removed from comments:[archive.org]

"Why was this necessary?"

I second that question. What purpose does it serve?
Wonder Horror and Awe.
Single events may loom large in the popular imagination, but they are meaningless outside of an understanding of what came before and after. Understanding is moments in context. This image has become an icon, an object of veneration, a graven image.

link

I don't think such things are appropriate for a republic.

2,973 Total number of people killed (excluding the 19 hijackers) in the September 11, 2001 attacks

72,000 Estimated number of civilians killed worldwide since September 11, 2001 as a result of the war on terror

2 Number of years since US intelligence had any credible lead to Osama bin Laden's whereabouts

2,932 Total number of US servicemen and women killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since September 2001

1,248 Number of published books relating to the September 11 attacks

$119m Ticket sales for anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11

$40bn Airline industry losses since September 2001

2009 Date when the official memorial will open at the World Trade Centre site

0 Hours of intelligence training provided to new FBI agents before 9/11. Now they get 24.

91 per cent Terror cases from FBI and others that US Justice Dept declined to prosecute in first eight months of 2006

11 Weeks the 9/11 commission's final report was top of New York Times' non-fiction best-seller list

117 Number of UK service personnel killed in Iraq since invasion

40 Number of UK personnel killed in Afghanistan since invasion

7 per cent People in UK who think US-led war on terror is being won, according to YouGov

1 Those charged in US with a crime in connection with 9/11

455 Number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay

77 per cent Percentage of people in the UK who believe Tony Blair's Middle East policy has made Britain a terrorist target (YouGov)

4,000 Number of UK troops left in Iraq after British-controlled provinceshanded back to Baghdad

18 The number of times that undercover investigators with fake IDs have breezed through US border checkpoints in a test by the Government Accountability Office

$8bn The amount the US will spend this year on hunting Bin Laden and other terrorists