Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Rudy let off easy?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 23 May 2004 13:57:48 -0400

Rudy let off easy?

BY THOMAS FRANK
WASHINGTON BUREAU

May 19, 2004, 8:05 PM EDT

Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani won effusive praise Wednesday from the
Sept. 11 commission, one day after it criticized city firefighters and
police, in a hearing that spectators interrupted with jeers and
accusations that the panel was not asking tough questions.

Police escorted at least two hecklers from the auditorium at New School
University in lower Manhattan, where many others grew angry as
commission members lauded Giuliani and marveled at the Sept. 11 rescue
efforts he described over nearly two hours of testimony.

The hearing was almost a reversal from Tuesday, when commission
investigators issued a sharply critical report of poor coordination on
Sept. 11 by emergency agencies and commission members aggressively
questioned the city's former top public safety officials.

In a 35-minute opening statement that seemed a rebuttal of Tuesday's
criticism, Giuliani said: "Our anger should clearly be directed and the
blame should clearly be directed at one source and one source alone —
the terrorists who killed our loved ones. For others, there should be
compassion."

Giuliani said officials at the Port Authority of New York and New
Jersey, which owned the World Trade Center, had estimated shortly after
the buildings collapsed that 12,000 to 15,000 people would be killed,
but the number was drastically lower, largely because of firefighters.

"They saved more lives than anyone had any right to expect," Giuliani
said. "Done differently, with people not willing to be as brave as they
were, you would have had a much greater loss of life."

Commission members lauded Giuliani. "Your leadership gave the rest of
the world an unvarnished view of the indomitable spirit of the city, and
for that I salute you," said Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat who worked
with Giuliani in the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan in the 1970s.

Slade Gorton, a former Republican senator from Washington who on Tuesday
had sharply questioned former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik on why
911 operators had no information to give frantic callers in the trade
center, said he calculated that firefighters and police had "saved"
almost everyone in the buildings who was below where the planes hit.
"That's absolutely extraordinary," Gorton said.

Then, as Giuliani described firefighters inside the north tower ignoring
evacuation orders so they could help people leave the building,
spectators yelled "No!" and "Liar!" from their seats in the auditorium.

"Talk about the radios," one man shouted, referring to the Fire
Department radios that failed to broadcast evacuation orders. Several of
the hecklers have sued the city and radio manufacturer Motorola over
transmission failures on Sept. 11 and said they were angry that the
commission didn't press Giuliani on why firefighters were using the same
radio system that had been problematic during the bombing of the trade
center in 1993.

Other spectators, largely relatives of people killed in the trade
center, were annoyed that commissioners repeatedly praised Giuliani and
seemed to avoid tough questions.

"It actually made me feel sick to my stomach," said Terry McGovern, a
Columbia University public-health professor whose mother was killed in
the trade center. McGovern was "very concerned" the commission would
"soften its criticism" in a final report, due in two months, about what
allowed the attacks to occur.

Beverly Eckert of Stamford, Conn., whose husband was killed in the trade
center, bristled at the suggestion by Giuliani and commission members
that firefighters had saved thousands of lives. "There was a lack of
leadership, so the people who lived took responsibility for their own
lives," she said.

Thomas Kean, the commission chairman, brushed off criticism after the
hearing. "It's New York, what do you expect?" said the former New Jersey
governor.

Kean said the commission and its staff had asked Giuliani pointed
questions during several hours of private meetings at an earlier date
and added, "We believe the report will be the final judge of what we
do."

A commission report Wednesday said evacuation "was largely successful on
floors below where the planes hit" and praised emergency response at the
Pentagon, where a plane hit on Sept. 11, as "mainly a success" because
agencies from different communities were well trained to work together.

But it added new criticism to New York, saying the Fire Department had
"limited command and control of its own personnel," in part because so
many firefighters showed up without being called, and the department did
not question people coming out of the trade center to get information on
conditions inside.

A draft of the report, released mistakenly to reporters, said, "We are
unaware of any communications among the Chief of Department of the FDNY,
the Superintendent of the Port Authority Police and the Chief of
Department of the NYPD." That sentence, seen as gratuitously critical,
was deleted from the final draft.

Fielding questions, Giuliani said he got no extra notice about a
potential terrorist attack in the summer of 2001 when intelligence
suggested a strike was imminent and a memo to President George W. Bush
about a potential al-Qaida attack in the United States mentioned New
York three times. Giuliani said he'd received briefings regularly since
1997 or 1998 and "the city was on alert."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg read the commission a speech for 30 minutes —
double his scheduled time — listing improvements he has made and arguing
for more federal money. The commission asked him no questions, saying it
wanted to hear from its next witness, Homeland Security Secretary Tom
Ridge, who said the administration had taken steps to direct more money
to major cities such as New York but had been blocked by Congress.

Staff writer Dan Janison contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.nynewsday.com/nyc-com0518,0,4214140.story?coll=nyc-swapbox1

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