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Edited on Sun Nov-11-07 03:09 PM by Augdog20
unless you stop them (And anyone can join and edit.) The address of the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Rudy_GiulianiJuiciest nuggets from article: Lack of preparedness before the 9/11 attacks Giuliani has been criticized for ignoring the ongoing threat to New York City from Islamist terrorists in the years between the first and second attacks on the World Trade Center. Prior to 9/11, Giuliani reportedly never referred to the 1993 WTC bombing publically except for a single metaphorical reference in his inaugural address not referring to terrorism.<47> Giuliani also reportedly never discussed the threat of terrorism with the U.S. Attorney in his district, and had to ask Henry Kissinger for background information on Osama Bin Laden after the September 11th attacks<48> despite the fact that the Bin Laden had previously declared a Fatwa against the United States<49>, the Clinton administration had established a section of the CIA devoted exclusively to hunting Bin Laden<50> and despite Clinton's military attacks on Al Qaeda.<51> In September 2006, Village Voice writer, and long-time Guiliani critic, Wayne Barrett and senior producer for CBSNews.com, Dan Collins, published The Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11,<52> one of the strongest reassessments of Giuliani's role in the events of 9/11. The book highlights his decision to locate the Office of Emergency Management headquarters (long-identified as a target for a terrorist attack) on the 23rd floor inside the 7 World Trade Center building, a decision that had been criticized at the time in light of the previous terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993.<53><54> The Office of Emergency Management was created to coordinate efforts between police and firefighters, but with the distraction of evacuating its headquarters, it was not able to conduct these efforts properly.<55> Large tanks of diesel fuel were placed in 7 World Trade to power the command center, and this fuel was later deemed responsible for the intense fire that caused that building to collapse hours after the Twin Towers.<56> In May 2007, Giuliani put responsibility for selecting the location on Jerome M. Hauer, New York City’s first Director of Emergency Management who had been appointed by Giuliani himself and had served under Giuliani from 1996 to 2000. Hauer has taken exception to that account in interviews and has provided FoxNews and New York Magazine with a memo demonstrating that he recommended a location in Brooklyn but was overruled by Giuliani. Television journalist Chris Wallace interviewed Giuliani on May 13, 2007, about his 1997 decision to locate the command center at the World Trade Center. Giuliani laughed during Wallace's questions and said that Hauer recommended the World Trade Center site and claimed that Hauer said that the WTC site was the best location. Wallace presented Giuliani a photocopy of Hauer directive letter. The letter urged Giuliani to locate the command center in Brooklyn, instead of lower Manhattan, because "not as visible a target as buildings in lower Manhattan."<57><58> <59><60><61> The February 1996 memo read, "The building is secure and not as visible a target as buildings in Lower Manhattan."<62>
Also criticized was Giuliani's focus on personal projects and turf wars rather than vital precautions for the city, and his role in communications failures (which may have been the result of patronage deals inside City Hall). Kirkus Reviews stated, "Giuliani may not have been directly responsible for all those woes, but they happened on his watch".<63>
The 9/11 Commission noted in its report that lack of preparedness could have led to the deaths of first responders at the scene of the attacks. The Commission noted that the radios in use by the fire department were the same radios which had been criticized for their ineffectiveness following the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Giuliani testified to the Commission, where some family members of responders who had died in the attacks appeared to protest his statements.<64> A 1994 mayoral office study of the radios indicated that they were faulty. Replacement radios were purchased in a no-bid contract. They were implemented in early 2001. However, in March 2001 the replacement radios were found to be faulty also. <65>
Fire Department chiefs issued orders for the firefighters to evacuate. However, the order was issued over the radios that were not working in the towers, thus, the 343 firefighters inside the Twin Towers could not hear the evacuation order. They remained in the towers as the towers collapsed. <66> <67> However, when Giuliani testified before the 9/11 Commission he said that the firefighters ignored the evauation order out of an effort to save lives. <68><69>
A book later published by Commission members Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, revealed that the Commission had not pursued a tough enough line of questioning with Giuliani when he appeared before the Commission, because its members were afraid of public outcry.<70> Family members had interrupted the proceedings, demanding an explanation from Giuliani for the lack of working radios. Some were removed from the hearing.<70> The Commission had experienced criticism the morning of Giuliani's testimony for allegedly implying that police and firefighters had not done their jobs properly with their hard questions directed to some of Giuliani's staff the previous day. Commission member John Lehman had said that New York City's disaster planning was "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city."<70> The morning of Giuliani's testimony, the New York Post ran a picture of a New York firefighter with the headline "Insult" in response to Lehman's statement.<70>
Some family members of 9/11 victims have openly criticized Giuliani for the significant communication failures that occurred on that day, believing that the lack of working walkie-talkies put the lives of first responders in significant danger. They say that the lack of radios had been a complaint of emergency services responders for years but was never dealt with and led to deaths of first responders in building collapses for which they should have been warned.<71> In December 2006, Sally Regenhard, mother of firefighter Christian Regenhard who died on September 11, and co-founder of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, vowed to expose the truths of Giuliani's actions on 9/11 before 2008, stating, "I can't see why any 9/11 family member who knows the truth about the failures of the Giuliani administration . . . would not be outraged."<72> She said in April 2007, "The bitter truth is that Rudy Giuliani is building a path to the White House over the bodies of 343 firefighters."<71>
Main article: September 11, 2001 radio communications
By April of 2007 it was reported that Giuliani had been forced to limit his appearances in New York City due to the increasing protests by family members of 9/11 victims, particularly police, fire and other emergency workers.<71>
Handling of Ground Zero air quality issue
Giuliani has been subject to increased criticism for downplaying the health effects of the air in the Financial District and lower Manhattan areas in the vicinity of the Ground Zero.<73> He moved quickly to reopen Wall Street, and it was reopened on September 17. He said, in the first month after the attacks, "The air quality is safe and acceptable."<74> However, in the weeks after the attacks, the United States Geological Survey identified hundreds of asbestos hot spots of debris dust that remained on buildings. By the end of the month the USGS reported that the toxicity of the debris was akin to that of drain cleaner.<75> It would eventually be determined that a wide swath of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn had been heavily contaminated by highly caustic and toxic materials.<75><76> The city's health agencies, such as the Department of Environmental Protection, did not supervise or issue guidelines for the testing and cleanup of private buildings. Instead, the city left this responsibility to building owners.<75>
Firefighters, police and their unions, have criticized Giuliani over the issue of protective equipment and illnesses after the attacks.<73> An October 2001 study by the National Institute of Environmental Safety and Health said that cleanup workers lacked adequate protective gear.<77><78> The Executive Director of the National Fraternal Order of Police reportedly said of Giuliani: "Everybody likes a Churchillian kind of leader who jumps up when the ashes are still falling and takes over. But two or three good days don't expunge an eight-year record."<79> Sally Regenhard, said, "There's a large and growing number of both FDNY families, FDNY members, former and current, and civilian families who want to expose the true failures of the Giuliani administration when it comes to 9/11." She told the New York Daily News that she intends to "Swift Boat" Giuliani.<80>
A May 14, 2007 New York Times article, "Ground Zero Illness Clouding Giuliani's Legacy," gave the interpretation that thousands of workers at Ground Zero have become sick and that "many regard Mr. Giuliani's triumph of leadership as having come with a human cost." The article reported that Giuiliani seized control of the cleanup of Ground Zero, taking control away from experienced federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. He instead handed over responsibility to the "largely unknown" city Department of Design and Construction. Documents indicate that the Giuliani administration never enforced federal requirements requiring the wearing of respirators. Concurrently, the administration threatened companies with dismissal if cleanup work slowed.<81> The New York Times faulted his decision-making on the post September 11 cleanup of the World Trade Center site, in the lead editorial of the May 22, 2007 issue. Additionally, the Times took Giuliani to task for his handling of worker safety at the site and the issue of first responder health problems.<82>
Giuliani wrote to the city's Congressional delegation and urged that the city's liability for Ground Zero illnesses be limited, in total, at $350 million. Two years after Mayor Giuliani finished his term, FEMA appropriated $1 billion to a special insurance fund to protect the city against 9/11 lawsuits.<83>
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is contemplating calling Giulani to testify before a Senate committee on whether the government failed to protect recovery workers from the effects of polluted Ground Zero air.<84><85>
Matt Taibbi wrote an article for the June 14, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone, blaming Giuliani for rushing the recovery effort and setting a poor example for recovery workers.<86>
In June of 2007, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and director of the Environmental Protection Agency Christie Whitman reportedly stated that the EPA had pushed for workers at the WTC site to wear respirators but that she had been blocked by Giuliani. She stated that she believed that the subsequent lung disease and deaths suffered by WTC responders were a result of these actions.<87> Former deputy mayor Joe Lhota, now with the Giuliani campaign, replied, "All workers at Ground Zero were instructed repeatedly to wear their respirators." A safety professional who worked at Ground Zero added, "I was absolutely aghast at the refusal of the workers at ground zero to wear the personal protective equipment. All of my efforts to convince these guys to wear the masks was for naught."<88>
Aftermath of Ground Zero recovery effort
In February 2007, the International Association of Fire Fighters issued a letter accusing Giuliani of "egregious acts" against the 343 firemen who had died in the September 11th attacks. The letter asserted that Giuliani rushed to conclude the recovery effort once gold and silver had been recovered from World Trade Center vaults and thereby prevented the remains of many victims from being recovered: "Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that fire fighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill," it said, adding: "Hundreds remained entombed in Ground Zero when Giuliani gave up on them."<89> Lawyers for the International Association of Fire Fighters seek to interview Giuliani under oath as part of a federal legal action alleging that New York City negligently dumped body parts and other human remains in the Fresh Kills Landfill.<90>
Claims as to time spent at the Ground Zero "pile" and to being "one of them"
He claimed on August 9, 2007 that "I was at Ground Zero as often, if not more, than most workers.... I was there working with them. I was exposed to exactly the same things they were exposed to. So in that sense, I'm one of them." This angered NY Fire and Police personnel 911 workers.<91><92><93> A New York Times study a week later found that --while his appointment logs were unavailable for the six days immediately following the attacks-- he spent a total of 29 hours over three months at the site. This contrasted with recovery workers at the site who spent this much time at the site in two to three days.<94>
Claims as to being an expert on Islamic terrorism
Giuliani and his campaign staff have said that he has been a student of Islamic terrorism for 30 years. Amanda Ripley, writing for Time Magazine said, "This is an exaggeration." During his 1980s work as a federal prosecutor, he addressed white collar crime and the Mafia. He led no significant terrorism prosecutions that resulted in convictions.<95>
Ripley contrasted Giuliani's claim that "I have the most foreign policy experience" with the observation that Senator John McCain, the ranking member of the member of the Senate Armed Services Committee served 22 years as a Navy pilot and visited Iraq six times, and that Senator Joe Biden, current chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has served 32 years on that committee and has visited Iraq on seven occasions. Ripley noted that among the major presidential contenders, Giuliani, John Edwards and Fred Thompson, have not visited Iraq.<96>
Giuliani had published no academic paper, delivered any policy address, written any journal article, nor written any book on Islamic terrorism prior to September 11, 2001.
Jerome Hauer, mayor Giuliani's emergency management chief between 1996 and 2000 echoes the refutation that Giuliani has been a student of Islamic extremism. He also said, "We never discussed Islamic terrorism;" on the other hand, "We talked about chemical terrorism, biological terrorism. We did talk about car bombs. I don't think that there was much interest on his part."<97>
Allegations of not having read 9/11 Commission's Report
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