Obama honors Sept. 11 victims

NEW YORK, May 5 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama laid a wreath at Ground Zero in New York City Thursday, just four days after ordering the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

The president did not deliver a speech, just bowed his head in silent prayer as hundreds of camera shutters clicked to record the event. Then he went off for a private meeting with some of the families of victims and survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the World Trade Center.

The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people at the center, at the Pentagon and in an airliner forced down by passengers in a Pennsylvania field. Bin Laden, the founder and leader of al-Qaida, ordered the attacks.

Aboard Air Force One on the way to New York, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president "believes it's appropriate and fitting to travel to New York this week, in the wake of the successful mission to bring Osama bin Laden to justice, in order to recognize the terrible loss that New York suffered on 9/11, and to acknowledge the burden that the families of the victims, the loved ones of the victims, have been carrying with them since 9/11, almost 10 years, and in an effort to perhaps help New Yorkers and Americans everywhere to achieve a sense of closure with the death of Osama bin Laden.

Before laying the wreath, Obama visited the Engine 54, Ladder 4, Battalion 9 Fire Station, which lost 15 firefighters among the 343 New York firefighters killed trying to evacuate the Twin Towers.

"This is a symbolic site of the extraordinary sacrifice that was made on that terrible day almost 10 years ago," the president told the firefighters and other first responders. "Obviously we can't bring back your friends that were lost, and I know that each and every one of you not only grieve for them, but have also over the last 10 years dealt with their family, their children, trying to give them comfort, trying to give them support.

"What happened on Sunday," Obama said in reference to the raid, "because of the courage of our military and the outstanding work of our intelligence, sent a message around the world, but also sent a message here back home that when we say, 'We will never forget,' we mean what we say. That our commitment to making sure that justice is done is something that transcended politics, transcended party; it didn't matter which administration was in, it didn't matter who was in charge, we were going to make sure that the perpetrators of that horrible act -- that they received justice."

The president added: "It's some comfort, I hope, to all of you to know that when those guys (Navy SEALs) took those extraordinary risks going into Pakistan, that they were doing it in part because of the sacrifices that were made in the states. They were doing it in the name of your brothers that were lost."

Obama shared an informal lunch with the delighted firefighters of shrimp salad, veal and eggplant Parmesan.

After meeting with the firefighters, the president made a shorter visit to the First Precinct police station in lower Manhattan. Obama was accompanied to both sites by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a symbol of the city's defiance when he walked the streets after the towers collapsed.

It was Obama's first visit to Ground Zero, the site of the destroyed World Trade Center, since he became president.

Obama invited former president George W. Bush to the Ground Zero events, but Bush declined. A spokesman for the former president said while Bush appreciated the invitation, he wanted to adhere to his policy of keeping out of the public eye now that he's no longer in the White House, The New York Times reported.

Bush visited Ground Zero when it was still a smoldering mass of rubble, delivering a speech using a firefighter's bullhorn.

The White House said it wasn't offended by Bush's decision not to attend Thursday's events, adding that the former president was invited in the spirit of unity Obama said he hoped would prevail in the wake of bin Laden's killing, just as it did after the terror attacks bin Laden orchestrated nearly a decade ago.

Coinciding with Obama's visit was the National September 11 Memorial and Museum's unveiling Wednesday of a navigable computerized guide to every name of the 2,982 victims inscribed on bronze parapets being installed along the edge of pools where the World Trade Center towers once stood.

The memorial opened to family members Sept. 11 and to the public by reservation the next day.

Announcement of the names arrangement was not timed to sync up with Obama's visit, said Joseph C. Daniels, the memorial and museum's president and chief executive officer.

Rather, Daniels said, the idea was "to communicate with families significantly ahead of time so they can start familiarizing themselves with the locations."