9/11 firefighters lash out at Giuliani

NEW YORK CITY firefighters and their families criticised former mayor Rudy Giuliani for his handling of the September 11 terror attacks, in a video released yesterday.

Many firefighters have a history of animosity towards Giuliani, now a leading Republican presidential candidate.

They argue that Giuliani’s administration had failed to provide adequate radios for first responders at the World Trade Center and remain angry at his decision to speed removal of the enormous pile of rubble at Ground Zero, cutting back the size of the group searching for remains.

“He’s not a leader. He is running on 9/11, and it’s all a fallacy,” Jim Riches, the father of a September 11 victim and a deputy New York fire chief, says in the video.

The International Association of Fire Fighters produced the 13-minute video and is distributing it to its 280,000 members, the media and online.

Giuliani’s campaign said the union leaders did not speak for rank-and-file firefighters and early yesterday, the campaign sent out a three-page summary of Giuliani’s history of supporting firefighters.

“Firefighters across the country have no greater friend than Rudy Giuliani,” said Howard Safir, who served as fire commissioner and later police commissioner under Giuliani. “Those of us who have worked with Rudy know he has always been a constant supporter of firefighters and first responders.”