Online Video Claims Rudy Giuliani Lied About Command Center at WTC

Filmmakers and Family Say Placing Command Center Inside WTC Cost Lives of 9/11 Rescue Workers

Filmmakers have posted a seven minute video examining the choice to place New York's Emergency Command Center, which was to be responsible for organizing response to a terrorist attack, at the WTC. In the video, Rudy Giuliani discusses the decision to place the command center on the 23rd floor of Seven World Trade Center after the first terrorist attack in 1993. Evidence is provided that shows Giuliani's statements to be false. Former Emergency Management Director, Jerry Hauer, rebuts Giuliani's claims that this location was recommended to the mayor.

The video begins with footage of Giuliani on the run around Ground Zero the day of the attacks. He is on the run, a deputy chief for the FDNY says, because the command center is in one of the burning buildings. Chris Wallace confronted Giuliani on choosing the location after his director of emergency management had advised against it.

"My Director of Emergency Management recommended Seven WTC," Giuliani insists.

Wallace provides a document dated February 14, 1999, in which Hauer writes in support of a Brooklyn location. Haeur felt a lower profile area was better because Lower Manhattan had already been a target and was likely to remain a target in the future.

"The building is...not as visible a target as buildings in lower Manhattan," Hauer wrote.

That Giuliani claims his recommendations were for a WTC location, Haeur says, is "a flat out lie." The former director says all the other possible locations were slowly eliminated, while choices were slowly limited to Lower Manhattan.

Giuiliani claims that there were backup command centers and a virtual command center in place. Hauer says Giuliani "has no idea what he's talking about. There was no virtual command center.We did not have a virtual capability outside of Seven World Trade Center."

Excerpts from the 9/11 Commission report are shown stating that the decision to place the command center on the 23rd floor (poor access in case elevators were inaccessible) of a building so close to a previous attack was questioned. The 9/11 comission report also states, "There was no backup site."