Rudy Giuliani’s Memory Lapses with 9/11, Shoe-Bomber and Anthrax Attack on City Hall

By Brigitte L. Nacos

“What he [President Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush.”

                                          Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

 

After Rudy Giuliani got away with the incredible statement that no domestic terrorism occurred on President Bush’s watch when he was interviewed on Good Morning America by GeorgeStephanopoulos of ABC News Friday morning, his problem with reality and truth was thankfully exposed right away by several on-line watchdogs. How in heaven could a man whose claim to fame beyond New York City is tied to the 9/11 attacks “forget” the date of the worst terrorist nightmare on American soil? 

But this was not the only “memory lapse” in the service of political and partisan expediency. The night before he told Larry King that the  case of the would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid took place before 9/11 as an explanation why then President Bush did not mention the incident until six days after the failed attack. The fact is that the shoe bomber incident occurred on December 22, 2001—more than three months after 9/11.

One would expect that a man who built a lucrative business on the assumption that he is an expert on terrorism and its consequences would have the most basic facts and dates right. Instead, he actually spins stories of fact and fiction.

During his conversation with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday afternoon Giuliani claimed to have misspoken in his appearance on Good Morning America. But when Blitzer mentioned the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, Giuliani added another piece of fiction, when he said:

“Gee, Wolf, it not only happened, there was -- there was anthrax found in the office right next to mine. There was attack {sic] on city hall [emphasis added] as well as on the major networks and Governor Pataki's office. I mean, I as directly involved in that.”

But there was no anthrax attack on New York’s city hall at the time. Instead, a letter that was sent by NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw to Giuliani’s chief-of-staff Anthony V. Carbonetti contained some anthrax spores—seemingly coming from an anthrax letter addressed to Brokaw weeks earlier. 

And then there are the complete turnarounds in Giuliani’s opinions. In his interview with Stephanopoulos he complained that the case of the underwear bomber is handled by civilian courts, not military tribunals. Never mind that Zacarias Mousaoui, the would-be 9/11 hijacker was tried and convicted in a federal court as were shoe-bomber Reid and the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing Ramzi Yousef. After the latter was sentenced to life in prison, Giuliani said according to the New York Times that the sentencing ''sends a clear message to the world: the United States will vigorously prosecute and punish those who murder and maim the innocent.'' He was equally satisfied with the Mousaoui case that was handled in federal court.

Perhaps all of this wouldn’t matter that much if this were the efforts of one man to rewrite history. But it is in fact a strategy of conservative actors who were parts of and shapers of that history and now point their fingers elsewhere. This is the scheme of former Vice-President Dick Cheney and the female Cheney contingent, his former adviser Mary Matalin who blames the Clinton administration for the 9/11 attacks, and former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino who preceded Guiliani’s 9/11 denial by several weeks, when she claimed that there was no terrorist attack in our country during President Bush’s term.

Unfortunately, if bold-faced lies and half-truths are repeated often enough by people who are given generous access to the air waves as long as they promise controversy and attack politics, they tend to stick.