http://www.carrollgardenscourier.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=3D18446036&BR...

06/07/2007

9/11 families denounce Giuliani run - Protesters jeer Rudy as former
mayor comes to Bklyn seeking GOP presidential nomination

By Helen Klein

Inside the Bay Ridge Manor, smiling supporters may have been toasting
former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani with a bit of the bubbly and nibbling on
slices of birthday cake.

But, it was a vastly different scene outside.

Penned beyond metal barricades, across the street from the catering
hall, which is located at 476 76th Street, protesters holding signs
were making it crystal clear that they had little truck with
"hizzoner," who currently is running for the Republican presidential
nomination and whose fundraiser was in full swing beyond the
building's brick fa=E7ade.

Their purpose in protesting was directly tied to Giuliani's
presidential aspirations.

As he tries to make his way to the White House, he is attempting to
capitalize on his image as the hero of 9/11.

That, the protesters say, is a distinct mischaracterization.

They contend that Giuliani's role in 9/11 was not heroic.

Rather, they assert, he was not prepared for the disaster, and
actually ran away from the scene of the devastation.

"We're here because we hold Giuliani responsible for some of the
events that happened that day," said protester Daniel Khasin.

Andrew Ansbro, a firefighter with Engine 58 in Harlem, said he came to
the protest because, "Rudy Giuliani is running for president on a 9/11
record that's an entire lie. Everything he had a hand in that day went
wrong. Ask yourself what he did right, that day, and you'll come up
with nothing."

Ansbro, whose literal baptism by fire as a firefighter was at the
World Trade Center, delivered a searing indictment of Giuliani.

He said that Giuliani had let down both city residents and emergency
workers because he, "Failed to enact any of the recommendations after
the 1993 bombing (of the World Trade Center).

"He pretended he was a leader on 9/11 and he ran, and then failed to
provide the workers (at Ground Zero) with adequate protection from
respiratory disease," Ansbro charged.

"If he's so prepared for terrorism, how come it took him a week to get
basic respirators for the people that down there? And there was no
enforcement on wearing them whatsoever."

Sally Regenhart, whose firefighter son died at the World Trade Center,
contended that one of the reasons so many firefighters died on 9/11
was the inadequacy of the radios they carried - a situation for which
she blamed Giuliani.

"He was a probie, just like so many of the families here today,"
Regenhart recalled.

"He died because of the failures of the Giuliani administration -
numerous failures but the most glaring one that contributed to his
death was no radios. The radios they was given, he had no idea that
they didn't work. He had no idea that they were the same ones that
didn't work in 1993. He had no idea that he couldn't communicate with
anyone in the World Trade Center."

Jimmy Riches, whose firefighter son also died on 9/11, concurred.

After new radios ordered but never properly tested turned out not to
work, the FDNY, he said, "Had to go back to the radios they had
before."

As a result, Riches went on, when the orders were given to evacuate
the north tower, a full hour before it went down, "They didn't hear
them because the radios didn't work. One hundred and twenty one
firefighters in the north tower died that day. Giuliani now says he
was a hero. But, all he did was run, that day."

Ansbro, too, said he got no advance warning to make his escape.

He remembers getting out of the Marriott Hotel just before one of the
twin towers collapsed upon it.

"I was one of the few firefighters to make it out of the Marriott
Hotel before the south tower landed on it and killed most of the
people inside," he recalled.

"The cops had a five-minute head start. They received word that the
south tower was going to come down and none of us did. I was looking
up. The first warning I got was when the sky turned black. Five
seconds later, the room exploded."

Norman Siegel, an attorney representing the 9/11 firefighters and
families, and the former director of the New York Civil Liberties
Union, was also at the protest - to make sure those who wanted to were
able to make their voices heard, he said, and also because of his
concerns that Giuliani, should he become president, would negatively
impact civil liberties.

"I think they (the protesters) have a First Amendment right to
protest," explained Siegel.

"The police, in my opinion, curtailed their right by putting them
across the street. Perhaps, if I weren't here, they may have put them
down the block.

"I support the premise that Rudy Giuliani should not be president of
the United States," Siegel went on.

"We love America, and we need to inform our fellow Americans about the
truth of Rudy Giuliani when he was mayor of New York City.

"In addition to challenging the premise that he was a great American
hero, because of what he did on 9/11 and post-9/11, when Giuliani was
mayor he was an authoritarian and repressive figure trampling on
people's right to dissent and protest," Siegel contended.

"I'm troubled by what could happen if he becomes president of the
United States, with regard to civil rights and civil liberties."

When Giuliani was escorted to a waiting car, surrounded by a phalanx
of guards, the protesters gave him a send-off.

"Shame on Rudy," the crowd cried.

"Run, Rudy, run - Run like you ran on 9/11."

They then set out to follow the former mayor to his next fundraiser
across the Verrazano Bridge on Staten Island.

___________________________________________

Harry