Giuliani Overrode NYPD Objections To WTC Command Center

By Cernig

This one, if it gets the play it should, will seriously dent Rudy's already faded credibility as a competent, hard-nosed war-on-terror Decider, which is the only platform he's ever had.

A detailed 1998 New York Police Department analysis opposed the city's plans to locate its emergency command center at the World Trade Center but then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani's administration overrode the objections, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

"Seven World Trade Center is a poor choice for the site of a crucial command center for the top leadership of the City of New York," the Times quoted a panel of police experts aided by the Secret Service as having concluded in a confidential Police Department memorandum which has not been previously disclosed.

The longest of the analysis' nine sections, headed "Explosives," describes a blast analysis of the likely impact of various types of bombs, and concluded that the largest of truck bombs would have led to the building's collapse, the Times report said.

The command center was destroyed during the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center that also destroyed the twin towers in the seven-building complex.

Among the location's vulnerabilities was its history as a target, the report said. One of the World Trade Center's twin towers was attacked by truck bomb in 1993 that killed 6 people and injured more than 1,000.

"This group's finding is that the security of the proposed O.E.M. Command Center cannot be reasonably guaranteed," the July 1998 memo to the city's police commissioner concluded.

The Times said it obtained the document from a law enforcement official who it noted was not affiliated with any rival political campaign.

My guess on why Rudy overrode the report? Follow the money.