WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's campaign commercials - on the air just one day - have angered several relatives of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and a firefighters union that has endorsed Democratic rival John Kerry demanded the ads be pulled.
The White House defended the commercials, which show images of the skeletal remains of the World Trade Center and firefighters bearing a stretcher through the rubble.
``It makes me sick,'' said Colleen Kelly, who lost her brother Bill Kelly Jr., in the attacks and leads a victims families group called Peaceful Tomorrows. ``Would you ever go to someone's grave site and use that as an instrument of politics? That truly is what Ground Zero represents to me.''
In Bal Harbour, Fla., the International Association of Fire Fighters Union approved a resolution asking the Bush campaign to pull the ads, spokesman Jeff Zack said. The resolution also urges Bush to ``apologize to the families of firefighters killed on 9/11 for demeaning the memory of their loved ones in an attempt to curry support for his re-election.''
The union gave Kerry an early endorsement in the presidential race.
The controversy erupted as Bush's re-election campaign began airing the commercials nationally on cable television and on broadcast stations in about 80 media markets in 18 states.
The ads refer both to the terrorist attacks and to the recent recession, and are designed to project Bush as a candidate offering ``steady leadership in times of change.'' The commercials do not mention Kerry.
One of the ads shows the charred wreckage of the twin towers with an American flag flying amid the debris. Another ad - and a Spanish-language version of it - use that image as well as firefighters carrying a flag-draped stretcher through the rubble as sirens are heard. Firefighters are shown in all the ads.
Bush had told House and Senate leaders in January 2002 that, ``I have no ambition whatsoever to use this as a political issue'' in that election year. His aides on Thursday defended the use of the images.
``Sept. 11 changed the equation in our public policy. It forever changed the world,'' said Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary. ``The president's steady leadership is vital to how we wage war on terrorism.''
The administration arranged for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and three others to appear on network and cable broadcasts to defend the ads. One Bush aide said the controversy gave the president's commercial priceless free publicity, with millions seeing clips of the ad.
Several relatives of victims also praised the ads.
``These images honor those whose lives were lost,'' said Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles piloted the plane that crashed into the Pentagon at the hands of hijackers.
Deena Burnett, a Little Rock, Ark., resident whose husband Tom was one of the passengers on United Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field, said the ads were ``a perfect reminder of what happened that day.''
And Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who lost 23 officers that day, said Bush has every right to use the images to show his leadership abilities just as Kerry has used footage of his military service in Vietnam in his ads.
``It's comparable. It's about the president's history. It's about his leadership ability,'' said Kerik, who is on a roughly $140,000-a-year contract with the Defense Department to help establish security and stability in Iraq.
Bush is not the first politician to cite the terrorist attacks in campaign ads. In 2002, New York Gov. George Pataki mentioned the tragedy in an ad that was shown to victims' families for approval before it was broadcast.
But the images in the Bush ads have sparked a furor.
Kristen Breitweiser, of Middletown Township, N.J., whose husband, Ronald Breitweiser, died in the World Trade Center, said Bush should not use the tragedy as ``political propaganda.''
``Three thousand people were murdered on President Bush's watch,'' Breitweiser said. ``He has not cooperated with the investigation to find out why that happened,'' a reference to the effort the Bush administration has made in working with the Sept. 11 commission investigating the intelligence failures.
Harold Schaitberger, the firefighter union's president, said: ``We're not going to stand for him to put his arm around one of our members on top of a pile of rubble at Ground Zero during a tragedy and then stand by and watch him cut money for first responders.''
Terry Holt, a Bush-Cheney spokesman, defended Bush's support for homeland security, saying spending has tripled in the three years since the attacks.
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