Science Talk

Gonerail · Guest

9/11 Blogger
Friday, March 9, 2007

The Firefighters' Union is holding a bipartisan election forum on
March 14, 2007. They have invited several presidential candidates, but
not Rudy Giuliani. Here is an excerpt of a statement from the
firefighters:

"His actions post 9/11 rise to such an offensive and personal attack
on our brother and sisterhood - and directly on our union - that the
IAFF does not feel Rudy Giuliani deserves an audience of IAFF leaders
and members at our own Presidential Forum.

The disrespect that he exhibited to our 343 fallen FDNY brothers,
their families and our New York City IAFF leadership in the wake of
that tragic day has not been forgiven or forgotten.

In November 2001, our members were continuing the painful, but
necessary, task of searching Ground Zero for the remains of our fallen
brothers and the thousands of innocent citizens that were killed,
because precious few of those who died in the terrorist attacks had
been recovered at that point.

Prior to November 2001, 101 bodies or remains of fire fighters had
been recovered. And those on the horrible pile at Ground Zero believed
they had just found a spot in the rubble where they would find
countless more that could be given proper burial.

Nevertheless, Giuliani, with the full support of his Fire Commissioner
Thomas Von Essen, decided on November 2, 2001, to sharply reduce the
number of those who could search for remains at any one time. There
had been as many as 300 fire fighters at a time involved in search and
recovery, but Giuliani cut that number to no more than 25 who could be
there at once.

In conjunction with the cut in fire fighters allowed to search,
Giuliani also made a conscious decision to institute a "scoop-and-
dump" operation to expedite the clean-up of Ground Zero in lieu of the
more time-consuming, but respectful, process of removing debris piece
by piece in hope of uncovering more remains.

Mayor Giuliani's actions meant that fire fighters and citizens who
perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no
closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the
Fresh Kills Landfill.

Our Local presidents at the time attempted to meet with the Mayor to
stop this despicable treatment of those who perished, but he refused
to even see them face-to-face.

The scoop-and-dump continued. And when hundreds of family members of
the fallen joined with our affiliate leadership and members to protest
Giuliani's decision, he ordered senior officers of the New York Police
Department to arrest 15 of our FDNY brothers, including a number of
local elected IAFF leaders.

Giuliani modified his policy after the protest because public opinion
was so strongly with our members. Ultimately, he was forced to put the
fire fighters back on the pile. Our protests were later proven
justified as more bodies were ultimately recovered and those families
given a chance for some closure and a decent burial.

Giuliani argued that the change was for our own safety, but his
argument was empty and without substance. Fire fighters had been on
that pile since minutes after the twin towers fell - why all of a
sudden, after nearly two months working on the pile, was Giuliani
concerned about fire fighter safety?

In our view, he wasn't really concerned. The fact is that the Mayor's
switch to a scoop-and-dump coincided with the final removal of tens of
millions of dollars of gold, silver and other assets of the Bank of
Nova Scotia that were buried beneath what was once the towers. Once
the money was out, Giuliani sided with the developers that opposed a
lengthy recovery effort, and ordered the scoop-and-dump operation so
they could proceed with redevelopment."