When he visited Ground Zero today, President Obama kept the ceremony deliberately low key to fend off suggestions he was revelling in the death of Osama Bin Laden.But that hasn't stop some relatives of the 9/11 victims criticising him for his 'self-congratulatory' handling of the killing.
One, Debra Burlingame, said the president was 'using families in what is a transparent political ploy'.
Her brother, Charles Burlingame, was the pilot whose plane crashed into the Pentagon.
She said she was pleased Bin Laden had been killed, but was shocked when Mr Obama turned his back when she confronted him over the prosecution of the CIA agents who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
She told Fox News: 'I was very upfront, I said Mr President, I've been one of your most ardent critics, but on Sunday night I was very proud of you, I was very appreciative of what you helped make happen, and I was very proud of America.
'And then he hugged me, but then I said I have a question for you.'
She said: 'As a former attorney I know you can't tell the Attorney General what to do, he said, "No, I can't."
But I said "we - that shouldn't stop you from giving your opinion. We wouldn't be here today if they hadn't done their jobs. Can't you at least give them your opinion."
And he said "no I won't," and he turned around and walked away.'
David Beamer, whose son, Todd Beamer, helped stop hijackers on the fourth 9/11 plane, also criticised the president.
Mr Beamer said Bin Laden's death was 'a cause for joy', but he told Fox News: 'I feel some chagrin now, though, about how the rest of it has been handled.
'And frankly it started May Day 2011 when the president announced what had happened.
The excessive use of the personal pronoun that he used in his remarks, I really felt that was the beginning of the Commander-in-Chief putting too much spotlight on himself, taking too much credit for what the remarkable Americans had done.'
Mr Beamer went on to criticise the praise heaped on Mr Obama for taking the decision to kill Bin Laden, saying once the CIA had found the compound there was nothing else he could have done.
He said: 'It's been hailed as one of the greatest wartime decisions, bold, gutsy, but quite frankly under the facts and circumstances I think it was anything but that.' Read More
