NEW YORK -- Once seen as a stabilizing force in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani testified Wednesday amid hecklers to defend his city's response to its worst tragedy.
A day after his one-time police and fire chiefs were grilled in a heated hearing, Giuliani opened his testimony to the federal commission investigating the attacks by recounting the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and telling of a "heroic" response and a "superb" chain of command.
Twice during questioning, Giuliani was jeered and heckled by members of the audience (pictured, right), many of whom are family members of some of the 2,700 victims of the Manhattan phase of the Sept. 11 attacks. It echoed a similar scene during Kerik and Von Essen's testimony.
A longtime critic jumped out of his seat, yelling "Three-thousand people are dead!" As guards escorted him out, he continued: "They were not killed because he's a great leader" and "Let's ask some real questions!"
"One-sided!" shouted one woman, who said her son died in the attacks. Others joined her in shouting protests of "Put us on the panel!" before panel director Thomas Kean spoke to quiet them.
Some wanted to change the subject to failure of Fire Department communications equipment, and shouted "Talk about the radios!"
Giuliani quickly responded, telling Kean the audience members' reaction was "understandable."
"When you've suffered those kinds of losses, the reaction is understandable," Giuliani said.
The much-publicized Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing for President George W. Bush referred to evidence of buildings in New York being cased by terrorists. It mentioned New York or the World Trade Center three times.
Giuliani said that if he had that information, "or more warnings had been given in the summer of 2001," he couldn't say that the city would have done anything differently.
"We were doing at the time everything we could think of to protect the city," he said, noting that the briefings he received from federal officials indicated that New York's bridges, tunnels and subways were more likely targets.
"I do think the interpretation would have been more in the direction of suicide bombings than aerial attacks," Giuliani said.
Giuliani said that on the day of the attacks, he estimated in his mind that as many as 10,000 to 15,000 people were killed in the attacks, given the occupancy of the twin towers. He praised the emergency response for keeping the casualty number much lower.
Appearing to react to the harsh criticism directed by the panel at former Police Chief Bernard Kerik and former Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen on Tuesday, Giuliani told the commission Wednesday that its priority should be preventing a new attack, not assigning blame.
"Our enemy is not each other, but the terrorists who attacked us," Giuliani said in his opening statement to the panel. The mayor acknowledged there were "terrible mistakes" made on Sept. 11, but attributed that to the unprecedented circumstances.
The anti-New York City government sentiment is a stark reversal from the months after Sept. 11 attacks, when police and fire officials were hailed for their response and Giuliani, especially, was hailed for his leadership.
Seen walking toward the collapsed World Trade Center site on Sept. 11, 2001, Giuliani instructed those in Manhattan on what to do, adding in stark honesty that "the losses are more than we can bear."
On Tuesday, commissioner John Lehman called the police and fire miscommunications a scandal "not worthy of the Boy Scouts, let alone this great city."
Von Essen called Lehman's comments "despicable."
On Tuesday, the panel -- now redirecting its attention from federal intelligence missteps to the Manhattan response -- released initial findings, which stated that brave responders were hindered by "an uncoordinated" effort marked by miscommuication.
Commission: Flaws In 911 System Imperiled Workers
More details from a preliminary 9/11 panel report came out Wednesday, concluding that people inside the World Trade Center may have been deprived of life-saving information because of basic flaws in the city's emergency phone system.
The report says there was no way to relay information to 911 operators and dispatchers that fire chiefs had made decisions to evacuate the burning and fatally weakened twin towers.
Workers inside the buildings called 911 for help but were not told to evacuate.
An unknown number of victims in the south tower might have had a better chance of survival if emergency operators had told them not to flee upward, where some encountered locked roof doors and no hope of escape.
Bloomberg Rips Homeland Security Funding
The man who succeeded Giuliani as New York mayor had just 15 minutes before the panel and used that time to push for more Homeland Security funding.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who took office just over three months after the attacks, said New York City has been targeted by terrorists six times since 1993 but the state ranks 49th out of 50 in per-capita Homeland Security funding. He called it "pork barrel politics at its worst."
Lehman agreed, calling the funding "a terrible misallocation."
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, who also testified Wednesday, agreed.
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