On a mission to bury the memory of Osama bin Laden by honoring those who died in the fiery Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, President Barack Obama on Thursday visited firefighters and police who lost colleagues at New York's Ground Zero and then laid a wreath at the site.
"When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say," he said in brief comments to the firefighters and others at the station he visited in New York's theater district. The station lost 15 men during the attacks.
In his brief remarks, the president never mentioned bin Laden's name.At Ground Zero, Obama laid the wreath at the foot of the so-called Survivor Tree, which sustained damage during the attack but was freed from the rubble.
The president closed his eyes and clasped his hands at the outdoor memorial where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once dominated the Manhattan skyline.
He shook hands with 9/11 family members and others dressed in black at the site where the skyscrapers were brought down by planes commandeered by bin Laden's followers. Nearly 3,000 people were killed.
The president was to later hold private talks with some family members.
Obama's visit comes after he sharply rejected calls to release photos of a slain bin Laden so the world could see some proof of death.The president said he would not risk giving propaganda to extremists or gloat by publicizing grotesque photos of a terrorist leader shot in the head.
To those who keep on doubting, Obama said earlier this week, "You will not see bin Laden walking on this earth again."His government, meanwhile, insisted the shooting of an unarmed bin Laden during a daring raid in Pakistan was lawful and in national self-defense.
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