9/11 eight years on: Raw nerves remain

by Mark Silva

Eight years after the nation suffered its worst domestic assault, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Barack Obama has maintained a national emergency alert and pledged to "do everything in our power to keep America safe.''

The anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon outside of Washington has served to underscore the continuing security challenge that the United States faces nearly a decade after the al Qaeda attacks.

And the public stir created by a mere training exercise of the Coast Guard on the Potomac River, soon after Obama laid a wreath nearby at the Pentagon Memorial for those who died there on 9/11, has served as a reminder of how raw American nerves remain.
"Let us renew our resolve against those who perpetrated this barbaric act and who plot against us still,'' Obama said today. "In defense of our nation we will never waver. In pursuit of al Qaeda and its extremist allies, we will never falter.''

The Obama administration's commitment to undermine al Qaeda and the Taliban has led to an escalating U.S. military commitment in Afghanistan, even as Obama pledges to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2011.

And Obama circulated a memorandum to Congress this week declaring that: "The terrorist threat that led to the declaration on September 14, 2001, of a national emergency continues'' and it is necessary to continue that emergency.

For a moment this morning, cable television news coverage of Coast Guard activity on the Potomac stirred concern about another problem unfolding. Within an hour, however, the Coast Guard said that it had only been conducting a routine exercise, and that, contrary to initial media reports, no shots were fired.

"The anxiety caused by this situation on such a solemn day is extremely disturbing,'' Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) said today. "It sounds very much like the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing."

The White House refrained from publicly criticizing the Coast Guard's timing. "I tend not to question law enforcement,'' said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.

But he readily questioned the media's initial reporting of the episode. "We all owe it to everyone,'' he said, "to ensure that we may not get this story first... but (we'll) be the first to get it right.''

Nearly eight years ago, then-President George W. Bush stood atop the rubble of the World Trade Center with a bullhorn vowing that "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.''

Nearly eight years later, Obama has the bullhorn.

"Nearly 3,000 days have passed -- almost one for each of those taken from us,'' Obama said at the Pentagon service today. "But no turning of the seasons can diminish the pain and the loss of that day.''

The president invoked "the true spirit of that day. Not the human capacity for evil, but the human capacity for good. Not the desire to destroy, but the impulse to save, and to serve, and to build.''

Americans still hand the Republican Party "a slight edge'' over the Democratic Party - by a margin of 49 to 42 percent - in their view of which party will better protect the U.S. from international terrorism and military threats, according to a Gallup Poll released Friday.

On a rainy morning eight years after airline-hijacking terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the president and First Lady Michelle Obama stood for a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House - three bells rang and a bugler sounded taps - before heading to the Pentagon.

High-ranking members of the Obama administration fanned out across the country to take part in the first "National Day of Service and Remembrance,'' required on Sept. 11 each year by the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act which Obama signed into law on April.

Vice President Joe Biden traveled to New York to attend the city's Sept. 11 commemoration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served as keynote speaker at the First Annual 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance at the Beacon Theatre in New York.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and Trade Representative Ron Kirk painted houses for the homeless in New York. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak prepared meals for the homeless in Washington.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius assisted in a mass swine-flu vaccination at a high school in Alexandria, Va., and Education Secretary Arne Duncan helped beautify an elementary school in Washington.

"On a day when others sought to sap our confidence, let us renew our common purpose,'' Obama said today.

"This may be the greatest lesson of this day, the strongest rebuke to those who attacked us, the highest tribute to those taken from us -- that such sense of purpose need not be a fleeting moment,'' the president said. "It can be a lasting virtue.''