graduated from Harvard and is to become a reporter
Posted on 08/10/2006 9:19:02 PM PDT by neverdem
Rudy Giuliani's image as America's Mayor is harshly questioned in a new book that takes to task the city's preparedness on 9/11 - with some of the most pointed criticism coming from current Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Kelly, who was dismissed from the post by Giuliani in 1993 and later reappointed by Mayor Bloomberg, offers several dramatic and remarkable observations in "Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11," by authors Dan Collins and well-known Giuliani critic Wayne Barrett.
Many of the topics Kelly zeroes in on have been documented in the past: Giuliani's decision to locate the city's command center next to Ground Zero, the site of a terror bombing in 1993, archaic radios that kept the NYPD and FDNY from communicating, and the general chaos of the tragic day.
But Kelly is unsparing in his critique, saying of Giuliani's decision to place its Office of Emergency Management Command Center at 7 World Trade Center, "It was just unwise."
"If Giuliani had any sense of the threat, he would have gotten out of the City Hall area," Kelly told Barrett. "He put it right next to a target."
Kelly also expresses shock that Giuliani and his underlings never established a unified command post with top brass from the NYPD, the FDNY and Office of Emergency Management - a step that could have dramatically increased the flow of information between agencies.
"The radios would have been no problem if they had been at the same command post, if they'd been face-to-face," Kelly said. "Giuliani had the power to direct that to happen."
As for then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who spent much of 9/11 at Giuliani's side, Kelly says he's still unsure who was actually marshalling the NYPD's response that day.
"I don't know who was directing," said Kelly. "I literally don't."
Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel declined to comment yesterday on the substance of the book, saying only of a faxed press release from the publisher, "We haven't even read it."
Kelly also declined to comment yesterday.
The book makes extensive use of never-before-published interviews that Giuliani and other key staffers gave privately to the 9/11 commission - interviews that were supposed to remain confidential until 2009.
Last week, in their own book, the chairs of the commission conceded they failed to ask the "tough questions" of Giuliani, given the aura that surrounded his handling of the day.
The authors of "Grand Illusion" also offer passing praise for Giuliani, calling him "a leader and comforter" who "united the city while helping it to imagine a better, stronger future."
But the bulk of the 390-page tome is a dissection of what happened on 9/11, often with years of history woven in.
They note, for instance, that as early as 1990, the FDNY was describing its radios in agency memos as "obsolete" and "totally inadequate" - but the same radios were still in use in 2001.
The effect was tragic, many believe. Scores of firefighters - equipped with radios that couldn't communicate with NYPD brass - were unable to heed warnings the second tower was about to collapse.
"The question of why nothing was done about the radios came up in multiple interviews," said 9/11 commission lawyer Sam Caspersen. "And we never got a good response."
The book notes that, in private testimony before the 9/11 commission, Giuliani said, "In my first few years as mayor I thought there was a definite terrorist threat."
But Kelly suggests terrorism was far from a top concern of Giuliani's when he was elected mayor in 1993, nearly nine months after the World Trade Center bombing.
He recalled being interviewed by Giuliani for the police commissioner post.
"There was no discussion about terrorism or February 26," Kelly said.
Guiliani lied! New Yorkers died!
Couldn't they have found a more biased source?
Shame on them for using 911 like this! Monday morning quarter backing for power! The book stores are full of anti republican books right now. Some are more reprehensible than others, like this one.
Because the police commissioner (Kelly) would never agree to do ANYTHING with the fire department.
But Kelly suggests terrorism was far from a top concern of Giuliani's when he was elected mayor in 1993, nearly nine months after the World Trade Center bombing.
Gosh, did Kelly ever say anything like that about Bill Clinton?
graduated from Harvard and is to become a reporter
Just a leftwing kook pre-emptive strike against Rudy '08.
I don't think [Hillary] Clinton planned to use the word plantation because she didn't say it in her prepared remarks, according to David Saltonstall.
He has that same goofy smirk that "the church lady" had on Saturday Night Live. I couldn't take her seriously either. LOL! It's obvious that the boy thinks he's "a stud."
I've got news for him. lol!
Huh...and I thought the politics of personal destruction were over. Silly me.
This is the best they can come up with? Blaming Rudy for radios?
How about mentioning the Clinton-Gorelick "wall" that that kept the FBI and CIA from communicating? Can we mention that?
rudy fired the guy , not he's pissed . What a cheap shot and what a little man he is .
This was the guy who retired on a heart fund disability which gave him a far higher pension than he would have otherwise gotten. Then he went to Haiti to help train the Haitian police force which became such an effective police force that we wound up there a few years later. All the while double dipping, getting paid a salary and a near full pension. Then when Giulliani got elected, he practically begged Rudy to be reappointed and Rudy told him to take a hike.
During Ray's first tenure as commish, he oversaw the out of control crack epidemic and was a Dinkins lap dog and now he has the nerve to criticize Rudy for his perfomance on 9-11. The same Ray Kelly was completely unable to control crime and perpetuated the practices that led to the Department's complete ineffectiveness in keeping the City safe. He waltzed back into office after Bloomberg was relected. He seems to have done an okay job, but he is living off the infrastructure that Rudy's three commissioner's implemented. Very few new programs have been introduced during his tenure.
On the subject of Rudy he has Zero credibility. He's just a typical double dipping civil servant.
This is a prememptive strike by Hillary Clinton, gearing up for the 2008 election and hoping to damage Rudy before he throws his hat in. She probably got an assist from McLame.
Yep, It's not what you do, it's how you do it.
What timing...
Well, either that, or he's just a bitter guy with an axe to grind.
I guess you don't admire that Kelly. Neither do I. I'm not crazy about Rudy either. Both Rudy and Ray Kelly are statists and opportunists. Both took oaths to defend the U.S. Constitution. Both failed at least one amendment of the Bill of Rights.
Rudy became America's mayor because of New York City's victimization on September 11, 2001. That was the day of the NYC primary which heretofore lifelong dem Bloomberg switched parties to avoid. IIRC, Giuliani endorsed Bloomberg to become mayor. Don't forget how Rudy endorsed Cuomo against Pataki in 1994 when Pataki still pretended to be conservative.
P.S. Kelly was my mother's surname before marriage.
They have used his x wife Donna to smear him; they have used the fact he stayed with some gay friends after leaving his x; they have showed his 'gay' pic on the cover of mags and on here; they have dug into Bernard's background like Rudy was all the blame....
I guess the libs are worried, very worried, they know that this man can knock anyone they put up out of the ball park....especially the slimy hag....
I wonder what will be next???? That is wife now is a man?????
This is just another feckless hit-piece by the left-wing Daily News.
They see all the polls that show Rudy beating Hildebeest in every poll, INCLUDING polls within New York State. That has them riled up no end.
For those of you not in NYC, this story was the COVER STORY on yesterday's paper, prominently displayed with a photo of Rudy. They wanted to trumpet it for all it was worth. REading the story revealed NOTHING of substance besides embittered Ray Kelly whining and the idiotic radio deal which essentially blames Rudy for the vagaries of the electromagnetic spectrum.
This is total BS, which was completely forgotten by the time the papers hit the newsstand, as events in the UK and the terror arrests totally overwhelmed it.
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