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For crying out loud. Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chairmen of the 9/11 Commission which convened in May 2004, now say they didn't ask Rudy Giuliani "hard questions". The Daily News has excerpts of their book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission:
"It proved difficult, if not impossible, to raise hard questions about 9/11 in New York without it being perceived as criticism of the individual police and firefighters or ... Giuliani," they said.Okay, so people were yelling at the commission while Giuliani was questioned. But why have a commission, filled with supposedly practiced politicians willing to cut through the fat to get to the point, to see what happened during September 11, and not attempt to ask the questions? So they'd have something to write about in their book? Back during the commission, the NY Times' N.R. Kleinfeld did wonder if the commission retreated - now we know they did."There were no questions posed to him about communication problems between police and firefighters in the towers, or why New York City had its emergency response command center in World Trade Center 7 after the complex had been the target of the 1993 terrorist attack," they wrote.
Giuliani's questioning is described as a low point of their probe, as panel members continually congratulated Giuliani on his handling of the devastation.
"We did not ask tough questions, nor did we get all of the information we needed to put on the public record. ... We did not question him in the same manner that we questioned other witnesses."
Oh, and speaking of September 11, even more toxins have been found on the Deutsche Bank roof, but didn't shut down demolition until a week after finding them. Way to go.
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Don't trust any of these guys. They're all in the ole boy network.
Add George Mitchell as another useless figurehead who's in some of these so called "investigative commissions".
Not a fan of Giuliani, but what tough questions could they ask? I'm pretty sure prior to 9/11 there was no plans for that scale of an emergency by any municipality.
Remember prior to the 1st WTC bombing, no company had Contingency Operational Planning in place. The 1st WTC bombing created a new disaster planning industry for private firms.
How bout this question?
Who ever heard of an emergency BUNKER in a high rise? Did they do any research into where to put emergency management? Why Seven world trade?
Why did they move it from MetroTech in Brooklyn to 7 world trade?
It's a bunker not a penthouse for a reason.
Actually, Emergency planning "Bunkers" should be at least on the 2nd floor in case of flooding (Same reason you put datacenter on the 2nd floor). They probably picked 7 WTC due to it's closeness to City hall.
I'd have used Metrotech as it's on 4 different power grids, hardened against bombs, good security and lots of Diesel fuel for emergency generators.
"But why have a commission, filled with supposedly practiced politicians willing to cut through the fat to get to the point, to see what happened during September 11, and not attempt to ask the questions? So they'd have something to write about in their book?" - A bit facetious, no? I have all the respect in the world for NYPD & FD for what they've done, but it really was difficult for anyone to cut through the swath of icon-building done by the media and political machinery.
When William Langewische, who was the only journalist allowed in Ground Zero during recovery, wrote of the nasty infighting amongst firefighters that slowed the effort (I think he even mentioned instances of looting), people wanted to crucify him. To say anything that contradicted the media image of the firefighters, even if it was true, seemed anti-American back then.
Granted these guys are writing a book about crap they should have done but didn't. But these guys are POLITICIANS, and it's easy to imagine why many of those guys weren't willing to challenge Giuliani's performance, when he was deemed an American hero.