Cheney Opts Out of Service at Towers Site

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney has agreed not to attend today’s Sept. 11 anniversary commemorations at New York’s World Trade Center site and instead will join mourners at a church service to remember Port Authority employees who died in the terrorist attacks two years ago.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement that he requested the change “because of concerns that the increased security measures required for vice presidential travel would have inconvenienced or delayed family members.”

Cheney will be the highest-ranking administration official in New York for the observances.

This year, the president and First Lady Laura Bush are scheduled to attend a special morning service at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House, observe a moment of silence on the South Lawn at 8:46 a.m. -- the time that the first jet struck the World Trade Center -- and then visit Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital in Washington to meet with soldiers wounded in Iraq.