Barack Obama pays 9/11 respects at Ground Zero

US president remembers victims of Osama bin Laden at the site of 2001 World Trade Centre terrorist attacks.

Barack Obama spoke no words as he laid a red, white and blue wreath at the centre of Ground Zero. But then he didn't need to: the location and the identity of the individuals gathered round him spoke for him.

The location was in the shade cast by the Survivor Tree, an oak that was recently planted at the World Trade Centre for a second time. The first time was in the 1970s, but the tree was later engulfed in rubble on 11 September 2001.
Remarkably, it was found alive though badly damaged, then nursed back to health and finally replanted at its old home last December. It now stands 9 metres (30ft) tall.

Close to the oak stood Payton Wall. She was four years old when her father, Glen Wall, died in the Twin Towers. Now 14, she wrote a letter to the president describing how she coped with that loss. By happenstance, Obama read the letter on Monday, the morning after he had orchestrated the killing of the architect of 9/11, Osama bin Laden.

A tree. A child. On the back of one man's killing, the almost 3,000 lives that he took were remembered in their company.
It happened under the same cloudless New York sky that had famously been a feature of 9/11 itself. On that day, almost 10 years ago, the beauty of the crystal clear blue sky seemed to mock the terrible events that were to unfold beneath it.
But on this occasion, with the knowledge that 9/11's architect had been confined to a watery grave, the beauty of the day seemed more in tune with events. Before laying the wreath, Obama walked through the memorial plaza that is now taking shape at the heart of Ground Zero. He saw the two giant footprints of the Twin Towers that form the physical and aesthetic heart of the site, which will become reflective pools and the largest manmade waterfalls in America. In the past week the first of the 2,976 names of those who died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania have appeared, etched in bronze plates that have just been set out along the pools' edges.

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Obama pays respects at Ground Zero