New York ? Rachel O’Brien has been concentrating on raising her three children since her husband was killed at the World Trade Center on 9-11. She hadn’t given much thought to what would happen at ground zero.

But when she heard about plans for a museum that would place the attacks in the historical context of mankind’s quest for freedom, she got political – joining more than 900 relatives of victims to sign a petition opposing the plan.

“I have no remains of my husband, and to me that’s sacred ground,” said O’Brien, 45, whose husband, Michael, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald. “That’s the last place he was, and I think that the whole area should be all about what happened on that day.”

The debate over the International Freedom Center museum is playing out on talk shows, opinion pages and the Web. Victims’ relatives protested the museum last week at ground zero, and more than 16,000 people have signed the Internet petition condemning it.

Critics say the institution is being hijacked by left-wing advisers who blame the U.S. for the world’s wrongs – and will focus on events with tenuous connection to the terrorist attacks, such as segregation in America and the Holocaust.

Creators of the museum say it will offer inspiring stories of mankind’s progress toward liberty, and the controversy will dissolve when people understand the museum’s goal of highlighting great moments in the worldwide struggle for freedom.

But interviews with boosters and detractors alike indicate that this month’s bitter fight disguises a deeper divide over ground zero.

Debra Burlingame holds a photo of her brother Charles Burlingame, who was a pilot for American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon.

Museum supporters see the 16 acres where the World Trade Center stood as a bustling future hub of tourism, commerce and culture along with remembrance. With as many as 2 million visitors expected a year, the International Freedom Center will be an engine of the revitalized lower Manhattan when it opens in 2009, they say.

They point out that a separate memorial at ground zero will commemorate the dead.

“The basic idea from the beginning was a memorial place, yes, but not always a sad place, and that’s why music and the arts and a museum were always part of this,” said Lower Manhattan Development Corp. director Roland Betts, a business partner of the museum’s founder, Tom Bernstein.

That vision bothers many of the victims’ relatives, who believe the museum is wrong because it will not focus entirely on the lives lost on 9-11.

“I don’t think that there should be anything else there but a memorial to those people,” said retired New York building inspector Edmund Caviasco, 75, whose daughter, Jean De Palma, died in the trade center collapse.

State officials overseeing the rebuilding process said this past week that the museum should present a patriotic affirmation of America’s role in the world. Gov. George Pataki said he was demanding “an absolute guarantee” from ground zero cultural institutions that they would proceed “with total respect for the sanctity of that site.”

“We’re not going to let it turn into something anti-American, anti-freedom or questioning the values of New York, the values of America or the values of freedom,” Pataki said.

But many see the International Freedom Center as a place to vigorously debate past and present issues of freedom, from slavery to the roots of the 9-11 attacks.

“9-11 should not be something you treat with kid gloves,” said Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International and a principal adviser to the museum. “It should be something you debate, that you talk about, that we explore, that we use as a way to think about our position in the world.”

Such talk is anathema to Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the jet that crashed into the Pentagon. The principal organizer of protests against the museum, she sees any debate at ground zero as offensive and inappropriate.

“It is offensive to me for people to use 9-11 as a platform or springboard for these other ideas,” she said.