Posted on 05/19/2004 3:17:54 PM PDT by stillnoprotestsagainstmuslims
Families Lash Out at Giuliani at Hearing
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By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Outraged relatives of World Trade Center victims heckled former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (news - web sites) on Wednesday as their hopes that he would be grilled by the Sept. 11 commission faded in the face of gentle questioning and effusive praise from panel members. "My son was murdered because of your incompetence!" shouted Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son died in the trade center. Seated three rows behind Giuliani, she jabbed her finger at the former mayor and waved a sign that read "Fiction" as he gave the city's emergency response a glowing review.
Giuliani finished his testimony and abruptly left the auditorium minutes later, leaving many family members upset that they received few answers. Monica Gabrielle, who lost her husband, Richard, called it a "lost opportunity."
"This was not a time for Rudy Giuliani to talk about all the great things he did on 9/11," she said. "He can save that for his talking tours. He should have told us what went wrong and what we should do now."
The acrimonious hearing brought together the mayor, who became a symbol of heroism for his steady response to the attack, and the activist relatives who have become a voice of dissent over his administration's emergency planning and response.
Their complaints have been supported by a growing mass of critical findings on gaps in command, control and communications among New York's agencies in charge of emergency response.
The anger directed at Giuliani came on the second and final day of hearings in New York by the Sept. 11 commission, created by Congress last year to investigate the attacks and advise the country on ways to avoid future attacks. The hearings resume in Washington on June 8-9 and the final report is due July 26.
The commission released two reports that mark the most comprehensive probe to date of New York's response on Sept 11. The findings detailed a list of failings including poor communication, gulfs in cooperation between police and firefighters and grave deficiencies in the city's 911 emergency telephone network.
The report led to an aggressive interrogation of Giuliani's top fire, police and emergency management officials Tuesday, with Republican appointee John F. Lehman, a former Navy secretary under President Reagan, calling the failings "a scandal" and "not worthy of the Boy Scouts."
Ex-fire commissioner Thomas Von Essen later called Lehman's comments "outrageous" and "despicable."
The harsh questioning of Giuliani's former team was a sharp contrast to the universal praise that commission members heaped on the former mayor Wednesday. His positive assessment of such hotly debated topics as the 911 phone system and gaps in fire and police communications went virtually unchallenged.
"New York City, on that terrible day, in a sense was blessed because it had you as leader," said commission chairman and former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean. "It had somebody who was a great, great leader to take charge of a terrible, terrible event. You also had, as you've told us, some of the best people in the country to call on who worked for you and worked for the city."
Family members called the Giuliani questioning weak.
"A lot of these questions that the public has may die with this commission," said Patricia Casazza, whose husband died as the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald filled with smoke.
Giuliani began his testimony Wednesday with a call to focus on the nation's true enemies and not criticize each other.
"Our enemy is not each other but the terrorists who attacked us, murdered our loved ones and continue to offer a threat to our security, safety and survival," Giuliani said to applause.
Later, Giuliani was chastised by members of the public. A longtime city gadfly berated him and the commission, yelling, "Three thousand people murdered does not mean leadership!" He and another person were hustled out of the room.
Others in the audience shouted about the failure of Fire Department radios, shouting, "Talk about the radios!"
"You're simply wasting time at this point," commission head Thomas Kean told the family members.
"YOU'RE wasting time!" came the angry reply.
Giuliani began his remarks by describing a September morning that began at breakfast with two friends and quickly turned into unimaginable horror as two hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers, killing 2,749 people and rattling the city's psyche.
As Giuliani recalled watching a man leap from around the 102nd floor of the north tower, family members began to cry, clearly disturbed by the account.
The hearing was held at the New School University in Greenwich Village — about 1 1/2 miles from ground zero.
Giuliani also told the commission that warnings of a possible terrorist attack on New York contained in an Aug. 6, 2001, White House briefing paper never reached City Hall, but probably would not have changed local security precautions.
The intelligence briefing for President Bush (news - web sites) referred to evidence of federal buildings in New York possibly being cased by terrorists. It mentioned New York or the World Trade Center three times.
"If that information had been given to us, or more warnings had been given in the summer of 2001, I can't honestly tell you we'd do anything differently," said Giuliani, who has become one of the Bush administration's most vocal supporters. "We were doing at the time everything we could think of ... to protect the city."
Current Mayor Michael Bloomberg later testified that New York was recently advised by Congress that its homeland security funding for the 2004 budget year would be cut by nearly 50 percent. Thinly populated states such as Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming receive several times more funding per capita than New York, he said.
"This is pork-barrel politics at its worst," the mayor said. "It also, unfortunately, has the effect of aiding and abetting those who hate us and plot against us."
There's a freeper by that name (Madame DeFarge) who likes to smoke.
AMEN. It is time for these 9/11 groupies to get a hobby. I am sick of the SOS. The commission clowns, the verbal whipping of the witnesses, and the pitchfork villagers masquerading as concerned citizens. It's a good thing I'm not in charge. Jamie Gorelick WOULD be wearing panties on her head.
Was Juan Williams one of the leftists on Brit's panel tonight? Because if this kangaroo court has managed to lose Juan's support, that really says a lot about what a sorry bunch they are.
Bulls Eye
OMG you actually had the nerve to post in your last sentence exactly what I was thinking.
How can anyone believe that inadequate radios, or Bush, or Giuliani are the problem. Clintigula is more like Nero--he fiddled until NYC burned. And still his fans (and Hitlery's) don't get it. "Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad." Makes the job easier.
"OMG you actually had the nerve to post in your last sentence exactly what I was thinking"
Feels kinda good to be non-pc for a change, doesn't it. OK, I'm gonna shout it out loud "THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES ON!!!" What a rush! :>)
No, it was Fred, Jeff Birnbaum and Krauthammer
Yeah, and it won't be long before FReepers march on Washington against the lying, laughable media and scum like those on the 9/11 panel. "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!"
Ahhhh. That felt gooooood.
Why is it that there are never any slovenly, repulsive, vulgar, foul-mouthed REPUBLICANS disrupting congressional proceedings protesting DEMOCRATS?
HMMMMMMMM?
Seems to be a common denominator here, going back (at least) to the Vietnam era.
If somebody's protesting, and they're rude, you can bank on it that they're liberals.
Seems they're always "outraged" about something.
These types began to bore me in about, oh, say, 1975.
This is Sally Regenhard:
"On September 11th, a group of demonic, cave-dwelling barbarians inflicted the greatest assault to this country, and the greatest loss of life on American soil since the Civil War. We are not accepting this.
OK Sally, I'm in agreement with you here.
"Even greater than this tragedy is the fact that even though those buildings were attacked by airplanes, my son, the 343 firefighters, and the majority of the 3,000 heroes who died, the majority of them should not have died, because those buildings should have not collapsed. My son should have been able to save the husband of my Co-Chairman Monica Gabrielle, who was waiting on the 78th floor to be rescued, because he had an injury to his legs. My son should have been able to save him, and he wasn’t able to do so, because the building killed them both."
And THIS is where she lost it..
Not only does she blame Rudy, but she also blames the buildings - what next, the Customer Service agent for American Airlines that worked at the gate at Logan Airport? She is really out there.
above taken from
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/Event/2002/jun/nist/pcs1/nist-public1.htm
Maryland.
Yes, I know, there are liberals there too...:(
Not according to them. According to the liberals, all the Republicans involved should be held personally responsible for the events of September 11, without regard for the fact that they are not terrorists, they did not commit the act, they do not condone the act, and had no substantive means of preventing the act.
It's spelled L-E-F-T-I-S-T A-G-E-N-D-A.
"Families," again. But this time the usual suspects have kept their names out of the paper.
More Sally Regenhard:
"At almost every press conference, in almost every interview, Regenhard will say that what killed her son, a probationary firefighter, was not our policy in the Mideast, a lapse in U.S. intelligence, a failure in airline security, the force of two jetliners, the depravity of Osama bin Laden, or the zealotry of nineteen homicidal maniacs. She will say the towers themselves murdered her son. The towers and the forces that built them.
"It has been proven scientifically that the World Trade Center did not collapse because two planes hit it," she continues, pointing her finger at the camera. "It collapsed because of insufficient spray-on fireproofing, which the Port Authority has known about for two decades."
above from:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/families3.htm
Not only does she blame Rudy, but she also blames the buildings - what next, the Customer Service agent for American Airlines that worked at the gate at Logan Airport? She is really out there."
Heh -- come to think of it...THAT might have made some sense...
It is astounding to me that the 9/11 Commission, which couldn't show the leadership to handle hecklers, thinks the administration should have shown better leadership handling AQ terrorists.
DITTO and BTTT....
Most of the American public realized that this panel was a farce after watching the Clark testimony of this nazi show trial. He was hyped all week and future witnesses were questioned from quotes in his book like he was the second coming. Condi put an end to that and America knows a disgruntled employee when they see one.
You could tell that most commissioners KNEW that they had overstepped their bounds when they came out walking on eggshells today. With their "we are not blaming anyone here, we are on a fact finding mission" spewing forth from every one of their partisan mouths.
And with the audience acting like baffoons and the chairman sitting back on his partisan ass allowing it to continue all day....that was the nail in the coffin for this report. It will have no weight with the American public. I imagine spittee chrissee will have fun with it for about a month, every night with a different jersey girl....but it won't matter. They cooked their goose yesterday and as usual, the dnc/press hacks have overplayed their hand AGAIN.
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