NEW YORK (CNN) — Citing “security precautions,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has asked that Vice President Dick Cheney not attend the city’s World Trade Center anniversary ceremony.
“As with last year’s ceremony, Thursday’s two-year commemoration of the September 11th attacks will need to have essential security precautions,” a Bloomberg statement reads. “But because of concerns that the increased security measures required for vice presidential travel would have inconvenienced or delayed family members, I have asked Vice President Cheney to attend a memorial service later in the day honoring fallen Port Authority (of New York and New Jersey) officers and employees, instead of the morning’s commemoration at the World Trade Center site.”
Speaking to reporters in New York’s Herald Square, the mayor called the decision “mutual.”
A representative in Cheney’s office told CNN that the vice president understands, accepts and respects the mayor’s recommendation.