9/11: The Final Insult

Today, despite the shameful delaying tactics of members John McCain and Tom Coburn, the U.S. Senate passed a bill awarding extended medical benefits to first responders during the 9/11 attack. While alone this is cause for thankfulness (if not celebration), it also created the opportunity for Fox News to again trot out the most despicable man in America, Rudolph Giuliani.

The person once honored as Man of the Year by Time magazine is, of course, the poster boy for corrupt incompetence. But that's just a personal opinion. Instead, on this day of his rising from the ashes to again self-proclaim his heroism, let's dispassionately deal with established fact concerning his 'leadership':

• In February of 1993, while he was running for mayor, the twin towers were attacked for the first time, by a bomb-laden truck in one of the tower's underground parking lots. Presumably he noticed.
• One of the lessons learned that day was the importance of radio communication between first responders, and with their command centers. During that attack, the radios performed dismally, if at all.
• It took over seven years of Giuliani's term for new radios to be purchased for the fire department. When they were, it was done without competitive bidding. Giuliani's administration made the decision unilaterally.
• The radios were never properly field tested prior to purchase. When they were tested after distribution, they failed field tests repeatedly.
• On the day of the 9/11 attacks, during rescue operations, all police and fire department personnel were ordered evacuated from the building. All police (working on their own radio system) obeyed the radio call, without loss of life for any of those evacuees.
• However, 212 firefighters were killed when they remained inside the building which subsequently collapsed. Surviving firefighters on the scene reported that the radio commands were never heard--the radios failed.
• When subsequently called to testify, Giuliani reported under oath that the firefighters who died simply disobeyed orders. (Apparently, firefighters are uniformly 'braver' than police).
• Members of the fire department rallied to protest Giuliani's version of the facts. Giuliani had them arrested.
• Giuliani never entered the city's unified emergency command center on that day. That's because it was located on the 23rd floor in the WTC complex. Giuliani claimed afterwards it was put there because that's where his director of emergency operations wanted it. That is, until that director presented a memo showing he had clearly stated it should be put in Brooklyn, for exactly the reason that it would be far less prone to attack.
• One of the requirements for the command center was the installation of huge underground fuel tanks to run generators in case of emergency. It was those fuel tanks that exploded and burned violently during the attack, accounting for the immense heat and flame that killed many of the victims.
• Giuliani's hand-selected center was bullet proof and had its own private elevator, cigar humidor and monogrammed towels, making it ideal as a secret weekend location for assignations with his then-girlfriend.
• The reason for today's appropriations are the lifelong lung problems being suffered by those first responders. They worked 8 and 12 hour shifts trying to locate survivors and remains in the rubble. They did so without any city mandate requiring breathing respirators.
• Shortly after the attack, Giuliani had personally declared the site safe. It is interesting that much video shows him greeting and thanking clean-up workers on site. He is wearing a mask. Virtually none of the people actually doing the work are.

Despite all the evidence, we again have to endure the duplicity of Giuliani claiming solidarity with those first responders and their families.

How much better served they would have been had he exhibited any such concern in the eight years of his mayoralty before the attack.