Obama Meets With 9/11 Families

President Obama met yesterday with families of victims of the 9/11 attacks, trying to allay some of their fears related to his first major decision as president to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and halt trials for four months. The president listened to them speak for forty minutes and told the group, "This is not a goodbye—it's a hello...This is just the start of our dialogue." Jim Riches, an FDNY fire chief who lost a son in the attacks, wrote an op-ed in the Post about the experience saying, "He didn't dodge any questions. He came across as a likable guy, a regular guy. He's a very good speaker. I just hope he means what he says." Also at the meeting were relatives of 17 Navy sailors slain in the October 2000 Al Qaeda attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen. One 9/11 victim's mother told the press said that yesterday was an opportunity many relatives had not had before saying that the Cole attack was "swept under the rug...Bush tried to sweep 9/11 under the rug, too."