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RUDY GIULIANI: UTTER FRAUD. An absolute must-read article by Wayne Barrett in -- I swear it, I guess for a week they decided to get away from the escort-ads-plus-Nat-Hentoff-and-Michael-Musto format they've been essaying for the past year -- the Village Voice systematically destroying the myth of Rudy Giuliani, Terrorism Fighter (TM). Barrett addresses several different categories of dishonesty: for example, he disposes of Giulani's attempts to evade responsibility for the idiotic decision to put the emergency command center directly next to the city's most obvious terrorist target, and points out in response to Giuliani's attempts to blame the EPA for the exposure of many people to toxic air in the wake of 9/11 that "[t]he city had its own test results, of course, and when 17 of 87 outdoor tests showed hazardous levels of asbestos up to seven blocks away, they decided not to make the results public." But perhaps most relevant to his presidential campaign os Barrett's exposure if Giuliani's completely inept preparation for a potential terrorist attack, which resulted in a substantial number of preventable deaths:
'I don't think there was anyplace in the country, including the federal government, that was as well prepared for that attack as New York City was in 2001.' This assertion flies in the face of all three studies of the city's response—the 9/11 Commission, the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), and McKinsey & Co., the consulting firm hired by the Bloomberg administration.[...]Instead of being the best-prepared city, New York's lack of unified command, as well as the breakdown of communications between the police and fire departments, fell far short of the efforts at the Pentagon that day, as later established by the 9/11 Commission and NIST reports. When the 280,000-member International Association of Fire Fighters recently released a powerful video assailing Giuliani for sticking firefighters with the same radios that "we knew didn't work" in the 1993 attack, the presidential campaign attacked the union. "This is an organization that supported John Kerry for president in 2004," Giuliani aide Tony Carbonetti said. "So it's no shock that they're out there going after a credible Republican." While the IAFF did endorse Kerry, the Uniformed Firefighters of Greater New York, whose president starred in the video, endorsed Bush. Its former president, Tom Von Essen—currently a member of Giuliani Partners—was the fire commissioner on 9/11 precisely because the union had played such a pivotal role in initially electing Giuliani.The IAFF video reports that 121 firefighters in the north tower didn't get out because they didn't hear evacuation orders, rejecting Giuliani's claim before the 9/11 Commission that the firefighters heard the orders and heroically decided to "stand their ground" and rescue civilians.On the other hand, he looked good carrying a megaphone after the fact![Via The Plank.]--Scott Lemieux
