IAFF: ‘Fire Brigade’ Descends Upon Orlando

‘Rudy Lied, Fire Fighters Died on 9/11’

IAFF ‘Fire Brigade’ Descends Upon Orlando
More Than 100 Fire Fighters Rally Against Giuliani

11:30 am, Tuesday, Jan. 22
Orlando City Hall, 400 S. Orange Avenue Orlando , Florida

Media Contacts: Bill Glanz 202 824-1566,202 329-5856 (cell)
David Roscow 703-276-2772 x21 


9/11 FDNY Veteran Fire Fighters Fault Giuliani for Lack of Preparedness


Orlando – More than 100 Orlando fire fighters will join the International
Association of Fire Fighters “Fire Brigade” to protest former New York Mayor
Rudy Giuliani’s presidential candidacy at a demonstration outside of Orlando
City Hall. The “Fire Brigade,” a group of retired New York City fire fighters
and family members of fire fighter victims of the September 11, 2001, attack on
the World Trade Center will expose Giuliani’s trumped up 9/11 credentials as a
myth.

Prior to the demonstration the Orlando fire fighters will gather at a rally at
10 am at the Fire Fighters Council of Central Florida, 4005 North Blossom Trail
in Orlando.

“This is about the judgment of our country’s next President,” said IAFF General
President Harold A. Schaitberger. “Voters in Florida, where Rudy has pinned his
hopes for his election, need to know Giuliani’s record of poor judgment so they
understand why we don’t believe he’s nearly qualified to be our next President
of the United States.”

Jim Riches, a newly retired Deputy Chief of the Fire Department of New York,
has been leading the IAFF “Fire Brigade.”  Riches has trailed the Giuliani
campaign over the last week protesting at events in Titusville, Sun City
Center, Celebration, Coral Springs, and other sites.

“No one knows better than fire fighters who were at the World Trade Center that
Giuliani failed to prepare first responders before 9/11 and that he is totally
unprepared to become our commander-in-chief,” said Riches, who responded on
9/11 and lost his fire fighter son, Jimmy Riches, at Ground Zero. “We object to
Giuliani using 9/11 as his calling card in this campaign. He and his campaign
cronies say New York City fire fighters love him, but that is far from the
truth. We despise him. Giuliani’s failure on 9/11, and in the days and months
leading up to the attack prove he is unfit to serve as President.”

The first event was held in Jacksonville on Thursday, where he met with members
of Jacksonville Fire Fighters Local 122, retired and active, to discuss
Giuliani’s record.

To explain Giuliani’s failed leadership, the IAFF created a 13-minute video,
which can be viewed at www.rudy-urbanlegend.com, and on YouTube, where with
more than 380,000 views it has become one of the most popular video in the news
and politics category on the video sharing Web site.  The IAFF is funding and
assisting the “Fire Brigade” as it crisscrosses Florida.

“Rudy doesn’t know anything about fighting terrorism, as far as we are
concerned he has terrible judgment,” Riches said. “He couldn’t even protect his
own fire fighters, forcing us to use radios that didn’t work, placing the
emergency command center in a known terrorist target that collapsed on 9/11 and
then disrespecting fire fighters and families when he cut short the recovery
effort and began scooping and dumping bodies in a trash dump.”

“I was in FDNY for more than 40 years, and was the Chief of Safety, so I know
that Giuliani did nothing for fire fighters,” said Al Santora, a retired Deputy
Chief who lost his fire fighter son, Christopher Santora, on 9/11. “His actions
at the time and leading up to the attack, and during the day itself, showed a
tremendous lack of judgment, and failure of leadership.”

“Rudy talks a big game about 9/11, but the fact is he was on the street that
day, not in a controlled place making command decisions, because he had placed
his emergency command center at 7 World Trade Center – the number one terrorist
target in the world, which collapsed on 9/11,” Santora said. “That video that
everyone has in their heads of Giuliani on the streets is him running away from
the scene because he had nowhere to go because of his bad decisions.”

“Rudy continues to lie about his role on 9/11, but we’re not going to let him
get away with it,” Riches said. “The IAFF and our Fire Brigade are going to be
the conscience of 9/11, haunting Giuliani’s footsteps in this campaign. We will
not forget his failures, and we want the American people to remember, as well.”

The International Association of Fire Fighters, headquartered in Washington,
DC, represents more than 287,000 full-time professional fire fighters and
paramedics who protect 80 percent of the nation’s population.  More information
is available at www.iaff.org. 

Rudy Giuliani - His failed leadership and disrespect

Firefighters: Giuliani Ditched 9/11 Body Recovery 24 Hours After Securing $230 Million In Buried Gold

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has regularly touted his leadership in the wake of 9/11 as one of his major selling points. A host of 9/11 responders have alleged, however, that Giuliani provided them with poor radios, misled them into working amidst toxic fumes, and most recently, hastily cleared out the rubble before bodies were all recovered.

Six weeks after 9/11, Giuliani abandoned efforts to recover remaining bodies and buckled to pressure from developers eager to “scoop” the rubble:

The fact is that the Mayor’s switch to a scoop-and-dump coincided with the removal of tens of millions of dollars of gold, silver and other assets of the Bank of Nova Scotia that were buried beneath what was once the towers. Once the money was out, Giuliani sided with the developers that opposed a lengthy recovery effort, and ordered the scoop-and-dump operation so they could proceed with redevelopment.

Yesterday, Harold Schaitberger of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) — the nation’s largest firefighters organization, consisting of 280,000 members — assailed Giuliani, detailing how the mayor ditched body-recovery efforts only 24 hours after recovering the $230 million in gold. “He found the gold on October 31, and on November 1 is when he issued the order to remove the firefighters from their recovery mode.” Watch it:

The IAFF has produced a video entitled “Rudy Giuliani: Urban Legend,” extensively documenting Giuliani’s negligence after 9/11, featuring “active and retired fire fighters, fire officers and families of the fallen speaking out about the ‘Real Rudy,’ his failed leadership and his disrespect for the recovery of those we lost.”

Already, the video has been attacked by the right wing as another form of “Swift Boating.” But as the Carpetbagger noted, “The comparison is ridiculous. The Swiftboat attackers were lying; the International Association of Fire Fighters aren’t.”

Source: Article