Rudy Giuliani during the September 11, 2001 attacks

Mayor of New York City

The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...

during the September 11, 2001 attacks

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

, Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani

Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....

played a visible role in the response to the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center

World Trade Center

The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...

towers in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. For this he earned great praise at the time, but he has also become the subject of substantial criticism regarding preparedness before the attack and aspects of the response afterwards.

Awareness of Islamic terrorism

Giuliani has been criticized for ignoring the ongoing threat to New York City from Islamist terrorism in the years between the World Trade Center 1993 bombings and September 11.

Prior to September 11, Giuliani reportedly never referred to the 1993 bombing publicly except for a single metaphorical reference in his inaugural address not referring to terrorism. Giuliani also reportedly never discussed the threat of terrorism with the U.S. Attorney in his district, and had to ask Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...

for background information on Osama Bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

after the September 11th attacks despite the fact that the Bin Laden had previously declared a Fatwa

Fatwa

A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...

against the United States, the Clinton administration had established a section of the CIA devoted exclusively to hunting Bin Laden.

Jerome Hauer

Jerome Hauer

Jerome Hauer is the Chief Executive Officer of The Hauer Group LLC, a consulting firm and has served as a member of the Hollis-Eden Pharamaceuticals board of directors since June 2004....

, Giuliani's emergency management chief between 1996 and 2000, later said that "We never talked about Islamic terrorism. We talked about chemical terrorism

Chemical terrorism

Chemical terrorism is the form of terrorism that uses the toxic effects of chemicals to kill, injure, or otherwise adversely affect the interests of its targets.-Used by Hamas in Israel:...

, biological terrorism. We did talk about car bomb

Car bomb

A car bomb, or truck bomb also known as a Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device , is an improvised explosive device placed in a car or other vehicle and then detonated. It is commonly used as a weapon of assassination, terrorism, or guerrilla warfare, to kill the occupants of the vehicle,...

s every now and then. [But] I don't think there was much interest on his part [in Islam terrorism]."

Location of Office of Emergency Management headquarters

In September 2006, Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...

writer, and long-time Giuliani critic, Wayne Barrett

Wayne Barrett

Wayne Barrett is an American journalist. He was an investigative reporter and senior editor for the Village Voice for over 20 years. He is currently a fellow with the Nation Institute and contributor to Newsweek....

and senior producer for CBSNews.com, Dan Collins, published The Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, 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

7 World Trade Center

7 World Trade Center is a building in New York City located across from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. It is the second building to bear that name and address in that location. The original structure was completed in 1987 and was destroyed in the September 11 attacks...

building, a decision that had been criticized at the time in light of the previous terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in 1993.

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.

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. In May 2007, Giuliani put responsibility for selecting the location on Jerome M. Hauer

Jerome Hauer

Jerome Hauer is the Chief Executive Officer of The Hauer Group LLC, a consulting firm and has served as a member of the Hollis-Eden Pharamaceuticals board of directors since June 2004....

, 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

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

Chris Wallace

Chris Wallace (journalist)

Christopher "Chris" Wallace is an American journalist, currently the host of the Fox Network program, Fox News Sunday. Wallace has won three Emmy Awards, the Dupont-Columbia Silver Baton Award, and a Peabody Award. Wallace has been with Fox News since 2003...

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's 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." The February 1996 memo read, "The [Brooklyn] building is secure and not as visible a target as buildings in Lower Manhattan."

Radio communications

The 9/11 Commission

9/11 Commission

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission, was set up on November 27, 2002, "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks", including preparedness for and the immediate response to...

noted in its report

9/11 Commission Report

The 9/11 Commission Report, formally named Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, is the official report of the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks...

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. A 1994 mayoral office study of the radios indicated that they were faulty. Replacement radios were purchased in a no-bid contract

No-bid contract

The term "no-bid contract" is a popular phrase for what is officially known as a "sole source contract". A sole source contract implies that there is only one person or company that can provide the contractual services needed, and any attempt to obtain bids would only result in one person or...

. They were implemented in early 2001. However, in March 2001 the replacement radios were found to be faulty also.

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. However, when Giuliani testified before the 9/11 Commission he said that the firefighters ignored the evacuation order out of an effort to save lives.

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

Patronage

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

deals inside City Hall). Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...

stated, "Giuliani may not have been directly responsible for all those woes, but they happened on his watch".

After the attack

Giuliani was highly visible in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks

September 11, 2001 attacks

on the World Trade Center

World Trade Center

. After the attacks, Giuliani coordinated the response of various city departments while organizing the support of state and federal authorities for the World Trade Center site, for city-wide anti-terrorist measures, and for restoration of destroyed infrastructure. He made frequent appearances on radio and television on September 11 and afterwards — for example, to indicate that tunnels would be closed as a precautionary measure, and that there was no reason to believe that the dispersion of chemical or biological weaponry into the air was a factor in the attack.

When Saudi

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal suggested that the attacks were an indication that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause", Giuliani asserted,

There is no moral equivalent for this [terrorist] act. There is no justification for it... And one of the reasons I think this happened is because people were engaged in moral equivalency in not understanding the difference between liberal democracies

Liberal democracy

Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...

like the United States, like Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, and terrorist states and those who condone terrorism. So I think not only are those statements wrong, they're part of the problem.

Giuliani subsequently rejected the prince's $10 million donation to disaster relief in the aftermath of the attack.

Giuliani 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. A New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

study a week later found that he spent a total of 29 hours over three months at the site; his appointment logs were unavailable for the six days immediately following the attacks. This contrasted with recovery workers at the site who spent this much time at the site in two to three days. The recovery workers often spent hundreds of hours working 8 to 12 hour shifts.

"America's Mayor"

In the wake of the attacks, Giuliani was hailed by many for his leadership during the crisis. When polled just six weeks after the attack Giuliani received a 79% approval rating among New York City voters, a dramatic increase over the 36% rating he had received a year earlier — seven years into his administration.

In his public statements, Giuliani mirrored the emotions of New Yorkers after the September 11 attacks: shock, sadness, anger, resolution to rebuild, and the desire for justice to be done to those responsible. "Tomorrow New York is going to be here", he said. "And we're going to rebuild, and we're going to be stronger than we were before...I want the people of New York to be an example to the rest of the country, and the rest of the world, that terrorism can't stop us." Giuliani was widely praised by some for his close involvement with the rescue and recovery efforts, but others, including many police, rescue workers, and families of WTC victims argue that "Giuliani has exaggerated the role he played after the terrorist attacks, casting himself as a hero for political gain."

As an avid and public fan of the New York Yankees

New York Yankees

The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...

, who won four World Series

World Series

The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball, played between the American League and National League champions since 1903. The winner of the World Series championship is determined through a best-of-seven playoff and awarded the Commissioner's Trophy...

Championships during his time as mayor, Giuliani was frequently sighted at Yankee games, often accompanied by his son. On September 21, 2001, the first game was played in New York City after the attacks, with the New York Mets

New York Mets

The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City, New York. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League...

at home facing the Atlanta Braves

Atlanta Braves

The Atlanta Braves are a professional baseball club based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Braves are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League. The Braves have played in Turner Field since 1997....

. Despite his being a Yankee fan, the crowd cheered for him and for his leadership over the preceding days.

The term "America's Mayor", now in common usage among Giuliani supporters, was coined by Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer and philanthropist. Winfrey is best known for her self-titled, multi-award-winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011...

at a 9/11 memorial service held at Yankee Stadium

Yankee Stadium

Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in The Bronx in New York City, New York. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. The stadium hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the former home of the New York...

on September 23, 2001.

Mayoral term extension proposal

The 9/11 attack occurred on the scheduled date of the mayoral primary to select the Democratic and Republican candidates to succeed Giuliani. The primary was immediately delayed two weeks to September 25. During this period, Giuliani sought an unprecedented three-month emergency extension of his term, from its scheduled expiration on January 1 to April 1, due to the circumstances of the emergency besetting the city. He threatened to challenge the law imposing term limits on elected New York City

New York City

officials and run for another full four-year term, if the primary candidates did not consent to permit the extension of his mayoralty.

Advocates for the extension contended that Giuliani was needed to manage the initial requests for funds from Albany and Washington

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, speed up recovery, and slow down the exodus of jobs from lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan

Lower Manhattan is the southernmost part of the island of Manhattan, the main island and center of business and government of the City of New York...

to outside New York City.

Opponents viewed the extension as an unprecedented power grab and as a means for Giuliani to profit politically from the sudden, international prominence of the role of New York City Mayor. Voices were also countering the refrain that it was the mayor who had pulled the city together. "You didn't bring us together, our pain brought us together and our decency brought us together. We would have come together if Bozo

Bozo the Clown

Bozo the Clown is a clown character very popular in the United States, peaking in the 1960s as a result of widespread franchising in early television.Originally created by Alan W...

was the mayor", said civil-rights activist Al Sharpton

Al Sharpton

Alfred Charles "Al" Sharpton, Jr. is an American Baptist minister, civil rights activist, and television/radio talk show host. In 2004, he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidential election...

, in a statement largely supported by Fernando Ferrer

Fernando Ferrer

Fernando James "Freddy" Ferrer was the Borough President of The Bronx from 1987 to 2001, and was a candidate for Mayor of New York in 2001 and the Democratic Party nominee for Mayor in 2005.- Background :...

, one of three main candidates for the mayoralty at the end of 2001. "He was a power-hungry person", Sharpton also said.

Although a provision for emergency extensions is written into the New York State Constitution (Article 3 Section 25), in the end leaders in the State Assembly and Senate indicated that they did not believe the extension was necessary. The election proceeded as scheduled, and the winning candidate, the Giuliani-endorsed Republican Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...

, took office on January 1, 2002 per normal custom.

Time Person of the Year

On December 24, 2001, Time magazine named Giuliani its Person of the Year

Person of the Year

Person of the Year is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."- History :The tradition of selecting a Man of the Year...

for 2001. Time observed that, prior to 9/11, the public image of Giuliani had been that of a rigid, self-righteous, ambitious politician. After 9/11, and perhaps owing also to his bout with prostate cancer, his public image had been reformed to that of a man who could be counted on to unite a city in the midst of its greatest crisis. Thus historian Vincent J. Cannato concluded in September 2006, "With time, Giuliani's legacy will be based on more than just 9/11. He left a city immeasurably better off — safer, more prosperous, more confident — than the one he had inherited eight years earlier, even with the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center at its heart. Debates about his accomplishments will continue, but the significance of his mayoralty is hard to deny."

Handling of the Ground Zero air quality issue

Giuliani has been subject to increased criticism for downplaying the health effects of the air

Health effects arising from the September 11, 2001 attacks

There has been growing concern over the health effects arising from the September 11 attacks in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan. Within seconds of the collapse of the World Trade Center, building materials, electronic equipment, and furniture were pulverized and spread over the area.In...

in the Financial District

Financial District, Manhattan

The Financial District of New York City is a neighborhood on the southernmost section of the borough of Manhattan which comprises the offices and headquarters of many of the city's major financial institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York...

and lower Manhattan areas in the vicinity of the Ground Zero

World Trade Center site

The World Trade Center site , also known as "Ground Zero" after the September 11 attacks, sits on in Lower Manhattan in New York City...

. He moved quickly to reopen Wall Street

Wall Street

Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

, and it was reopened on September 17. He said, in the first month after the attacks, "The air quality is safe and acceptable." However, in the weeks after the attacks, the United States Geological Survey

United States Geological Survey

The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...

identified hundreds of asbestos

Asbestos

Asbestos is a set of six naturally occurring silicate minerals used commercially for their desirable physical properties. They all have in common their eponymous, asbestiform habit: long, thin fibrous crystals...

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. It would eventually be determined that a wide swath of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn had been heavily contaminated by highly caustic and toxic materials. The city's health agencies, such as the Department of Environmental Protection

Department of Environmental Protection

Department of Environmental Protection is a name used by several states in the United States of America for the agency charged with proposing and enforcing environmental law...

, did not supervise or issue guidelines for the testing and cleanup of private buildings. Instead, the city left this responsibility to building owners.

Firefighters, police and their unions, have criticized Giuliani over the issue of protective equipment and illnesses after the attacks. An October 2001 study by the National Institute of Environmental Safety and Health said that cleanup workers lacked adequate protective gear. The Executive Director of the National Fraternal Order of Police

Fraternal Order of Police

The Fraternal Order of Police is an organization of sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. It claims a membership of over 325,000 members organized in 2100 local chapters , organized into local lodges, state lodges, and the national Grand Lodge...

, Sally Regenhard, reportedly said of Giuliani: "Everybody likes a Churchillian

Winston Churchill

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

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." she went on to say, "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
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....

that she intends to "Swift Boat

Swiftboating

The word swiftboating is an American neologism used pejoratively to describe an unfair or untrue political attack. The term emanates from the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth and its widely publicized, then discredited, campaign against 2004 US Presidential candidate John Kerry.Since the political...

" Giuliani.

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 Giuliani seized control of the cleanup of Ground Zero, taking control away from experienced federal agencies, such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency

Federal Emergency Management Agency

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders...

, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration

Occupational Safety and Health Administration

The United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Labor. It was created by Congress of the United States under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, signed by President Richard M. Nixon, on December 29, 1970...

. 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. 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.

Giuliani wrote to the city's Congressional delegation and urged that the city's liability

Legal liability

Legal liability is the legal bound obligation to pay debts.* In law a person is said to be legally liable when they are financially and legally responsible for something. Legal liability concerns both civil law and criminal law. See Strict liability. Under English law, with the passing of the Theft...

for Ground Zero illnesses be limited, in total, at $350 million. Two years after Giuliani finished his term, FEMA appropriated $1 billion to a special insurance fund to protect the city against 9/11 lawsuits.

In 2007, then-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...

contemplated calling Giuliani to testify before a Senate committee on whether the government failed to protect recovery workers from the effects of polluted Ground Zero air

Health effects arising from the September 11, 2001 attacks

.

Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi

Matthew C. "Matt" Taibbi is an American author and journalist reporting on politics, media, finance, and sports for Rolling Stone and Men's Journal, often in a polemical style. He has also edited and written for The eXile, the New York Press, and The Beast.- Early years :Taibbi grew up in the...

wrote an article for the June 14, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

, blaming Giuliani for rushing the recovery effort

Rescue and recovery effort after the September 11, 2001 attacks

The rescue and recovery effort after the September 11 attacks comprised the local, state and federal agency reaction to the September 11 attacks. The unprecedented events of that day elicited the largest response of local emergency and rescue personnel to assist in the evacuation of the two towers...

and setting a poor example for recovery workers.

In June 2007, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and director of the Environmental Protection Agency

United States Environmental Protection Agency

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...

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. Former deputy mayor Joe Lhota, who had by then joined Giuliani's presidential 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."

Aftermath of Ground Zero recovery effort

In February 2007, the International Association of Fire Fighters

International Association of Fire Fighters

The International Association of Fire Fighters is a labor union representing professional firefighters in the United States and Canada. The IAFF was formed in 1918 and is affiliated with the AFL-CIO in the United States and the Canadian Labour Congress in Canada. The IAFF is headquartered in...

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

World Trade Center

forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill

Fresh Kills Landfill

The Fresh Kills Landfill was a landfill covering in the New York City borough of Staten Island in the United States. The name comes from the landfill's location along the banks of the Fresh Kills estuary in western Staten Island...

," it said, adding: "Hundreds remained entombed in Ground Zero when Giuliani gave up on them." 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.

9/11 Commission and family protests

A book later published by Commission members Thomas Kean

Thomas Kean

Thomas Howard Kean is an American Republican Party politician, who served as the 48th Governor of New Jersey from 1982 to 1990. Kean is best known globally, however, for his 2002 appointment as Chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, widely known as the...

and Lee H. Hamilton

Lee H. Hamilton

Lee Herbert Hamilton is a former member of the United States House of Representatives and currently a member of the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council. A member of the Democratic Party, Hamilton represented the 9th congressional district of Indiana from 1965 to 1999...

, 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. Family members had interrupted the proceedings, demanding an explanation from Giuliani for the lack of working radios. Some were removed from the hearing. 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." 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.

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. In December 2006, Sally Regenhard

Sally Regenhard

Sally Regenhard is an American activist who has become one of the leading voices for the families of the victims of the September 11 attacks. A former long-time resident of Co-op City in The Bronx in New York City who has degrees in behaviorial sciences and gerontology and has worked in the...

, 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." 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."

By April 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.

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