Secretary Whitman Said 9/11 Air Was Safe. Now Death Toll Of Responders To Surpass Attack.

[TheMastersNemesis]

There are no consequences to the officials of the government officials who misled first responders over the safety of the air at the attack site. Secretary Whitman and Bush administration lied. Of course they retired to a comfy life. There simply is no justice. How sick. Report just on Lester Holt.

[Throck]

1. I remember when the government said agent orange was safe

Bumbling idiots.

[scarletwoman]

2. It's NOT "bumbling"! It's outright LYING!

They lie because they don't give a shit for the lives of the peasants.

[Throck]

9. +1

[eleny]

3. I remember one of the outdoor news conferences with Rudy G.

He was asked about the air quality and he replied that it was safe. I turned to my husband and said, "He's a lying sack of shit". I'll never forget the moment.

I remember when the buildings were going up. We didn't know then but it came out decades later how during that era it was common to use materials containing pcb's and asbestos along with other substances that by 2001 were well known toxins.

Btw, Rudy is still a lying sack of it.

[ret5hd]

4. They knew it back then also.

[eleny]

6. Yup

[KT2000]

5. did you know

there was an EPA ombudsman who tried to hold her accountable, especially since her husband was a Wall Street guy and they wanted to get back in there to work. The EPA ombudsman, Robert Martin, and his assistant were fired - after sleeping for days in their offices to save the files.
The ombudsman was answerable to Congress - not EPA. After 9/11 if there is still an ombudsman at all, he/she is under the thumb of the EPA.

[shanny]

7. I am just fine with manslaughter charges,

if not worse.

[Hekate]

8. I remember a NY columnist (Jimmy Breslin?) writing about his every breath hurting...

...writing about the suffering of the first responders, their choking for the breath of life. He called out Christine Todd Whitman in the strongest terms for lying and for knowing it was a lie. This was, I believe, still in Dubya's first term.

Like everyone else, I was glued to CNN for days, for weeks. I watched people heroically digging through the rubble and as far as I could tell only the firefighters had masks. There were countless volunteers who flocked in, and gods know where they are today, but if any of them had more than a housedust mask I didn't see it.

That dust was not just at Ground Zero. It covered the entire City of New York with aerosolized human remains, steel, asbestos, every kind of building material, glass, plastics, desktop computers...

I was glued to CNN. I was 3,000 miles away and it hurt just to watch. I imagined people being told to evacuate -- but no such thing. I imagined people being given instructions on how to protect themselves and their families from this toxic air, but no. Instead, the President and his EPA chief said the air was safe and people could go on with their lives.

The columnist said he hoped Whitman was breathing easy, because he sure was not and others were dying.

Edited to add: Senator Hillary Clinton was front and center in efforts to help responders get medical care.