9/11 families divided over Republican Convention

Filmmaker Michael Moore (C) and rights activist Jesse Jackson (R) move down Seventh Avenue during a protest march towards Madison Square Garden, the venue for the Republican National Convention (RNC) Sunday in New York. The protest, organised by United for Peace and Justice, is the largest protest against the RNC, which began yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Some fear that staging the four-day Republican blow-out in New York increases the risk of attacks on the city. Others bristle at the thought that Republicans are trying to exploit the tragedy for political purposes.

Republicans chose New York to host their party for the first time in their 150-year-old history. They booked a site just five kilometers from Ground Zero, where 2,752 people died in the smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001.

Bush will accept the nomination for a new term just nine days before the third anniversary of the attacks.

A New York Times poll of 339 relatives of victims found that more than half of them would have preferred the Republican Convention to be held elsewhere.

But like the rest of the population, this small group seemed clearly divided in its views. A quarter thought Republicans chose New York "to capitalise on September 11" and another quarter believed that, on the contrary, the point was "to show it's safe".

"I don't think either party, Republican or Democratic, should be using 9/11 as any kind of political backdrop, because both have failed. Why 9/11 occurred, it's because there's been so many failures," said Bill Doyle, father of a man killed in the World Trade Center.