Firefighters Challenge Giuliani’s Self-Proclaimed ‘Leadership Experience’

Firefighters Challenge Giuliani’s Self-Proclaimed ‘Leadership Experience’

by Seth Michaels, Jul 11, 2007

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani portrays himself as the hero of Sept. 11, and the media takes this claim for granted. But New York City firefighters, who know best, say it’s a different story.

The Fire Fighters (IAFF) union is releasing a new video today, featuring New York firefighters and their families, that challenges Giuliani’s claims of leadership. His performance before, during and after the Sept. 11 attacks, they contend, is marked by serious failures—failures that cost lives.

The video will be distributed on DVD and also will be available online at www.rudy-urbanlegend.com.

The Boston Globe reports:

“He’s not a leader. He is running on 9/11, and it’s all a fallacy,” says Jim Riches, the father of a Sept. 11 victim and a deputy New York fire chief, in the video.

The Fire Fighters point out that the Giuliani administration didn’t provide police and firefighters with inter-operable radios, leaving many firefighters inside the World Trade Center unable to communicate, even as the towers’ collapse was imminent. The radios are a very real symbol of what firefighters describe as Giuliani’s failure to understand the threat of a terrorist attack and his inability to coordinate an effective response.