The book "Radio Silence: The Betrayal of New York's Bravest" describes the technical failures of the FDNY radio system.
More importantly, it describes the failure of conscience of the Giuliani administration and points out that Rudy's cronies were involved in out-and-out incompetence and shady dealing with a major radio vendor.
The book does not put Rudy in very good light - and rightfully so. Former Fire Commissioner Von Essen, now a partner in Rudy's consultancy firm, was directly responsible for the radio system debacle that was a contributing factor in the loss of 343 FDNY personnel on September 11, 2001.
If it comes down to Hillary vs Rudy in the general election, I will hold my nose and vote for Rudy, but he's got some major problems in his past.
Giuliani has to be beat in the primaries. Polls show Fred Thompson defeating Hillary in the general election plus he's a far better candidate for conservatives to rally around.
“...out-and-out incompetence and shady dealing with a major radio vendor.”
Rosaleen Tallon, whose brother, also a firefighter, was killed on September 11, shouted at Giuliani: “Talk about the radios.”
The fire department radio scandal
The radios she was referring to were the antiquated “handie-talkies” used by the fire department. They were the same equipment that the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) had used in responding to the terrorist truck bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. They failed then, and, not surprisingly, they failed again on September 11.
Not only were firefighters on the 19th floor of the building unable to hear orders from their own commanders in the lobby of the north tower, but the fire department commanders had no ability to communicate with the New York Police Department (NYPD), whose members were responding to the same disaster. A police helicopter radioed to NYPD commanders that the building appeared about to fall. In response to this information, an evacuation order was communicated to police personnel on the scene. This report, however, never reached the fire department.
Similarly, 20 minutes before the south tower collapsed, a caller to the police department’s emergency number reported that one of the top floors of the building was collapsing. While the information was relayed to the NYPD’s commanders, it never reached the fire department, many of whose members were still in the tower.
Senior FDNY officials have testified that those watching the tragedy unfold on television knew more about the damage to the towers than fire chiefs directing rescue efforts from the buildings’ lobbies. This lack of information helps explain why the death toll for firefighters was 15 times as high as that suffered by city cops.
Why didn’t the city have a radio system that allowed firefighters to communicate with each other and with the police? Asked this question, Giuliani claimed that “technology” was the problem. “Those radios don’t exist today,” he added. No one on the panel bothered to challenge this incredible assertion.
Those who know the history of the fire department—including many of those who were in the audience—are well aware that the problem was not one of technology, but rather of political corruption.
Firefighter union officials called for a grand jury investigation into a $33 million deal struck several months before September 11 between the city and Motorola Corporation for the purchase of new digital radios for the fire department. The no-bid contract resulted in the introduction of radios that proved grossly ill-suited for use by firefighters.
The model selected by the city was designed for intelligence agencies seeking encryption capabilities, something with no apparent use in emergency rescue operations or fire fighting. After the radios were introduced over the objections of department members, they had to be withdrawn in the face of repeated failures, some of them life-threatening.
The expensive new radios were mothballed, and the firefighters were stuck with equipment that was not only more than 15 years old, but was also incompatible with the communications system used by the police and known to be failure-prone in high-rise situations.
Suspicions about the peculiar Motorola deal were heightened by the well-known predilection within the Giuliani administration for steering city contracts to political supporters and allies. No one on the panel bothered to broach the sensitive subject of this contract.
While both Giuliani and the commission members sought to exploit the heroism of New York City firefighters to gloss over the city administration’s responsibility for the problems that plagued the response to the September 11 attack, it was notable that not a single city firefighter was invited to testify at the hearing.
6 minute youtube:
The REAL Rudy: Radios
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StE_Xa6TiQU&v3