Revisiting Rudy's Record as Terror-Fighter

Impressive after 9/11, Giuliani underplayed the threat before
By Jonas Oransky,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 24, 2007 4:25 PM CDT

Candidate Giuliani is pitching himself as a terrorist-slayer, but until 9/11 he downplayed threats and offered traditional law enforcement as the solution, the Washington Post reports—an approach he now condemns. In an analysis of the former mayor's track record on terror before the attacks, the Post notes decisions that underplayed the threat. i

Most conspicuouly, Rudy placed his emergency command center at the World Trade Center just a few years after the 1993 attack. And he declined to label a 1997 Empire State Building shooting death as terrorism—despite the killer’s stated intention to strike “Zionists…at their own den.” The Post asserts that terrorism “was a narrow aspect” of Giuliani's agenda, and he was less than prescient about the event that turned him into America’s Mayor. (More Rudy Giuliani stories.)

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