9/11 families' fury as Obama compares BP oil spill to Twin Towers attack

He said that just as the events of September 11, 2001, had profoundly shaped ‘our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy’, so the oil disaster would shape thinking on the environment and energy for years to come.

Those who lost loved ones when terrorists flew hijacked planes into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Centre said Mr Obama’s remarks were yet another attempt to slur the UK.

Joy Bennett, 66, a mother of two from Amersham in Buckinghamshire whose son Oli, a 29-year-old financial journalist, died, said: ‘It is an unfair parallel and is really a cruel thing to say.

‘I can see what he is trying to say but to compare a manmade deliberate terrorist attack to something that is an accident is absolutely wrong. Mr Obama seems intent on causing as much offence to Britain as possible.

‘By saying this he is distracting from what his government is doing, or not doing enough of.’

Charles Berkeley from Shrewsbury, who lost his 37-year-old son Graham, an IT consultant, on 9/11, added: ‘I don’t think it is a fair parallel and I can understand why people feel aggrieved.’

Further criticism came from America. Ed Kowalski, of the U.S-based 9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation, said: ‘It is a very cheap attempt to draw attention away from himself. He is desperate to be able to pull attention away from his failings.’

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