Giuliani: Building Inspector on 9/11/01

WARNING: THIS POST IS UNJUSTIFIABLY NASTY AND MAY BE UNSETTLING TO YOUNGER READERS.

With Giuliani running for President, I have to question his role as the ultimate Building Inspector in New York City on 9/11/01. Isn't the Mayor of NYC the ultimate, buck-stops-here, Building Inspector of NYC?

And that raises an interesting question of blame that nobody has wanted to talk about: Why was it believed that the World Trade Center Towers could withstand a direct hit from a jet plane? And why did Osama Bin Laden know otherwise?

As I see it, the situation was as follows: When the Twin Towers were designed, jet planes were MUCH smaller and carried much less fuel. At the time that the Twin Towers were constructed, they probably COULD have withstood a direct hit from a jet plane, since jet planes were much smaller back then.

But the question is, how come none of the building inspectors in NYC revised their opinions and said "Hey. If a big modern jet hit the WTC, it would collapse the entire building!" And don't tell me that anybody never thought of that. It was an event that could well have happened even by accident.

There are only two possibilities: Either the building inspectors were corrupt, or the the building inspectors were incompetent.

Case 1: They were corrupt. In this scenario, they knew quite well that a big, modern jet full of fuel could destroy the entire building. But alerting the renters to this fact could cause a mass exodus of renters from the WTC. Or, it might have forced the owners to do major structural changes, like expanding and re-enforcing the central stairwell, improving the sprinkler system or even reinforcing the flimsy support structures.

Any of those alternatives would have cost huge amounts of money, so it would obviously be much cheaper to simply bribe building inspectors and/or city government officials. Enter Giuliani, or his people.

Case 2: They were incompetent. The building inspectors were too stupid and incompetent to see that the WTC would collapse if hit by a jumbo jet full of jetfuel.

It is particularly damning that BOTH towers collapsed. If only one tower had collapsed, they could have called it a "freakish occurrence". But since they BOTH collapsed, it can be assumed that any serious, competent architect should have been able to figure out that that would happen if the building were hit by a jumbo jet. After all, a jumbo jet is a known quantity. It carries a known quantity of force, a known quantity of mass, and a known quantity of fuel.

Both case 1 and case 2 reflect poorly on Giuliani, and it is likely that they will emerge in an election.

These questions were conveniently obscured by Bush's response to 9/11 being totally to destroy the perpetrators. That is all very well and good, but there now looms an ENORMOUS question of whether ANY of the super highrises in America could withstand a direct hit by a jumbo jet. And nobody seems to want to talk about it. Maybe because there is an enormous amount of money at stake.

You might ask: "What do you have against Rudy Giuliani? What did he ever do to you. Gosh." Well, I'm pissed at him for coming around here in South Florida and campaigning for Florida Governor Jeb Bush in Jeb's re-election campaign of 2002. What the F did Giuliani know about the issues in Florida that he should come down here and cash in on his 9/11 fame to get votes for Jeb? That really pissed me off.

Just because you're famous for 9/11 does not mean you should go strutting your stuff all over the USA, telling people what to do like some hot French dominatrix.

Actually, Giuliani isn't a bad guy, but he's not a contenduh.

Second draft (unjustifiably nasty): 2/2/07.