PM overwhelmed by Ground Zero tour
From AAP
31jan02
PRIME Minister John Howard has paid a sombre visit to the site of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York.
Mr Howard, accompanied by wife Janette and sons Tim and Richard, toured the site of the World Trade Center, where 20 Australians were among the almost 3,000 people killed.
Mr Howard chatted briefly with construction workers still sifting through tonnes of rubble from the twin 110-storey towers.
The prime minister then visited the site's viewing platform, which contains hundreds of cards, photographs and floral tributes to those killed.
Hundreds of teddy bears have also been placed on the platform for those who died.
Mr Howard laid a wreath at the wall listing all the countries which lost citizens in the WTC collapse.
He was shown around the site - dubbed Ground Zero - by Jill Ker Conway, the Australian chairwoman of the Lend Lease Corporation which has the contract to clean up the site.
Mr Howard earlier said the attack on the WTC was as much an attack on the Australian way of life as it was on the American way of life.
The Prime Minister said he was moved by the tour of the site.
"It's very sad, it's very bleak," he told reporters. "It's overwhelming."
Mr Howard said he was full of praise for the workers at the site, some of whom had been working at the WTC since September 11.
Earlier he said he fully supported America's actions to strike back at those responsible.
"I want to say how strongly Australia supports the actions being taken by the United States government and the American people in the name of the world to fight terrorism," he said in a speech to the American Jewish Committee.
"We're involved because what happened then, what happened in this city, was as much an assault on the things we believe in as on the things that are believed by the people of the United States.
"In those circumstances, we see it as very much an attack on our way of life."
Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai also visited Ground Zero today.
He assured Americans he shared their pain, saying the people who committed the attack on New York also committed crimes in Afghanistan.
He earlier appealed to the United Nations to expand an international security force now patrolling the Afghan capital, Kabul.