As most people ran away from the burning towers on September 11, 2001, first responders ran toward the scene, and so did members of the media. CNN's Brian Stelter is joined by Michael Barasch, Vincent Novak and Bruce David Martin to discuss the recently extended 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund. #CNN #News
How the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund covers journalists
There’s much speculation as to how Rudy Giuliani “America’s Mayor,” the widely admired civic leader who presided over NYC during 9/11, could have been siphoned into Trump’s underworld. We got a Trump thanks to a compliant, sensationalist media apparatus that breathed life into his phony self-made billionaire myth, just as we owe them for Rudy, who they cast as a post-9/11 American hero.
By the time that the planes crashed into the Towers on Sept. 11, 2001 Giuliani was a master surfer of the wave of public opinion. In the attacks that played out in lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA, close to 3,000 people were killed — 343 of them uniformed New York City firemen.
Overnight, the media turned Giuliani into a larger than life heroic figure. But the people that were most intimately familiar with the city’s pre-9/11 counter-terrorism preparations knew that it was Giuliani’s failures as Mayor which contributed directly to the horrific body count for the FDNY that day.
On Feb. 26, 1993, the World Trade Center was attacked with a 1,200-pound bomb concealed in a rental truck that exploded in the basement. The blast killed six, injured 1,000 people, and forced 50,000 to evacuate.
In a detailed after-action report published in 1994 by the FDNY, the inability of firefighters and their officers to communicate over their analog radios that day was flagged as a vital issue that needed to be addressed with urgency. In 2008 — when Giuliani was running for president — FDNY Lt. James Wood recounted his experiences during the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in an informational video produced by the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF).
While the bombing had taken place during Mayor Dinkins tenure as Mayor, Giuliani was sworn in on Jan. 2 1994. As the IAFF recalls it, the critical report about the defective fire radios gathered dust for several years.
It took until March of 2001 for new digital radios to be deployed, but they were withdrawn weeks later after they were deemed responsible for a near life-ending miscue when a firefighter isolated in a basement fire in Queens radioed a “May Day” call for assistance that none of his co-workers heard over their radios. It was only picked up by another fire company miles away. The new radios were shelved, and the old dysfunctional analogs were put back in service.
The contract for the new radios was a no bid, non-competitive contract that was, as it turned out, just an extension of an existing contract with Motorola, which has a near-monopoly on emergency communications.
According to a report issued by the NYC Comptroller the next month, Giuliani had “willfully” violated “city contracting rules…. endangering firefighters in a reckless bid to buy a new type of hand-held radio that it later had to pull from service,” The Times reported that “the new digital radios were never properly tested before being distributed to firefighters.” As City Comptroller Alan Hevesi documented, “they were purchased through what he described as an improper process that did not allow competing companies to bid for the contract.” At the time, Michael Wolf, who represented Com-Net Ericsson, a Motorola competitor, told the Times he was stymied in his efforts to even get the city to consider his company’s products.
Just six months later, FDNY’s bravest faced the doomsday scenario as they sized up the rescue operation in the Twin Towers on 9/11 that would take so many of their lives. They were equipped with the same analog radios that had failed them so badly when the WTC was bombed back in 1993. As the IAFF video documents and as the 9/11 timeline confirms, at 9:32 am. on 9/11, an FDNY Chief ordered all members in the North Tower down to the lobby. Even though he repeated the order, not a single company responded.
At 9:59 the WTC South Tower collapsed; and at 10 am the order to abandon the North Tower was repeated. Inside the North Tower were 121 firefighters who never heard that order. They perished when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 am.
“On 9/11 firefighters went into the North Tower and started ascending the tower, yet they were being called back and they kept going,” said Richard Salem, an attorney who has been representing several of the firefighters’ families who lost loved ones when the North Tower collapsed. “Not one other uniformed officer from any other department, who had functioning radios, perished in that tower other than the FDNY.”
Despicably, Giuliani tried to cover up his own malfeasance by telling the 9/11 Commission that the North Tower firefighters had ignored the radio orders because of “their willingness, the way I describe it to stand their ground.”
Retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, who lost his son Jimmy in the North Tower, will tell this tragic story to anyone who will listen. He and other surviving family members shadowed Giuliani during the 2008 primary and carried on a media campaign that was picked up by outlets like the Guardian.
“These radios did not work in the WTC in 1993 and they did not work in 2001.” Jim Riches stated. “We got the story out there but when the media christened him ‘America’s Mayor,’ it all went away.”
Trump: ” And as soon as I heard the news, I rushed down to the WTC. I didn’t even use my chauffeur, I just ran. I ran so fast…as fast as I could, which is pretty fast. You wouldn’t believe how fast I ran. I ran so fast that I was the first responder there. The firemen in their big big red firetrucks were right behind me. I ran so fast that I passed them on the way to the towers. I saved a lot of people that day. A lot of people don’t know this.”
@Crystal Giddens Lol Gee did Drumpf use “stupid shallow” in a tweet or at one of his Nazi rallies? You know like “fake news” or “the wall”. You little parrots can’t think for yourselves, so we know it’s not original thought.
@Gavin Trumps Daft Supporters, yup we know.
Lmao thankyou
Some of the media and camera man were with cops and emergency responder and helped locate routes and notify spots that were down and such. It did help people know and understand were not to go or routes out. Its bad to think how so many were effected just think of people who went to help who weren’t first responder or just in near by buildings.
👍
As soon as I saw this, I knew the world is about to change.
Like us government spying on everyone
Dardania Lion : I wrote a long letter, to my mom which, among other things, expressed my concerns that the world may wind up being run by an invasive, lawless Dictatorship. I got it back, after she died, and was blown away by my own prescience, until I realised that most thinking people thought the same thing. With Obama, I thought we’d dodged the bullet, until I realised he was making it worse. And, he helped to create the environment in which a Nut Job could take over. And, here we are, on the knife edge. If we Remove Trump, we will be left with so much to expose, and so much work, to keep fighting for America’s freedom. If we fail to remove him, the Republic is over, and the 2020, “elections,” will be rigged in the same way they are in Russia. The world will follow in short order. And, the, “Globalist,” nightmare, that so many Trump Trolls claim they are afraid of, will be what we have . . . ✌️
Those towers were full off asbestos.
@tileformiles Medication can help with your problem- You just have to ask for the help..Bless you little trooper😘😘
@Elkslayer
Just provide facts. You don’t need to be so weird, as your odd personality discredits your position.
Jacqueline Clarke Asbestos was critical in the building industry, who had those jobs 90% of the time. Esau and it’s Esau who’s dying from this toxin. One plus one equals two. Man it’d take me sheets and sheets to write down all the different ways something like this is happening to Esau being removed from this planet. I see fear and anger but alas to no avail. Many thousands every yr dying, gone and the replacement rate is dismal as well.
@tileformiles why are you asking me to use facts when you used none..
I still say bill Clinton did 9/11
Huge respect to all the workers and reporters on scene during that incredible tragedy while I was watching in 4th grade.
As it should. ❤💯
journalist should report more on MBS and see what happens…
Rush claims his Betsy Ross campaign is covering the victims
Saudi Arabia is supposed to pay for that!
Everyone at ground zero that day had an important role to play and they were all heroes. May you have a blessed rest of your lives
I would think the people that did the clean up would be covered too. I wonder if they are. God Bless everyone affected by this horrible trauma.
I am literally going over (or was) this in my class, whaaaaat?!
Anyone who cashes in on it is a chump.
Many many jobs were occupied by Esau and it’s Esau who’s dying out shocking that the government is just letting um die.
Controlled demolitions.
Dont worry, we will just send another hundred billion taxpayer dollars to mossad, even though they planted bombs in nyc
#neverforget
Even till this day the tragic attacks are still claiming victims