WASHINGTON ? Barack Obama observed his first Sept. 11 anniversary as president saddled with two wars that followed the 2001 terror attacks and confronted at every turn by difficult leftovers from George W. Bush?s responses to them.

Obama was a 40-year-old Illinois state senator on Sept. 11, 2001. Like his countrymen, he was jarred by what he described as ?nightmare images? of destruction and grief that filled the TV that day.

Within days, he issued a statement about what the nation should do. Beyond the immediate needs to improve security and dismantle ?organizations of destruction,? Obama wrote, was the more difficult job of ?understanding the sources of such madness.?

Nuanced musings of an obscure state senator, the statement never even made the big Chicago daily newspapers.

Americans were listening instead to Bush, shouting into a megaphone at Ground Zero. To weary rescue workers and a sorrowing nation, Bush declared: ?The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.?

Eight years later, Obama has the megaphone. And the way forward in the fight against terror is anything but clear.

Combat deaths rising

Public sentiment toward US involvement in Afghanistan is souring as combat deaths grow and questions persist about flawed Afghan elections. The drawdown of US troops in Iraq is moving forward, but at a slower pace than envisioned by candidate Obama.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates speaks of ?a certain war-weariness on the part of the American people.?

Sticky questions persist about what parts of Bush?s anti-terror program to keep; what parts to throw away; and what parts to investigate.

The phrase ?war on terror? has fallen out of favor: Obama avoids using it, he says, to keep from offending Muslims.

Growing doubts

Keeping Americans safe, the President says, is ?the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning; it?s the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night.?

Bush used to say the same thing. He also pledged to ?rid the world of evil? and framed the worst act of terrorism on American soil with a black-and-white clarity that belied the complex challenges that lay ahead.

Obama, more discriminating in his speech, has struggled to craft a clear message as he faces difficult decisions about how best to protect Americans and amid growing doubts about his ability to do so.

An AP-GfK poll released this week finds the President?s approval ratings for his handling of Afghanistan and Iraq slipping, and declining approval as well, for his efforts to combat terrorism.

On Friday?s 9-11 anniversary, Obama will visit the Pentagon memorial to those who died there in the 2001 attacks. He issued a proclamation Thursday honoring those who died and urging Americans to mark the anniversary with acts of community service.

He also pledged to ?apprehend all those who perpetrated these heinous crimes, seek justice for those who were killed and defend against all threats to our national security.?

The president?s challenge, says former Bush foreign policy adviser Juan Zarate, is to ?find a balance where he?s clearly marking 9-11 as a key historic moment from which his current policies flow, but also not allowing it to define him,? as the attacks defined Bush?s presidency.

In the years since 2001, American fears of terrorists have diminished gradually as people have moved on with their lives.

Economic, health worries

They worry more now about the economy, health care and unemployment, polls show, and they elected a new president with high hopes that he would act decisively on those issues and with underlying expectations that he would keep them safe.

Michael O?Hanlon, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said it would be a mistake to measure Obama?s success at fighting terrorism only by the yardsticks of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The President also is trying to promote security on the home front, waging a broader battle to defuse hatred and extremism that fuel terrorism globally, he said.

Americans are pragmatic enough to evaluate those efforts case by case, says O?Hanlon, and ?ultimately, the judge of whether we?re making progress is whether we get attacked again.?

New towers

New York will lead tributes to victims of the 9/11 attacks in a ceremony at Ground Zero where work on replacements for the World Trade Center, and even a memorial, remains mostly stalled.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg will attend the now annual ritual at Ground Zero, when every name of those who died is read out and moments of silence mark the impact of the two hijacked planes and the collapse of the Twin Towers.

Powerful lights will send beams skyward from the site at nightfall.

Constant financial and legal wrangling has slowed work on replacing the enormous Twin Towers to a snail?s pace.

In theory, five new skyscrapers are planned, with a park and memorial in the middle, and a transport hub. But many now think that there is no market for all five towers.

For now, the site strikes casual observers as merely a large hole.