Ground Zero in New York is the focus of the fifth anniversary of the September the 11th attacks. The US President was due to visit on Sunday evening for a prayer service, ahead of the official commemorations on Monday. A steady stream of people are also paying their respects to those who died.

“I have a daughter who was eight years old at the time and she has not been the same,” said one man. “She still has nightmares about this.” A woman said: “It’s just like a haunting feeling, where you look, you feel, you remember. And it’s hard, very hard.”

George W. Bush made a similar visit to ground zero in 2005. This year he will also visit the Pentagon and the field in Pennsylvania where Flight 93 crashed. The fifth anniversary comes amid what some commentators are calling an intensifying election year debate over whether President Bush’s policies have made America safer or more vulnerable.

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