Giuliani Lies About Suppressed EPA Reports

Agrees First Responders Deserve Health Care But Won't Own Up to Role in Facilitating Misleading Information About Air Quality

by Aaron Dykes, Prison Planet - Oct 3, 2007

KIRKLAND, Washington - Responding to questions from local activists during a recent campaign stop, Rudy Giuliani made a strange claim that air quality reports concerning Ground Zero were "open" and "public" despite a recent publicized controversy over the suppressed and intentionally misleading reports released in the aftermath of 9/11.

Giuliani was polite enough to give formal answers to questions from members of WeAreChange Seattle who were concerned about Osama bin Laden-- who remains free in Pakistan-- and Ground Zero first responders-- who remain sick and dying without health care or other public support.

The former New York mayor told activists that bin Laden should be pursued and said that first responders deserve the health care and other benefits that "heroes get."

However, the nation's first responder heroes would never have been so susceptible to illness and disease if the City of New York, the EPA and the President's National Security Council had been more honest about the harmful air quality in the days and weeks after 9/11.

Despite mainstream coverage and a national controversy over suppressed and misleading air quality statements, Giuliani claimed all such reports were given openly to the public without regard to their impact-- a direct lie.

"They were all open, they were all public. We put out every report we had. They weren't optimistic, they weren't pessimistic, they were just the reports we got," Giuliani told activists in a follow-up question during his Kirkland campaign stop.

This claim directly defies reports from the AP and CBS News based on EPA statements:

"The Environmental Protection Agency's internal watchdog says White House officials pressured the agency to prematurely assure the public that the air was safe to breathe a week after the World Trade Center collapse."

"That council [NSC], which coordinates federal environmental efforts, in turn 'convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones,' the inspector general found."

Christine Todd Whitman, EPA Administrator during the 9/11 attacks, claims that Giuliani "blocked her efforts" to force World Trade Center workers to wear respirators. She further stated that that "illnesses killing first responders can be blamed on the city's lack of action."

The New York Times has also reported a number of times on the issue and claimed in one report that Giuliani "sidelined" federal agencies with "extensive disaster response experience." [New York Times, May 14, 2007]

Nevertheless, Giuliani has insisted that his role was straightforward and benevolent. "In fact, I followed [the reports], meaning I was there as well. So, if I had any knowledge that they were supremely damaging or more damaging than they suggested at the time, I certainly would have imparted that to people and followed those rules myself."

However, this statement almost directly contradicts the account of a recent New York Times story, which states that:

Mr. Giuliani demanded that the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which helped enforce respirator use at the Pentagon cleanup, serve only in an advisory capacity. Mr. Giuliani rarely wore a mask at ground zero. And his officials, while aware of the health hazards, rarely forced cleanup workers to wear masks or respirators. [New York Times, September 21, 2007]

Rudy Giuliani has a varied history of lying about his activities during and after the 9/11 attacks, including repeated denials about foreknowledge of the towers' collapse despite a clear statement to Peter Jennings on 9/11 that he was "told the World Trade Center would collapse"

When he was confronted by Sabrina Rivera of WeAreChange.org in an incident that gained national media exposure, Giuliani denied any foreknowledge and even claimed complete surprise.

"I didn't realize the towers would collapse," Giuliani said, adding, "No one that I know of had any idea they would implode. That was a complete surprise."

Yet, less than a month earlier, Giuliani made statements that he he expected the towers to collapse, but "not in the way they did," refuting even the surprise part of the claim.

In the same incident, Giuliani was also caught in a bizarre lie about WTC 7's collapse where gave an inaccurate and needlessly complicated explanation about how it "fell in stages"-- a claim which is directly refuted by video footage of the 47-story building's 6.5 second collapse.

Giuliani's trail of dishonesty has clearly surfaced in his on-going public testimony. The mythological hero of 9/11 can't seem to keep his story straight and oddly refutes basic facts about the attacks and its aftermath.

WeAreChange Seattle's encounter with Giuliani was covered by a number of local news reports, linked below:

http://www.king5.com/localnews/storie...

http://q13.trb.com/news/kcpq-92807-gu...,0,331178.story

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/1013...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6..