "feel a grief that
does not end." It is also a time, he said, for the rest
of the country to remember how it "felt the anger and
the sense of loss" on that day two years ago that
3,016 people died in New York, Washington and
Pennsylvania at the hands of terrorist hijackers.
The president's recognition of the anniversary this year
is markedly more subdued than last, when he participated
in memorial events at all three crash sites and engaged
in tearful embraces with family members. Aides said the
new approach was in keeping with the president's view
that the day now should be solely about the families.
So instead of Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney was
representing the administration in New York. However,
at the request of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg,
who worried about the security requirements that come
with a Cheney appearance, the vice president was
attending only an afternoon service honoring fallen
Port Authority employees, not the morning
World Trade Center observances.
"The last thing we want to do is be disruptive of any
remembrance ceremony that is occurring," McClellan said.
A ceremony at Shanksville, Pa., where one of the
four hijacked planes crashed into the ground, was
being attended by Interior Secretary Gail Norton.
And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was
presiding over a wreath laying ceremony at
Arlington National Cemetery, not far from the Pentagon,
another of the Sept. 11 crash sites.
Most of the Democratic presidential candidates were
putting their campaigns on hold for the anniversary,
choosing to take part in memorial services or simply
staying out of the public spotlight for the day.
The lone exception was Sen. Bob Graham of Florida,
who planned to address the Council on Foreign Relations
in New York City on the war on terror two years later.
Aides said any remarks Thursday by Bush would come
only extemporaneously.
On Wednesday at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va.,
he reflected on Sept. 11, 2001, and outlined his
administration's program to protect the nation against
future attacks in a speech the White House regarded
as his main public comments on the anniversary.
"The memories of Sept. 11 will never leave us," he said.
"We will not forget the burning towers and the last phone
calls and the smoke over Arlington. We will not forget
the rescuers who ran toward danger and the passengers
who rushed the hijackers. We will not forget the men and
women who went to work on a typical day, and never
came home. We will not forget the death of school children
who were on a school trip."
On Sept. 11, he said, the nation's prayers will be with those
families who "will be thinking of one name in particular, a
person they still love and deeply miss."
But along with shared grief, Bush also promised to stay on
the offensive, and to be successful, against terrorists who
he said continue to plan new attacks.
On a new audiotape broadcast on an Arab television
station Wednesday, a speaker purported to be
Osama bin Laden praised the "great damage to the enemy"
that was inflicted on Sept. 11.
Bush said: "We will never forget the servants of evil who
plotted the attacks. And we will never forget those who
rejoiced at our grief and our mourning."
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