White House rivals bury hatchet at Ground Zero

NEW YORK - White House rivals John McCain and Barack Obama made a dramatic show of unity on Thursday with a visit to Ground Zero on the emotional seventh anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Suspending their increasingly bitter presidential contest, McCain and Obama shook hands, then dropped roses in the memorial pool at the still unreconstructed site of the former World Trade Centre in Manhattan.

The two candidates met with firemen, police and others involved in the terrifying aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks in which Al-Qaeda-hijacked airliners hit and demolished the Twin Towers.

Later they were to extend their declared truce by participating in a civic forum in New York.

The day opened with a simple, but moving annual ceremony in which the names of almost 3,000 victims from the 9/11 attacks are read out at Ground Zero.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the crashing of hijacked airliners into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania marked the day the United States "broke."

Choking on tears, victims' relatives read out names while a string quartet, classical guitar and flute played mournfully in the background.

At nightfall two shafts of blue light were to shoot upward from Ground Zero, recalling the lost skyscrapers.

The patriotic upwelling brought rare unity just as splits deepen in the country ahead of the November 4 election.

Yet politics were never far below the surface.

Democrat Obama said 9/11 was when "Americans across our great country came together to stand with the families of the victims."

He added: "Let us renew that spirit of service and that sense of common purpose."

But Obama then pointedly referred to Republican President George W. Bush's failure to make good on a promise soon after 9/11 to apprehend Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

"Let us remember that the terrorists responsible for 9/11 are still at large, and must be brought to justice," said Obama, who McCain has attacked as having insufficient foreign policy and national security experience.

Obama also took the opportunity to garner the support of popular former president Bill Clinton at his Harlem offices.

Indicating that he had finally overcome bitterness at Obama's defeat of his wife Hillary for the Democratic nomination, Clinton responded warmly, saying: "I predict that Senator Obama will win and win handily."

McCain, meanwhile, visited the crash site of United Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and praised passengers who assaulted their hijackers, crashing the aircraft before it could hit any target.

There is speculation that the Al-Qaeda terrorists had been hoping to fly into the Capitol, seat of the US Congress in Washington.

The tribute clearly was meant to underline the Republican candidate's own history of service as a Vietnam war pilot and prisoner of war, one of his strongest selling points with voters.

"I have witnessed great courage and sacrifice for America's sake," McCain said, "but none greater than the sacrifice of those good people who grasped the gravity of the moment, understood the threat, and decided to fight back at the cost of their lives."

He declared himself "in awe" of the mid-skies uprising.

At Ground Zero, survivors, who wore white ribbons pinned to their chests, often broke off to add brief tributes as they read the names of dead relatives.

One fought to control himself as he condemned the "cowardly men" who killed his loved one.

A woman managed a smile as she called to her deceased husband Chuck, saying: "Until we meet again may God hold you in the palm of his hands."

There were also emotional scenes at the Pentagon, where thousands joined Bush and US Defence Secretary Robert Gates to dedicate the first September 11 memorial.

A Marine Corps bugler played taps from the roof where firefighters had unfurled a US flag while the building burned after the attack.

Bureaucratic wrangling has continuously delayed plans to build a replacement for the World Trade Centre, a failure that symbolises popular frustration with the inability to catch Osama bin Laden and extricate troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The first steel beams for a planned Freedom Tower at the site went in only this week.

But while Obama has steadily attacked the Republicans' handling of security issues, pocketbook concerns, especially the state of the housing market, are the top election issue.

New York University politics professor Steven Brams expected only the briefest lull in the race.