Nothing is more revealing about how contemptible and loathsome Rudy Giuliani really is, then the story of the missing World Trade Center Gold and how it’s retrieval was more important to him than recovering the remains of America’s fallen firefighter heroes. This is what happened.

When the twin towers came down on that horrific morning six years ago, three-hundred and forty three of America’s firefighter heroes perished. Firemen are a genuine brotherhood, a close-knit family faithfully devoted to protecting their own whose very survival is predicated on caring more about the guy next to them then themselves. Accordingly, to those that survived that awful day, nothing was more important than the search for their missing comrades bodies and the respectful removal of their remains.

New York City Fireman Chuck Horack said this,

We're on a mission, and we won't leave until it's done. We see the site as sacred ground. Our brothers are still in the debris. No one can ever know how important it is to bring their husband home to a widow.

One would think that “America’s mayor”, a self-described friend of the firemen would have embraced their efforts. But on November 2nd, 2001, barely fifty-one days after the towers came down and after only ninety-one firefighters’ bodies had been recovered, Giuliani issued an order to cut-back the number of rescue workers who could search for remains from three-hundred to twenty-five.

At the same time, Giuliani also ordered workers to switch to a "scoop-and-dump" operation, replacing the slower but far more respectful process of removing debris piece by piece. Giuliani's reprehensible new directive, meant that fire fighters and others who perished would either remain buried forever at Ground-Zero or be scooped up like garbage and deposited in a landfill.

Curiously enough, it was soon discovered that more than $230 million worth of gold that had been stored in a bomb-proof vault beneath the world trade center had been recovered on November 1st, the day before Rudy’s order was given.  

Firefighters were understandably besides themselves with outrage, saying the decision to cut-back the search for remains was directly connected to the recovery of the gold.

Giuliani attempted to justify his actions by telling the press that the bodies were pulverized and it was impossible to recover any more remains. That was a blatant lie. The truth was that rescue workers were retrieving bodies and remains almost every day. Sure it was horrific, there were small body parts, what one would expect when people are blown apart. But, the remains were there and the firemen and rescue workers refused to stop. They wanted to bury their dead, to give a respectful closure to grieving families, to provide the small but necessary consolation of a gravesite for children to visit in the future.

When firefighters and their family members protested Giuliani’s decision, a violent clash broke out between police and the firefighters and fifteen were arrested. Eventually, after a tremendous public outcry and intense pressure, Giuliani relented and allowed the recovery work to continue. But not before he referred to the firefighters’ actions as “sinful”.

Fireman Mike Daly of Engine Company 280 said,

We're being disrespected. Two days after they find the gold, we're pulled off the job,” said. 'The city is more concerned with gold than people.

It’s crystal clear that after the gold was found Giuliani wanted to shift to the “scoop and dump” removal process to expedite the clearing of debris. Rudy and an assortment of greedy developers opposed a lengthy recovery effort so they could proceed with re-development. Rudy also wanted to save money so his statistical record as a conservative would hold up under scrutiny and he wanted a clean site before he left office. He could have cared less about the firefighters who gave their lives and he cared less still about the grieving of their families.

International Association of Firefighters union president Harold Schaitberger summed it all up like this,

What Giuliani showed following 9/11 is a disgraceful lack of respect for the fallen and those brothers still searching for them. He valued the money and gold and wanted the World Trade Center site cleared before he left office at the end of 2001 more than he valued the lives and memories of those lost.

Had Giuliani had his way, many of the remains would never have been recovered, as he exhibited an almost inhuman and disgraceful lack of respect for the firefighters who perished as heroes on 9/11. This sorry excuse for a human being proved himself to be dishonest, cruel and immoral. He is not fit to be elected dog-catcher, much less President of The United States.