Ground Zero Illnesses Clouding Giuliani’s Legacy

The New York Times ^ | May 14, 2007 | ANTHONY DePALMA

[2ndDivisionVet]

Anyone who watched Rudolph W. Giuliani preside over ground zero in the days after 9/11 glimpsed elements of his strength: decisiveness, determination, self-confidence.

Those qualities were also on display over the months he directed the cleanup of the collapsed World Trade Center. But today, with evidence that thousands of people who worked at ground zero have become sick, many regard Mr. Giuliani’s triumph of leadership as having come with a human cost.

An examination of Mr. Giuliani’s handling of the extraordinary recovery operation during his last months in office shows that he seized control and largely limited the influence of experienced federal agencies. In doing that, according to some experts and many of those who worked in the trade center’s ruins, Mr. Giuliani might have allowed his sense of purpose to trump caution in the rush to prove that his city was not crippled by the attack.

Administration documents and thousands of pages of legal testimony filed in a lawsuit against New York City, along with more than two dozen interviews with people involved in the events of the last four months of Mr. Giuliani’s administration, show that while the city had a safety plan for workers, it never meaningfully enforced federal requirements that those at the site wear respirators.

At the same time, the administration warned companies working on the pile that they would face penalties or be fired if work slowed. And according to public hearing transcripts and unpublished administration records, officials also on some occasions gave flawed public representations of the nature of the health threat, even as they privately worried about exposure to lawsuits by sickened workers.

[2ndDivisionVet]

FWIW.

[rellimpank]

-—with some experience in industrial dust, IMHO, this is about 90 percent malingering and probably has a strong union component-—

[CPT Clay]

BS

[digger48]

If they’d followed the Liberal guidelines for safety, there’d still be a pile of debris in an evacuated city with a 25 mile buffer zone.

[hole_n_one]

What did Clinton know and when did she know it?.........

[Dahoser]

Boy are Hellary’s minions busy doing Rudy hit pieces.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

If they’d followed the Liberal responses to Islamic attacks, we’d all be speaking Farsie right now, and Bin Laden would have his own Survivor reality show:

Bin Laden: “I chose to kick Melanie off Manhattan Island, because she never covered up and I wanted to cut off her head.”

[mirkwood]

[A Navy Vet]

"...along with more than two dozen interviews with people involved in the events of the last four months of Mr. Giuliani’s administration, show that while the city had a safety plan for workers, it never meaningfully enforced federal requirements that those at the site wear respirators."

OMG, some shit fell through the cracks. Who would know? That said, thanks NYT for another shot across Rudy's bow, the moderate.

[Verginius Rufus]

It’s how Hillary will win the nomination and the election—the politics of personal destruction. Eliminate all the serious candidates and she wins by default.

[Doc91678]

Strange isn’t it. Tobin towers were designed and built during the sixties.
It took 19 hijackers from al-Qaeda in two Boeing 757 to bring them to the ground.
Guiliani lost friends in the collapse of those towers.
Now the Democrats blame Bush and Guliani for the ills that have proceeded the collapse, that Bush was supposedly responsible for.
Talk about miss directed blame.
I was speak to a survivor of the incident recently. He just happens to be an engineer and was working for the Port Authority.
He told me that after the crash of the plane into the building there was the string odor of jet fuel and he could hear the beams snapping before he exited the building. So much for the Thermite, thermate theory. By the way he was also there during the first bombing. He told me that the building was designed to handle the impact of a 707 not a 757.

[Reagan Man]

Conservatives will take all the help they can get. We've got to derail Rooty`s candidacy sooner, rather then later.

Before 9-11 Rooty`s popularity was in the toilet. 9-11 raised his stature, but outside of NYC he was NO hero. That was a myth perpetuated by a major falsehood of historic proportions. Giuliani has one thing on his mind. How to better himself and promote his own career as a liberal politico.

[BurtSB]

Another Clinton INC hit piece faxed to the NYT for the weekly dose of destroy Rudy

[BurtSB]

Another Clinton INC hit piece faxed to the NYT for the weekly dose of destroy Rudy

[Doc91678]

Strange isn’t it. Tobin towers were designed and built during the sixties.
It took 19 hijackers from al-Qaeda in two Boeing 757 to bring them to the ground.
Guiliani lost friends in the collapse of those towers.
Now the Democrats blame Bush and Guliani for the ills that have proceeded the collapse, that Bush was supposedly responsible for.
Talk about miss directed blame.
I was speak to a survivor of the incident recently. He just happens to be an engineer and was working for the Port Authority.
He told me that after the crash of the plane into the building there was the string odor of jet fuel and he could hear the beams snapping before he exited the building. So much for the Thermite, thermate theory. By the way he was also there during the first bombing. He told me that the building was designed to handle the impact of a 707 not a 757. There are real liars in this world and all of them are Progressive Marxist Liberals. Shouldn't the previous president have set up higher and better security measures during his tenure after all the attacks on America, american property and Americans throughout the world?

[Ditter]

I am not surprised that people are sick. Asthma would have killed me in the first 48 hours. The people who stayed and worked there for months are some tough people and are heroes in my estimation.

[Slow Lane]

Guiliani should have let the Feds handle everything, just like Nagin and Landrieu did in New Orleans for Katrina.

They don’t only want to knock the former mayor down, but there a push for lawsuits going on by rescue and cleanup workers going on. Lawsuits against New York City and the United States, not against the terrorists or terrorist sponsoring states.

[Parley Baer]

We can expect full on hit pieces from the msm from here on in.

[Just Lori]

Is the slimes really blaming Giuliani for rescue people’s illnesses? WTF are they thinking NOW? Precious little, I believe.

Rudy! Were you in cahoots with Cheney and Bush all the time???? /s

[Williams]

The article is idiotic. The city didn't "stringently enforce" federal regulations that everyone wear respirators. What the heck does that even mean? That some workers were lax and didn't wear respirators for their own protection? And all the grumbling that they tried to keep the project on schedule. Big deal. I can't get worked up that this story in any way exposes some big flaw in Giuliani.

Plus it just occured to me, isn't this article REALLY about promoting Michael Moore's new hit piece movie?

[LegendHasIt]

I’m not a Giuliani supporter by any means, but this tripe article does him a grave injustice.

Like several previous posters said: the PIAPS has her cloven hoofprints all over this article.....

And no doubt many more like it against anyone (on either side) who gets in her way.

That, or get ‘Fosterized’.

[Verginius Rufus]

They are always on the attack, so no one will remember Bill Clinton's negligence during his Presidency (and Hillary's co-presidency)...it was 8 years between the first WTC attack and 9/11. Bill had chances to take possession of Osama Bin Laden, or to kill him, and never took action. His tough talk but lack of meaningful response after each terrorist attack just emboldened Osama & Co.

Sandy Berger had to destroy documents to protect Clinton.

The media may not be fully in Hillary's corner yet--as long as a Democrat wins, they would be happy with any leftwinger--but after she defeats her rivals, they'll be doing their best to protect her. Blaming Giuliani helps deflect attention from the Clintons.

[originalbuckeye]

As far as I can tell, the NYT, both Clintons and all their minions have no conscience at all. I really do wonder how any of them can sleep at night.

[Valin]

Ping

[Just Lori]

I don’t give a DAMN about Michael Moore. The slimes continues again and again and again to prove that it’s pages are barely worthy of wrapping fish or lining a bird cage.

What’s frightening is that faithful subscribers to this rag actually view it as some kind of gospel.

[babygene]

“Eliminate all the serious candidates and she wins by default.”

Rudy is a liberal (democrat) candidate who’s purpose is to insure a Hillary win...

The good news is that he won’t be the republican candidate.

[babygene]

“Another Clinton INC hit piece faxed to the NYT for the weekly dose of destroy Rudy”

If they destroy Rudy, they will be doing us all a favor...

[Beowulf9]

"If they’d followed the Liberal guidelines for safety, there’d still be a pile of debris in an evacuated city with a 25 mile buffer zone". Well, you sure couldn't have dropped the bomb in Hiroshima, too much fallout. We'd have to sit by and lose the war if Hillary was in charge, or any other lib.

[Nik Naym]

Re read what you wrote. You will notice that you answered your question right before you posed it.

[psjones]

As I recall, when Giuliani announced he was cutting back the hours rescuers could put in at the site, quite a few of them protested that move.

[originalbuckeye]

Yeah. Intentional.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[Condor51]

One Army Corps official said Mr. Giuliani acted like a “benevolent dictator.”

Despite the presence of those federal experts, Mr. Giuliani assigned the ground zero cleanup to a largely unknown city agency, the Department of Design and Construction. Kenneth Holden, the department’s commissioner until January 2004, said in a deposition in the federal lawsuit against the city that he initially expected FEMA or the Army Corps to try to take over the cleanup operation. Mr. Giuliani never let them.

Rudy a “benevolent dictator”, isn't that special. Exactly what we need - NOT. Then, in typical Rooty fashion he puts a crony in charge.

Go away Rooty, just go away.

[CaptRon]

I am taking some paralegal courses at the local community college. The husband of one of my instructors is one of the lawyers defending the city in these lawsuits. He came to speak a couple of weeks ago and was talking about the respirator issue.

There were plenty of respirators for the workers. Some chose not to wear them for various reasons. A lot of the class were of the opinion that there was no real way to force them to. In addition, a lot of these guys were, in a sense, volunteers, so there wasn't a lot of leverage that could be used. It was also a kind of emergency situation, where the possibility of survivors being found existed, so time was of the essence.

This whole lawsuit is a no win for either side.

[George W. Bush]

Federal authorities warned him about the toxic threat to humans in the first week after 9/11.

He ignored it until after the gold for that bank was recovered. Then he was suddenly concerned about exposure risks.

[amutr22]

I’m not agreeing there. We need to beat Hillary and Rudy may be the best bet we’ve got.

[Verginius Rufus]

I think you're right that Giuliani won't be nominated for various reasons. His inability to articulate his position on abortion is symptomatic. (The Wall Street Journal last Friday had an editorial on why pro-life people should support him anyway for pragmatic reasons.)

Giuliani would be strong on the war on terror and questionable on judges (he says he would appoint the right kind, but would he follow through?)...whereas any of the Democrats in the race would be weak on the war on terror and aggressively hostile to conservative values when it came to judges or legislation. If it's Giuliani vs. any of the Democrats, I wouldn't hesitate to vote for him, but it's not going to come to that.

[Doc91678]

Being surprised or not surprised of the incidents of illness has no bearing on the fact that the causes are directly attributable to the attack.
Someone had to clean it up. I don’t think anyone was aware of the after effects of the attack.
What these conspiracy theorists have forgotten to mention is that there were four planes involved. One hit the Pentagon, the other was headed to the White House. Thankfully there were patriots within Flt 93 that interfered with that plan. They weren’t liberals that is for sure.

[BurtSB]

you will be real happy when the DNC queen becomes Pres and shuts down this website and talk radio are her first act !
keep up the Clinton's good work by trashing the rnc candidates.