Giuliani Claims It Would Have Been "Impossible" to Give 9/11 Firefighters Working Radios
December 23, 2007Election '08
As Stephanopoulos pointed out, the firefighters on 9/11 were forced to use old equipment that had malfunctioned eight years earlier, during the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Today on ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos pushed former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani on why the radios for the 9/11 firefighters didn't work. Giuliani dodged the question, claiming that it would have been "impossible" to have given them working radios:
STEPHANOPOULOS: They make two main charges. Number one, that those firefighters in the north tower, many of them lost their lives because their radios didn't work. They also say you ended the recovery efforts too soon.
GIULIANI: Well, the radios that you're talking about weren't put online for three, four, five years after. So, it would have been impossible for me to have those radios ready. It took the city two or three more years...
STEPHANOPOULOS: But they had malfunctioned in 1993.
GIULIANI: But even with the new equipment, it took another two or three years for those radios to be put online. So it would have been impossible for us to have gotten them online before that, given the fact that it took so long afterwards.Watch the video to your right:
As Stephanopoulos pointed out, the firefighters on 9/11 were forced to use old equipment that had malfunctioned eight years earlier, during the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center.
