The Freedom Tower

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani may insist on using 9/11 as his campaign base but he will have to continue dodging questions from firefighters who wonder why their fallen brethren had faulty radios that fateful day. Their radios had failed them for years.
Campaigning in Florida, Giuliani said replacing the radios in 1993 when the World Trade Center was bombed was a technical problem that was insurmountable. Although he tried, the former mayor said he just could not fix the problem during his eight years in office.
The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) is sending former New York City fire fighters and family members of IAFF fire fighters killed in the September 11, 2001 to Florida. They are calling the delegatin the Fire Brigade and their goal is to expose Giuliani’s trumped-up 9/11 credentials as a myth.

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

Jim Riches, a newly retired FDNY Deputy Chief, will lead the IAFF Fire Brigade.

“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,” says 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 was an utter failure that day, and in the days and months leading up to the attack.”