Pull plug on 9/11 ads, Bush urged

FAMILIES who lost relatives in the September 11, 2001, attacks pressed President Bush yesterday to stop running political ads that use images of the devastated World Trade Center to show him as a strong leader in troubled times.

“As a firefighter who spent months at Ground Zero, it’s deeply offensive to see the Bush campaign use these images to capitalise on the greatest American tragedy of our time,” New York firefighter Tom Ryan said at a news conference.

The Bush campaign began running television ads on Thursday, in battleground states, in the opening salvo of a long campaign ahead of the November 2 presidential election. Two ads referred to the hijacked airliner attacks that killed about 3,000 as the Bush campaign seeks to portray him as a resolute leader.