The Giuliani Papers

If You Like Bush's DOJ, You'll Love Rudy's

On Tuesday, July 17, Giuliani announced the Justice Advisory Committee that will advise his campaign and, presumably, his presidency.

Chaired by former Bush II Solicitor General Ted Olson, the 18-person committee has deep links to the Bush DOJ, the "Arkansas Project," the Federalist Society, Texas oil, Alberto Gonzales, Ken Starr, NYC cronies, "tort reform," and Robert Bork's $1,000,000+ personal injury suit against the Yale Club.

Justice Advisory Committee

Chairman
Ted Olson -- Partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, a central neo-con player in abetting the Bush regime; Former Bush II Solicitor General; lead lawyer in Bush v. Gore before the Supreme Court; legal counsel to and board member of Richard Mellon Scaife's American Spectator, home of the "Arkansas Project," the plot to bring down the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Members

Miguel Estrada - For this Rudy gets a nice nod from the Christian Broadcasting Network. Nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by Bush II in May 2001, Estrada withdrew his nomination in September of 2003. Democrats filibustered the nomination because Estrada refused to answer and evaded questions about his legal opinions.

Steven Calabresi - Co-founder of the Federalist Society and big fan of Bush II's signing statements.

Larry Thompson - Deputy AG for Bush II until August 2003.

Charles Fried - Harvard Law School professor; Solicitor General for Reagan, 1985-1989.

Carol Dinkins - Partner at Vinson & Elkins, Houston, where she has worked for more than two decades, alongside colleagues such as Alberto Gonzales, for oil and energy clients including Enron; headed the Bush's not-ironic Privacy & Civil Liberties Oversight Board; treasurer of Bush's 1994 campaign for governor.

Maureen Mahoney - Partner at Latham & Watkins, Washington D.C., where she leads the firm's Appellate and Constitutional Practice Groups; argued Grutter v. Bollinger before the Supreme Court upholding the concept of affirmative action; rumored to be the replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor despite her work for Grutter; deputy to Ken Starr in Bush I administration; clerked for Rehnquist; has been called "the female John Roberts."

Doug Cox - Partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher where "he played a principal role in the firm's successful representation of the prevailing candidate before the Supreme Court of the United States in litigation stemming from the disputed ballot count in Florida during the 2000 presidential election."

Marc Mukasey - Partner at Bracewell & Giuliani where he "focuses on the defense of white collar criminal and regulatory cases." The firm also states: "Recently, Mr. Mukasey has been successful in persuading Department of Justice prosecutors to close an antitrust investigation against a major corporation without the filing of charges, and to drop securities fraud and mail fraud investigations of his business clients. He also successfully argued a downward departure motion that secured a favorable outcome for his client in the face of vigorous opposition by the Department of Justice." Marc's father, Michael Mukasey, former chief judge of the Southern District of New York, is also a member of Giuliani's Justice Advisory Committee.

Dan Webb - Partner at Winston & Strawn, Chicago; a prosecutor in the Iran-Contra case reknowned for his questioning of Oliver North; defended Dan Rowstenski in corruption charges.

Bart Schwartz - Managing Director of Nardello & Schwartz "an international firm specializing in information gathering and fact-finding;" former Chief of the Criminal Division in the Southern District of New York under U.S. Attorney Giuliani.

Michael Mukasey - Partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler, New York, "working on white collar defense and investigations matters, providing advice on corporate governance issues and actively litigating civil and criminal cases;" former Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where he presided over the case of "Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 co-defendants, who were charged with plotting to destroy a number of New York City landmarks. He also presided over major cases involving the dispute between Larry Silverstein and his insurers concerning insurance proceeds related to the World Trade Center site." His son Marc is also on Giuliani's Justice Advisory Committee.

Ron Cass - President of Cass Associates, Great Falls, Virginia; former dean of the Boston University School of Law; defender of the Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court.

Jason Barclay - Partner at Barnes & Thornburg, Indianapolis, where he "represents clients in complex white collar criminal investigations, civil enforcement actions and administrative proceedings before state and federal regulatory bodies;" former counsel to Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN).

Randy Mastro - Partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, New York, where he "handles both civil and white collar criminal cases. He is a member of the Firm's Executive and Management Committees, and he has also served as Co-Partner-in-Charge of the New York Office, Co-Chair of the Firm's Crisis Management Team, and Co-Chair of the Firm's Litigation Practice Group;" representing Robert Bork in his personal injury lawsuit against the Yale Club; former New York Deputy Mayor for Giuliani.

Howard Wilson - Partner, Proskauer Rose, New York; former Commissioner New York City Dept. of Investigations.

Daniel Rodriguez - Former Dean, University of San Diego School of Law.

George Priest - Professor of Law and Economics at the Yale Law School; advocate of punitive damages reform.

Walter Olson - Senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he is called "perhaps America's leading authority on over-litigation".

Fredo says "Howdy" (NGC: No Giuliani Content)

Who says Gonzales won't answer questions?

He answered a whole bunch on September 9, 2003 in a web Q&A called 'Ask the White House.' The topic was judicial nominations, specifically that of Miguel Estrada who had recently withdrawn himself from consideration for the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. Estrada is now on Giuliani's Justice Advisory Committee (so there is in fact Rudy content after all).

The sophistication of the questioners is quite remarkable. Such as that posed by Eugene, from Oregon (there is, however, no question by Walla Walla from Washington):

Given that Estrada's withdrawal was due solely to the filibuster, I am wondering if the White House be open to any sort of compromise solution to this problem. Perhaps the administration and the Senate could agree to officially institute President Bush's earlier proposal whereby he agrees to nominate candidates within 180 days of receiving notification of a vacancy and the Senate guarantees that nominees will receive a Judiciary Committee hearing within 90 days and a full Senate vote within 90 days of that. In return for such a guarantee for every nominee, perhaps the standard for confirmation could be raised to 60 votes, thereby ensuring true bipartisan support for all confirmed nominees as well as eliminating the use of the filibuster. Would the White House be willing to consider of compromise of this sort?

For Gonzales' answer you'll have to click on the link above.

A Personal Note

For anyone wondering about the sporadic frequency of the posts here, I want to explain.

My best intention was to post every day, at worst, every other day. There is so much stuff on Giuliani that can and should be compiled, daily posts are not wanting for reference material.

However, personal demands on my time have prevented me from putting as much up here as I'd like.

My intention with The Giuliani Papers is not to create a platform for my own ranting or to pretend to be a journalist or to masquerade as an expert in politics and history. Rather, the objective is to find the great work done by others that illuminates and challenges the Giuliani myth and put those sources together in one place.

That task does take time. More time than I've had recently. I hope to be back on a more predictable posting schedule in the next few weeks.

The New Real Rudy

Jim Dwyer's piece in today's Times on Giuliani's falseness is must reading. Compare with Dwyer's column from 2004 in the previous post, "Giuliani Lied to 9/11 Commission - Part 1"

From Team Giuliani, a New Willingness to Tiptoe

By JIM DWYER

Published: July 21, 2007

As the politician previously known as Rudy Giuliani, fearless maverick, trudged through primary states this week, he added a group of conservative lawyers to his virtual entourage, a Justice Advisory Committee.

Their job, it appears, is to smother traces of the politician who once declared a “Roe v. Wade 25th Anniversary Day” and offered to help Bill Clinton pass tough national gun licensing laws.

Looking back — not that his campaign encourages doing so without supervision — there was a time when Mr. Giuliani would not have been seen onstage with people holding views like those of some of his new justice advisers.

For instance, during the 1993 mayoral race, the National Abortion Rights Action League of New York tried to organize a forum for candidates, but hit a snag. In the maneuvering, the incumbent mayor, David N. Dinkins, insisted that a candidate from the Right to Life Party be allowed to take part.

Mr. Giuliani would not hear of it.

“He said, ‘I would never accept a Right to Life candidate at this forum,’ ” said Kelli Conlin, the executive director of the abortion rights group. Instead of endorsing Mr. Dinkins, a Democrat who was also a vigorous supporter of abortion rights, the group stayed neutral. Mr. Giuliani showed his gratitude.

“He felt we were dealing honestly with him, and he rewarded me by putting me on his transition team,” Ms. Conlin said. “How passionately he believed in this.”

He appointed leading advocates of abortion rights to the city’s Board of Health. He spoke at a Naral luncheon in 1997. A year later, he welcomed Ms. Conlin and her group to City Hall for the declaration of “Roe v. Wade 25th Anniversary Day,” marking the Supreme Court decision that lifted many restrictions on abortions.

“He warmly gave me a kiss and a hug,” Ms. Conlin said.

That was 1998, when the theater of his political life was New York State, where any hesitancy in support for abortion rights is practically a disqualification from statewide elected office.

Asked recently about the prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned, Mr. Giuliani skipped the warm hug. “It would be O.K. to repeal,” he said. “Or it would be O.K. also if a strict constructionist judge viewed it as a precedent.”

He still supports abortion rights, Mr. Giuliani says, but actually hates abortion, an antipathy that he is now revealing to the abortion opponents who will be voting in the Republican primaries.

“He made his reputation on being forthright,” Ms. Conlin said. “Well, at least he’s standing in unreceptive crowds and saying, ‘I am pro-choice.’ ”

New Yorkers who thought they were familiar with what appeared to be Mr. Giuliani’s views after his two decades in public life are now discovering that some of his other passions have cooled.

In February 1997, after a man shot seven people on the observation platform of the Empire State Building, Mr. Giuliani spoke urgently about the need for national gun control laws.

That particular fever has also broken.

“You have a personal right to carry arms, to have arms,” he said at a recent town hall meeting. “That personal right is as strong as the right of free speech.”

Each state, he now says, should regulate guns as it sees fit.

But back in 1997, when the Empire State gunman established residency in Florida by staying in a motel for a few days, long enough to legally buy a .380-caliber Beretta semiautomatic handgun, Mr. Giuliani said Florida’s law was “absurd.”

Most guns used in New York crimes were bought in Southern states, so the country needed national regulation, Mr. Giuliani said in 1997.

“The United States Congress should have the courage to pass uniform licensing for everyone carrying a gun,” he said. “A gun is more dangerous than an automobile. You have to go through a rigorous test in order to drive an automobile. You should have to go through an even more rigorous test before you get a gun, much less an automatic weapon.”

Sure, he sounds a bit different these days. But as his campaign Web site explains, “Rudy understands that what works in New York doesn’t necessarily work in Mississippi or Montana.”

Or as Groucho Marx is believed to have said: “Those are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.”

Vitter's 'Rudy is Churchill' Endorsement Gone Missing from Giuliani Campaign Site

On March 28, 2007 Sen. David Vitter wrote an op-ed in the Shreveport Times explaining why he decided to become Giuliani's Louisiania campaign chairman. He made that decision because of his feeling that "the world needs Giuliani's Churchill-like qualities."

The Vitter endorsement is featured on the Rudy 2008 website here.

Oooops, maybe not. Click on the link and there's nothing there.

Gee, I really wanted to learn more about how Rudy resembles Churchill and Churchill resembles Rudy. If anyone knows, it's Vitter.

Like the time Churchill vanquished the chestnut sellers and the flower girls. And how Rudy fought and won a world war.

Rudy Cashes In

Financed by the former head of the Texas Republican Party, Giuliani got off to a running start on January 1, 2002 to make some big bucks now that he was not a has-been mayor but a national hero.

He started Giuliani Partners, a "management consulting" firm, along with his management experts Bernard Kerik, Thomas Von Essen and Richard Sheirer.

Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins, authors of Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, (now in paperback and absolutely essential reading for any understanding of Giuliani) outlined the dash for cash in an article in The Nation.

The most valuable commodity the new company had to sell was not management expertise but the aura of America's Mayor--the man whose cool-headed 9/11 leadership had taken on mythic proportions.

Now, with Giuliani traveling the country as a 2008 Republican presidential hopeful, his record both as mayor and afterward is coming under increasing scrutiny. In no area is there more to examine than in the story of Giuliani Partners.

The entire article is must-read.

Sullivan on Rudy: "Deep, Deep Unseriousness"

Giuliani has said absolutely nothing about how he would handle the war in Iraq or the larger issue of international terrorism other than endlessly repeating a few hack phrases, one being "stay on the offensive." And mainstream media lets him get away with this empty, mindless crap.

Andrew Sullivan sums it up today:

I see no reason to believe that Romney or Giuliani or Thompson are serious about national security. None has told us what they'd do in Iraq now. And hyper-ventilating about "offense" and torturing our way to victory is a mark of deep, deep unseriousness. Any candidate who can pledge to "double Gitmo" has forfeited the support of informed people. If Giuliani is elected, I don't think the Constitution will survive another terror attack. It's really that simple.

Giuliani Lied to 9/11 Commission - Part 3

Years before the 9/11 Commission the falseness of Giuliani's claims about the performance of the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) on 9/11 was noted.

On the first anniversary of the attacks Al Baker of The New York Times wrote:

The mayor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, trumpeted the agency's vision and effectiveness. Officials called it a model for other cities.

But whatever its grand ambitions, the city's Office of Emergency Management, when crisis struck, found itself marginalized and overwhelmed, and the destruction of its command center was only the most visible of its problems.

On the morning of Sept. 11, the agency, while working to assist an emergency response that was valiant in spirit and that helped evacuate thousands from the twin towers, could do little as some police officers acted without orders and others found no strong leader. It did not get commanders of the Police and Fire Departments to talk to one another during the crisis. It could not help coordinate the recall to duty of all firefighters across the city, in part because virtually none of the firefighters knew what to do in the event of such a recall.

In fact, it turned out the emergency agency had run just one joint drill for these and other groups in the 18 months before the attacks -- and it was a tabletop exercise, not field training.

One of the undisputed startling facts about the performance of the agency was that it had failed to fully establish the most basic aspect of emergency response: determining who is in charge -- and when, and why.

The system, known as incident command, is intended to help agencies work together to direct strategy and share information. Analysts from around the nation said it is a cornerstone of emergency management. Without such understandings, chaotic moments can only worsen, the analysts said.

Changes are necessary because the Office of Emergency Management was plagued by politics from the start and later suffered a long period in which it languished, many current and former city officials said.

Giuliani's most damning lie is his biggest one and the one hardest to pin down to any particular statement or piece of evidence. In fact it's the title of his big, blood-money bestseller "Leadership."

Giuliani Lied to 9/11 Commission - Part 2

When Giuliani testified before the 9/11 Commission in 2004 he said any criticism of his administration's response is simply wrong:

There was not a problem of coordination on September 11, 2001, because it was bigger than everybody involved in it, so nobody was asserting ego. You know, the Fire Department should take over, the Police Department, the mayor should be in charge--everyone sublimated their ego to how big it was. They're terrific at big emergencies. Where the problems occur that you've reported and found, it's in the smaller situations where they have time to debate who's better, who's more effective.

And when asked what other cities should learn from him he said:

I think the most important recommendation that I would make, put on the top of the list, is to have OEMs, that cities should have Offices of Emergency Management. The Office of Emergency Management that we established in '95, '96, was invaluable to us. We would not have gotten through, when I say September 11, I don't just mean the day, I mean the months after that.

Giuliani's statements were meant to deceive the commission.

On May 18, 2004, the day before Giuliani testified, the 9/11 Commission's investigative staff delivered an evaluation of the city's response to the attack. It found that in the eight years of the Giulliani admnistration, between the WTC bombing in 1993 and September 11, 2001, no effective integrated inter-agency crisis response had been instituted despite the lofty language of city agency heads. The response that day was, in essense, tragically below expectations:

The Mayor's creation of the Office of Emergency Management and the issuance of his Incident Command Directive were attempts to address the long-standing rivalry between the NYPD and the FDNY. This rivalry has been acknowledged by every witness we have asked about it. Some characterized the more extreme manifestations of the rivalry--fistfights at the scenes of emergencies, for instance--as the actions of "a few knuckleheads." Some described the rivalry as the result of healthy organizational pride and competition. Others told us that the problem has escalated over time and has hampered the ability of the City to respond well in emergency situations.

The NYPD and the FDNY were two of the preeminent emergency response organizations in the United States. But each considered itself operationally autonomous. Each was accustomed to responding independently to emergencies. By September 11th neither had demonstrated the readiness to respond to an "Incident Commander" if that commander was an official outside of their Department. The Mayor's Office of Emergency Management had not overcome this problem.

The commission investigators also found:

The Office of Emergency Management headquarters, which could have served as a focal point for information-sharing, was evacuated. Even prior to its evacuation, moreover, it did not play an integral role in ensuring that information was shared among agencies on 9/11.

Effective decision-making in New York was hampered by limited command and control and internal communications. Beyond the point we made earlier about a command system integrated across agencies, the FDNY had limited command and control of its own personnel.

That afternoon, Giuliani's Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik, his Fire Commissioner, Thomas Von Essen, and his Office of Emergency Management (OEM) Director, Richard Sheirer, testified. All three men, at the time of their testimony, were employed by Giuliani Partners, the consulting firm Rudy launched when he left office on January 1, 2002.

Each of the three Giuliani Partners employees addressed OEM in opening statements they read to the commission:

Kerik read:

In 1996, mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani improved the overall ability to respond to major events or emergencies with the creation of the mayor's Office of Emergency Management.

Together with other city agencies like the Fire Department, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Health, the NYPD now had a more formalized mechanism to better plan, coordinate and practice for just about any crisis you could imagine. The city, through its OEM, had coordinated plans for many types of emergencies, and those plans were tested frequently. Not only were drills and tabletop exercises conducted, like the one simulating a biochemical attack in the mass transit system, but actual emergencies like blackouts, building collapses, storms, plane crashes, and a West Nile Virus outbreak, all tested the effectiveness of the city's coordinated response system.

Von Essen read:

I have also been asked to discuss the coordination between the Fire Department, the Police Department and OEM. As for OEM, it was critical to the coordination of the rescue and response. There were OEM representatives in the North Tower lobby and at the West Street command post from the very beginning, and they provided crucial information to the Chiefs. While the loss of the OEM Emergency Operations Center at 7 World Trade Center made communications and coordination more difficult at first, those difficulties were overcome. I have always thought that OEM was an excellent concept, and the agency was very important to the Fire Department. It provided operational support and resources we would not have otherwise had. At an emergency, we were able to concentrate on rescues and fighting fires. We could rely on OEM to make sure all other concerns and issues were taken care of, either by OEM or through other agencies.

Sheirer read:

OEM has been in existence in the Office of the mayor since 1996, when mayor Giuliani recognized the need to enhance interagency coordination in planning, preparing and responding to emergency situations, and he created that mayoral agency. OEM was comprised of personnel drawn from various city agencies, including the Police, Fire Departments, Health Department, Environmental Protection Departments, and others. OEM's responsibilities include: coordinating and assisting in emergency response, monitoring the city for emergency conditions and incidents, and operating the Emergency Operations Center from where the City was able to manage large or unique multi- agency events. A crucial part of OEM's mandate was to develop interagency emergency response plans, and organize joint training exercises among city agencies under those plans.

This PR spin was not swallowed by all commission members.

Commission member John Lehman, former Reagan secretary of the navy, tore into the three Giuliani Partners employees:

MR. LEHMAN: Thank you.

Gentlemen, I'm aware of the history and of the traditions and of the politics that have shaped the public service agencies in this city over many, many years, and I agree with you all that we certainly have the finest police and fire departments, Port Authority Police, anywhere in the world. And as you said, Mr. Sheirer, they're the proudest. But pride runneth before the fall. And I think that the command and control and communications of this city's public service is a scandal.

(Applause.)

MR. KEAN: I would ask the audience--you're just taking time away from the hearing when you do that, so please, do not.

MR. LEHMAN: It's not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city. It's a scandal that you, as the emergency preparedness manager, did not have line authority to select--find the best technologies of radios and dictate what would be procured to solve these problems instead of being a kind of an auxiliary advisory service. (Applause.) I think it's a scandal that the fire commissioner has no line authority. It's a scandal that there's nobody that has clear line authority and accountability for a crisis of the magnitude that we're going to have to deal with in the years ahead. It's a scandal that after laboring for eight years, the city comes up with a plan for incident management that simply puts in concrete this clearly dysfunctional system.

Giuliani Lied to 9/11 Commission - Part 1

New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer did not use the L-word in his report on Giuliani's testimony to the 9/11 Commission in May of 2004, but its absence can only be attributable to the legal department at the newspaper. (The refusal of journalists to say that an official is lying has, I feel, everything to do with the present state of our democracy.)

Please take the time to read his article in full. It is a concise rendering of the MO of Giuliani and his cohorts and provides an insight to the outrage felt by many firefighters and their families today.

THREATS AND RESPONSES: ASSESSMENT; Contradicting Other Evidence, Giuliani Says Firefighters Heard Order to Evacuate

By JIM DWYER
Published: May 20, 2004

In the epic accounts of Sept. 11 provided over the last two days by former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and his aides, the Police and Fire Departments bravely worked together, and no catastrophic failure to communicate doomed scores of firefighters inside the World Trade Center.

Instead, Mr. Giuliani testified, those firefighters heard an evacuation order, but still did not leave the building. They were ''standing their ground'' to make sure civilians got out, he said.

Mr. Giuliani's vision of the day, offered during his testimony before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, addressed the loss of many firefighters who appeared to have had ample opportunity to escape. Along with his former commissioners of the police, fire and emergency management departments, Mr. Giuliani denied that the city's response suffered from the central problems identified by the panel and by earlier city investigations. The firefighters ''were interpreting an evacuation order the way a brave rescue worker would interpret an evacuation order, which is to first get the civilians out and then get yourself out,'' Mr. Giuliani said.

For all the power of his voice and stature, however, Mr. Giuliani's account must compete with a substantial and diverse body of evidence that flatly contradicts much of what he and his aides say happened that day, particularly on matters that could be seen as reflecting on the performance of his administration.

On perhaps the most painful of these, the loss of at least 121 firefighters in the north tower, Mr. Giuliani suggested that they stayed inside the trade center because they were busy rescuing civilians -- never mentioning that they could not hear warnings from police helicopters, that many of them never learned the south tower had collapsed or that they were having serious problems staying in touch with their own commanders.

Witnesses who escaped from the tower tell a vastly different story than Mr. Giuliani. They say that in the north tower's final 15 minutes, only a handful of civilian office workers were still in the bottom 44 floors of the building, perhaps no more than two or three dozen. Many of the firefighters who remained in the towers were between the 19th and 37th floors, having made slow progress up the stairs in their heavy gear.

It is clear, witnesses said, that even after the south tower collapsed, many, if not most, of the firefighters had no idea that they were in dire peril, or that it was time for them to leave. In contrast, police officers received strong guidance from their commanders to get out of the building, the commission reported, thanks in large part to the information sent to the ground by police helicopters.

The situation in the north tower is described in more than 100 oral histories, interviews, and written accounts of firefighters, Port Authority police officers, state court officers and civilians who were inside the building.

Mr. Giuliani was correct that some firefighters and other rescuers were helping civilians. The witness accounts suggest that at least six people were unable to move on their own, and a handful of the firefighters were involved in helping them.

Other firefighters were resting, witnesses said. Three New York State court officers, who had come to the north tower to help, stopped on the 19th floor as they were leaving. They said they found scores of firefighters -- one of the court officers said at least 100 -- taking a break.

''The hallway was filled with firemen,'' one of the court officers, Sgt. Andrew Wender, said in an interview. ''Some of them were lying down. Ax against the wall. Legs extended. Arm resting against their oxygen tank. Completely exhausted. It led me to believe they were not hearing what we were hearing.''

The court officers, who had heard the orders to get out over a police officer's radio, said they shouted to the firefighters. The firefighters replied that they would be coming right down, though few seemed to be stirring. The court officers, who had begun their descent from the 51st floor, said they got clear of the tower less than a minute before it collapsed.

In an oral history, Fire Lt. Warren Smith of Ladder 9 described what he saw as he came downstairs: ''There definitely were firefighters that we were picking up on the way down that had no knowledge,'' Lieutenant Smith said. ''They were, like, they didn't believe us.''

He added: ''Definitely, the sense of urgency was a huge factor in your ability to get out of there. I don't know what you could attest that to. Experience? Knowledge of the fact that the other building went down; did you have that knowledge? I don't think a lot of guys did.''

Another conflict emerged from Mr. Giuliani's explanation of why the city did not have radios that permitted firefighters and police officers to communicate with each other. A member of the panel, Richard Ben-Veniste, noted that branches of the military had found radios that permitted them to communicate, overcoming barriers of pride.

''What barrier was there that prevented you from ordering standardization?'' Mr. Ben-Veniste asked.

''No barrier,'' Mr. Giuliani replied. ''The technology. And that's the reason why there isn't technology today.'' He went on to say that the two departments had radios configured to serve their different missions. He agreed that they ought to have radios that could connect to each, but said, ''Those radios don't exist today.''

Later in the day, however, Jerome M. Hauer, who had served as director of the Office of Emergency Management for Mr. Giuliani, said the city had purchased radios to permit the two agencies to communicate, but had run into political problems.

''We attempted to get the Police and Fire Departments to communicate on both a common radio frequency at hazardous materials incidents and on an 800 megahertz frequency at major emergencies,'' Mr. Hauer said. ''We were unable to get the two groups to share a common frequency at hazardous materials emergencies and the 800 megahertz radios were carried by fire chiefs, although rarely used, but not by the Police Department.''

He added: ''As I look back at Sept. 11 and what might have had an impact on the number of people lost, I see our inability to get the departments to talk with one another on a common frequency as one of the issues that might have had an impact in reducing the loss of life. Additionally, had there been a senior police liaison at the command post and/or a fire chief in the helicopter that could communicate with the command post on the ground, information about what they were observing in the air could have been relayed to the ground.''

Another witness, Dennis Smith, the retired firefighter and author of a book about the recovery effort at ground zero, reminded the commission that on the morning of Sept. 11, the Navy had ordered an aircraft carrier bound for Asia to turn around and patrol the west coast. The Navy was acting in response to a request from the Air Force,

''Think of that,'' Mr. Smith said. ''A successful communication to protect Americans, between two services, over a distance of 4500 miles, and we could not effect a communication from a police helicopter to a fire chief on the street 1000 feet away.''

On Tuesday, the first day of the hearings, Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner under Mr. Giuliani, offered a version of events that conflicted with the accounts of virtually every senior official in the Fire Department. Mr. Kerik testified that he saw police officers serving as liaisons to the Fire Department at the main fire command post on West Street. Mr. Kerik identified only one of those officers, a police sergeant who died in the collapse.

Mr. Kerik now works in Mr. Giuliani's consulting firm, along with Thomas Von Essen, the former fire commissioner. In June 2002, Mr. Von Essen was asked if the police had coordinated with the Fire Department on Sept. 11.

''That day, the police did not hook up with the Fire Department,'' Mr. Von Essen said. ''I don't know why.''