NEW YORK — On Sept. 11, 2001, Rudolph W. Giuliani emerged from the ash plumes of the ruined World Trade Center as much an icon as the fallen towers. His drawn face was coated in concrete dust. His painstaking words were freighted with the unimaginable.
"There were so many people around, so many problems," Giuliani recalled in his autobiography. The counting of the dead had not begun, and he had to publicly reckon with the disaster's human toll. "The number of casualties," he told the world, "will be more than any of us can bear ultimately."
Giuliani's composed performance on Sept. 11 is the foundation of his quest for the presidency. But some of the chaos that hobbled rescuers that morning was rooted in his blind spots as New York's mayor. The man who titled his autobiography "Leadership" proved to be masterfully reactive to crisis but sketchier in preparing for the unknown.
"He did great things and some stupid things," said former New York Deputy Fire Chief Charles R. Blaich, who was a ground zero commander on Sept. 11 and later highlighted the handicaps that fire officials faced. "There's a lot there to admire. The problem is that when it came to a serious discussion about lessons learned, he didn't want any part of it."
The long day was Giuliani's crucible -- a moment that showed his mettle and humanity under extreme pressure. Despite the heroic actions of hundreds of firefighters and police, it was also a public-safety meltdown caused not only by the streaking suicide planes, but in part because of lapses that occurred on Giuliani's watch.
He had outfitted his firefighters with flame-retardant gear, but their patchwork radio system sent many urgent evacuation calls vanishing into the ether. His trek through the rain of rubble to secure a temporary command center showed poise. But coordination between his field commanders was sporadic, and there was no backup for the shattered nerve center he had built in the tower complex.
Giuliani had responded quickly to terrorist threats over his eight-year mayoralty. But his administration failed to comprehensively cure organization and equipment flaws exposed during the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
Even afterward, the temperamental Giuliani had little use for public displays of self-doubt. He did not press for internal inquiries into what went wrong that day, leaving the soul-searching to the incoming administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the federal 9/11 Commission. Both documented shortcomings.
