Images of Terror: Enduring the Scars of 9/11

On April 27 of this year, Air Force One rattled windows and shocked New Yorkers when it did a low flyover above New York Harbor. The flyover was deliberate. Government officials thought that it was time to update the pictures they were using of Air Force One. They wanted to photograph the president's plane with the Statue of Liberty in the background. But the officials forgot that for millions of Americans—particularly New Yorkers—such pictures and images are inseparable from those of 9/11.

What New Yorkers in Lower Manhattan saw on April 27 was not Air Force One, but a Boeing 747 flying like the planes that had struck the World Trade Center eight years earlier. The response of those on the ground who were frightened was deeply visceral, but it was also a reminder of how quickly the images of 9/11 became a political asset for a Bush administration eager to take the country into war with Iraq.