A 9/11 widow interrupted Friday’s annual reading of victims’ names at ground zero in New York City to accuse Saudi Arabia of complicity in the al Qaeda terror attacks that claimed thousands of innocent lives.
After announcing the name of her late husband, Tom Strada, Terry Strada said, “You are missed more with each year that passes.”
Strada, the national chair of 9/11 Families United, then sparked applause by saying it had been “25 years, and still we have no justice” for the alleged role Saudi Arabia played in the attacks on September 11, 2001.
She accused the kingdom of having “fomented a rancid culture of anti-American terrorism around the globe” and of having “sent its agents to support the radical Islamic hijackers” who flew passenger planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, killing 2,753 people, including hundreds of heroic first responders.
Strada then turned her ire on unidentified U.S. government officials.
“But for 25 years, administration after administration — including leaders in front of us here today — chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” she said. “ It has been one betrayal after another.”
Strada said President Donald Trump — who reportedly skipped the ceremony in part because he wouldn’t be allowed to give a speech — “can still change that,” and she called on him to do so.
“Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have all been suffering through,” she said.
Strada also asked Vice President JD Vance, who was in the audience, to “carry that message back” to the White House.
“Stand with the families. Stand with the survivors. Stand with Americans,” she said. “As my husband Tom would have said, that is always the right thing to do.”
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