| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
08 Aug 2007 09:29:07 AM |
| Object: |
Rudy Ghouliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11. Big Lie #5 |
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0732,barrett,77463,6.html/7
August 7th, 2007
BIG LIE
5.
'Every effort was made by Mayor Giuliani and his staff to ensure the
safety of all workers at Ground Zero.'
So read a Giuliani campaign statement in June, responding to a chorus
of questions about the mayor's responsibility for the respiratory
plague that threatens the health of tens of thousands of workers at
the World Trade Center site, apparently already having killed some.
The statement pointed a finger at then-EPA administrator Christine
Todd Whitman, issuing a list of the many times that "Whitman assured
New Yorkers the air was safe."
Instead of also detailing the many times Giuliani echoed Whitman—for
example, "the air is safe and acceptable," he said on September 28—the
campaign cited several Fire Department "briefings" about "incident
action plans" for the use of respirators, suggesting that the city had
tried to get responders to protect themselves from the toxins at
Ground Zero.
The press release did not make a case that any of these "plans" had
ever resulted in any real "action"; nor did it dispute the fact that
as late as the end of October, only 29 percent of the workers at the
site were wearing respirators.
Of course, the workers might have noticed that the photo-op mayor
never put one on himself.
Instead, the other 9/11 visual we all remember is Giuliani leading at
Ground Zero by macho example:
The most in the way of protective gear he was ever seen wearing was a
dust mask on his mouth.
When the cleanup effort was widely hailed as under-budget and ahead of
schedule, there was no doubt about who was in charge.
"By Day 4," the New York Times reported in a salute to the "Quick Job"
at Ground Zero, "Mr. Giuliani, the Department of Design and
Construction (D.D.C.), the Office of Emergency Management, contractors
and union officials decided it was time to bring order to the chaos."
Giuliani controlled access to the site as if it were his backyard.
Yet, when the scope of the health disaster was clear on the fifth
anniversary in 2006, he told ABC: "Everybody's responsible."
Throwing federal, state, and city agencies into the mix, he diffused
the blame.
On the Today show the same morning, however, he was more accusatory:
"EPA put out statements very, very prominent that you have on tape,
that the air was safe, and kept repeating that and kept repeating
that."
The 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.
An EPA chief, Bruce Sprague, sent an October 5 letter to the city
complaining about "very inconsistent compliance" with respiratory
protection.
Sprague, who wrote the letter only after unsuccessful conversations
with Giuliani aides, likened the indifference in a subsequent court
deposition to sticking one's head "over a barbecue grill for hours"
and expecting no consequences.
An internal legal memo to a deputy mayor estimated early in the
cleanup that there could be 35,000 potential plaintiffs against the
city, partly because rescue workers were "provided with faulty or no
equipment (i.e. respirators)."
Bechtel, the major construction firm retained by the city as its
health and safety consultant, urged it to cut the exit-entry points
from 20 to two so they could enforce the use of respirators and other
precautions, just as was done at the Pentagon, but the recommendation
was ignored.
A Times editorial concluded in May that the Giuliani administration
"failed in its duty to protect the workers at Ground Zero," faulting
its "emphasis on a speedy cleanup" and its unwillingness "to insist
that all emergency personnel and construction workers wear
respirators."
John Odermatt, a former OEM director working at the campaign, couldn't
tell the Times whether Giuliani had lobbied Congress on behalf of sick
workers, nor could anyone at the campaign offer any evidence that
Giuliani had ever, while earning millions at his new 9/11 consulting
business in recent years, tried to secure federal funds for
responders.
Should the current presidential frontrunners square off in 2008,
Giuliani's culpability and subsequent indifference at Ground Zero
will, no doubt, be sharply contrasted to Hillary Clinton's singular
role in funding the Mount Sinai programs that have been aiding rescue
workers for years.
And the public price tag for the mismanagement at the pile (as the
site was known among recovery and rescue workers) will run into the
billions.
Ken Feinberg, who ran the federally funded Victims Compensation Board,
has already paid out $1 billion to the injured, concluding after
individual hearings that hundreds "were diagnosed with demonstrable
and documented respiratory injuries directly related to their rescue
service."
Anthony DePalma, whose extraordinary Times stories have lifted the lid
on Giuliani's role, recently reported that the health-care costs for
rescue workers could soar to as much as $712 million a year.
And the city is administering a billion-dollar liability fund to
satisfy the thousands of lawsuits.
Giuliani's fellow Republican and former EPA chief Christine Todd
Whitman did tell WNBC a couple of months ago that there were
"telephone calls, telephone meetings, and meetings in person with the
city" every day, with the EPA repeating "the message" and emphasizing
the "necessity of wearing the respirators."
Whitman said she "would call my people at midnight after watching the
11 o'clock news and say, 'I'm still seeing them without the
respirators.' "
The EPA, she said, "was very frustrated."
She also said "the better thing would've been to put out the fire
sooner," certainly a function of the city's Fire Department, adding
that it had "burned until January"—a continuous flame held to a
smoking, toxic brew.
Asked about the mayor himself, Whitman sputtered:
"He was clearly in control and doing a good job. Everyone was
applauding what was going on. EPA, we had some disagreements with
things that were occurring on the pile, like not having people wear
respirators—we wanted more emphasis on that. But overall, you know,
it's hard. Those are emotional times."
The firefighters' union pointed out that the respiratory debacle was,
like the malfunctioning radios and so many other things, another
symbol of the city's failure to prepare for a major terrorist event.
Fire Department memos after the 1993 bombing had urged better
protective gear, just as they'd screamed for better radios.
The UFA's leaders pointed out that the department had "ignored many
issues related to respiratory protection" for years.
The union's health-and-safety officer, Phil McArdle, likened the
long-term effects of working at Ground Zero to Agent Orange in
Vietnam.
"We've done a good job of taking care of the dead," he said, referring
to the hunt for remains, "but such a terrible job of taking care of
the living."
________________________________________________
Harry
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| User: "Vandar" |
|
| Title: Re: Rudy Ghouliani's Five Big Lies About 9/11. Big Lie #5 |
08 Aug 2007 10:09:09 AM |
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Harry Hope wrote:
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0732,barrett,77463,6.html/7
August 7th, 2007
BIG LIE
5.
'Every effort was made by Mayor Giuliani and his staff to ensure the
safety of all workers at Ground Zero.'
So read a Giuliani campaign statement in June, responding to a chorus
of questions about the mayor's responsibility for the respiratory
plague that threatens the health of tens of thousands of workers at
the World Trade Center site, apparently already having killed some.
The statement pointed a finger at then-EPA administrator Christine
Todd Whitman, issuing a list of the many times that "Whitman assured
New Yorkers the air was safe."
Instead of also detailing the many times Giuliani echoed Whitman—for
example, "the air is safe and acceptable," he said on September 28—the
campaign cited several Fire Department "briefings" about "incident
action plans" for the use of respirators, suggesting that the city had
tried to get responders to protect themselves from the toxins at
Ground Zero.
The press release did not make a case that any of these "plans" had
ever resulted in any real "action"; nor did it dispute the fact that
as late as the end of October, only 29 percent of the workers at the
site were wearing respirators.
Of course, the workers might have noticed that the photo-op mayor
never put one on himself.
He wore a mask and encouraged everyone there to do the same.
http://www.southofboston.net/specialreports/sept11anniv/images/giuliani-hillary.jpg
http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0635/barrett.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6B_pMEMQQY
Instead, the other 9/11 visual we all remember is Giuliani leading at
Ground Zero by macho example:
The most in the way of protective gear he was ever seen wearing was a
dust mask on his mouth.
Exactly. If he lied about the air quality then one would think he
would've been wearing a full respirator. He believed a mask was enough
and encouraged everyone else to wear one as well.
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