In new Web video, firefighters group challenges presidential hopeful’s handling of events after Sept. 11 attacks
By Tom Brune
Newsday
Copyright 2007 Newsday, Inc.
WASHINGTON — The nation’s largest firefighter union yesterday stepped up its opposition to GOP presidential frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, unveiling a 13-minute digital video on the Web attacking the 9/11 credentials of the former New York City mayor.
The digital clip prompted a quick response from the Giuliani campaign, which rejected the firefighters’ charges and labeled the union a Democratic front.
The polished production features four survivors of firefighters killed in the terror attacks as well as dramatic clips of Giuliani and the falling towers as it urges viewers not to back Giuliani’s White House bid.
It was paid for by the political action committee of the International Association of Firefighters and repeats previously aired charges that Giuliani failed in preparing for and responding to the attacks, resulting in unnecessary deaths of firefighters on 9/11.
“We did need radios that worked, we didn’t have them. We did need proper respiratory protection, and he didn’t give it to us,” New York firefighter and local union leader Steve Cassidy says in the video.
The Giuliani campaign quickly and aggressively counterattacked, even before the clip went public at 5 p.m. yesterday.
In a release Tuesday, the campaign quoted former city Fire Commissioner Howard Safir praising Giuliani’s “commitment to the safety and well-being of our firefighters.” Yesterday it issued another calling the union the “International Association of Partisan Politics.”
The campaign’s response suggested concern that the attacks on Giuliani’s strength as “America’s Mayor” for his leadership on 9/11 could damage him as much as the Swift Boat campaign about John Kerry’s Vietnam service undermined the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004.
This feud between the firefighters and Giuliani dates to November 2001.
Giuliani, citing safety concerns and the need to use heavy machinery to clear debris more quickly, cut back on firefighter searches for their colleagues’ remains, though just 100 of them had been found.
Street clashes and arrests followed as firefighters protested, complaining that the speed-up would lead to remains being dumped at Fresh Kills landfill. Giuliani eventually relented.
The video reprises those complaints, featuring a sister and three fathers of firefighters who perished in the collapse of buildings in the World Trade Center.
The union denies it is making a partisan attack.