What Giuliani actually did (or didn't do)

Whatever the mix of reasons, Giuliani has never been forced to explain, by investigators or reporters, how he squares the two-post decision with his own rules for how the police and fire departments were supposed to behave. John Farmer, the 9-11 Commission's top investigator for the city response chapter of its report, says Giuliani can't. "I don't know if he thought of it that day, but yes, it was not consistent with the protocol he established," Farmer says. "I think what he would tell you is that he thought coordination was occurring. He had Kerik with him, and the reality of these situations is that the coordination has to be not just two guys at the top; it has to be more integrated." Asked if Giuliani should be held accountable for this and other disarray that day, Farmer said, "Of course, the answer is yes. If you're the top official, you're accountable."

http://villagevoice.com/news/0635,barrett,74322,6.html

The 9-11 Commission members reached conclusions similar to Farmer's, but so quietly that no one noticed. The commission report never described Giuliani's step-by-step actions that day, though it chronicles just about everyone else's, and it certainly never mentioned his role in creating two posts. But when it reached its ultimate conclusion that the fire department was not "responsible for the management of the City's response as the Mayor's directive would have required," the very next line was "the command posts were in different locations." Thus, the commission's best example of the violation of the mayor's directive was the mayor's own action.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology added: "Unified command was hampered by the fire department and police department setting up separate command posts." It also found that the governing fire department protocol that day—issued in 1997 when Von Essen was commissioner—said that at a fire like this, "the departments act as 'one organization' and are managed as such." Instead of "several posts operating independently," the department circular provides that "the operation is directed from only one command post." Daniel Nigro, the only top fire chief at West Street to survive, said, "I think there should have been one command post. It should be run according to the incident command system, and that system puts one person in command and all the other agencies are there and they work from a single location."

Ray Kelly, the police commissioner who preceded and followed the Giuliani years, said in an interview, "Sure, the separate command post was a violation of the protocols. The radios would have been no problem if they had been at the same command post, if they'd been face-to-face. The Office of Emergency Management was supposed to make that happen under the protocols, but Jerry Hauer wasn't there any-more. OEM had the power to direct that to happen. Giuliani had the power to direct that to happen."

in his own mind.