Rudy Giuliani during the September 11 attacks
Hauer has taken exception to that account in interviews and has provided Fox News and New York Magazine with a memo demonstrating that he recommended a location in Brooklyn, but was overruled by Giuliani.
After the attacks, Giuliani coordinated the response of various city departments while organizing the support of state and federal authorities for the World Trade Center site, for citywide anti-terrorist measures, and for restoration of destroyed infrastructure.
[citation needed] He made frequent appearances on radio and television on September 11 and afterwards — for example, to indicate that tunnels would be closed as a precautionary measure, and that there was no reason to believe that the dispersion of chemical or biological weaponry into the air was a factor in the attack.
When Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal suggested that the attacks were an indication that the United States "should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stand toward the Palestinian cause", Giuliani asserted,There is no moral equivalent for this [terrorist] act.
[19][20][21] A New York Times study a week later found that he spent a total of 29 hours over three months at the site; his appointment logs were unavailable for the six days immediately following the attacks.
[23][24] In his public statements, Giuliani mirrored the emotions of New Yorkers after the September 11 attacks: shock, sadness, anger, resolution to rebuild, and the desire for justice to be done to those responsible.
[27] The term "America's Mayor", now in common usage among Giuliani supporters, was coined by Oprah Winfrey at a 9/11 memorial service held at Yankee Stadium on September 23, 2001.
[30] Advocates for the extension contended that Giuliani was needed to manage the initial requests for funds from Albany and Washington, speed up recovery, and slow down the exodus of jobs from lower Manhattan to outside New York City.
[32] The election proceeded as scheduled, and the winning candidate, the Giuliani-endorsed Republican Michael Bloomberg, took office on January 1, 2002, per normal custom.
After 9/11, and perhaps owing also to his bout with prostate cancer, his public image had been reformed to that of a man who could be counted on to unite a city in the midst of its greatest crisis.
He left a city immeasurably better off — safer, more prosperous, more confident — than the one he had inherited eight years earlier, even with the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center at its heart.
"[35] Giuliani has been subject to increased criticism for downplaying the health effects of the air in the Financial District and lower Manhattan areas in the vicinity of the Ground Zero.
"[37] However, in the weeks after the attacks, the United States Geological Survey identified hundreds of asbestos hot spots of debris dust that remained on buildings.
[38] It would eventually be determined that a wide swath of lower Manhattan and Brooklyn had been heavily contaminated by highly caustic and toxic materials.
[40][41] The executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, Sally Regenhard, reportedly said of Giuliani: "Everybody likes a Churchillian kind of leader who jumps up when the ashes are still falling and takes over.
[43] The New York Times faulted his decision-making on the post September 11 cleanup of the World Trade Center site, in the lead editorial of the May 22, 2007 issue.
Two years after Giuliani finished his term, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) appropriated $1 billion to a special insurance fund to protect the city against 9/11 lawsuits.
[43] In 2007, then-Senator Hillary Clinton contemplated calling Giuliani to testify before a Senate committee on whether the government failed to protect recovery workers from the effects of polluted Ground Zero air.
[47] In June 2007, former Republican Governor of New Jersey and director of the Environmental Protection Agency Christie Whitman reportedly stated that the EPA had pushed for workers at the WTC site to wear respirators but that she had been blocked by Giuliani.
[48] Former deputy mayor Joe Lhota, who had by then joined Giuliani's presidential campaign, replied, "All workers at Ground Zero were instructed repeatedly to wear their respirators."
"[49] In February 2007, the International Association of Fire Fighters issued a letter accusing Giuliani of "egregious acts" against the 343 firemen who had died in the September 11 attacks.
"[52] By April 2007 it was reported that Giuliani had been forced to limit his appearances in New York City due to the increasing protests by family members of 9/11 victims, particularly police, fire and other emergency workers.
