Eight years after 9/11, U.S. still mourns

Eight years.

Americans are almost 3,000 days removed from the Sept. 11 terror attacks that toppled the World Trade Center and killed 3,000 people — nearly the same amount of time it took al Qaeda plotters to regroup from their failed bid to take down the Twin Towers in 1993.

While former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani says not a day goes by that he doesn’t think of Sept. 11, for most Americans, that crisp, sunny morning of horror seems a lifetime ago, and, frankly, something they’d rather forget.

“It’s natural — as time goes by, people’s memories fade, they move on to other things. The important thing is that people in the country realize, whether they remember it as vividly as they did then, that it’s not part of our history. This is part of our present,” Mr. Giuliani said.

“The same forces that attacked us on Sept. 11 are alive and planning and plotting. It’s something we haven’t resolved yet, so we’d better remember it in that sense, and some of the lessons that we’ve learned from it.”

Mr. Giuliani and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge were Republicans at the center of America’s worst terrorist attack and its aftermath. In separate interviews Thursday, they called for Americans to support President Obama on the war in Afghanistan.

“If all of his political allies walk out on him, I am more than willing to be standing there with him, supporting him on Afghanistan,” Mr. Giuliani said.

“It’s clear,” Mr. Ridge said, “that when the Taliban reigned, they gave al Qaeda an open door to recruit and to train and use Afghanistan as the epicenter of their efforts. I don’t think we can afford the luxury of complacency.”

In many ways, Sept. 11 has evolved into a reminder of war — in this case, one unpopular war, Iraq, and another on which the American people are beginning to sour. In a recent CNN poll, 57 percent of respondents say they oppose the war in Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates recently acknowledged a “certain war weariness on the part of the American people.”

Soldiers are facing renewed opposition from a resurgent Taliban, which shielded al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for years. August was the deadliest month in the nearly 8-year-old war, with 46 U.S. soldiers killed. The United States now has about 62,000 U.S. troops on the ground, and NATO allies have another 35,000. The Pentagon is planning to add 6,000 troops by the end of the year.

Mr. Obama is preparing to commit even more troops and resources to Afghanistan, but inside the administration, some top officials express doubts about escalating what is now being called “Obama’s war.” Some political pundits have dubbed the conflict “Obama’s Vietnam.”

Americans — even former President George W. Bush — have moved on in some ways, although Mr. Bush, like Mr. Giuliani, said he thinks about the attacks every single day. Each anniversary that passed became more somber, but also more measured, more distant.

In 2002, Mr. Bush visited all three crash sites on Sept. 11, delivering remarks at the Pentagon, laying a wreath with Flight 93 family members in Shanksville, Pa., and visiting ground zero in New York City. He also delivered an address to the nation that evening.

In 2007, on the sixth anniversary, the president and Vice President Dick Cheney held only a moment of silence on the White House lawn to commemorate when the first of two planes struck the World Trade Center.

Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama plans a subdued marking of the day. The president will observe a moment of silence on the White House South Lawn, then he will attend a ceremony at the Pentagon and deliver a speech, but plans no trip to either New York City or Shanksville. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will attend a ceremony in New York.

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