‘Stark Contrasts’

Is the city better prepared today?

Sure. There’s no question that the fire department’s radio communication is substantially better. Also, there are enormous ways the police department has changed now. Maybe now they are preventing terror attacks ... There were 16 or 17 detectives assigned to [the FBI's] Joint Terrorism Task Force when Giuliani took office, and when he left office in 2001 there were still 16 or 17 officers assigned. [Police Commissioner] Ray Kelly has increased that five- or sixfold, and he’s increased the amount of personnel assigned to terrorism to over 1,000. Clearly, he has prepared the police as far as having an understanding of the terror threat. And there are command and control protocols now ... In many ways, we are much better off. Though we are still glaringly deficient in some areas.

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No one has done anything about those who are above a fire line in a high-rise building. That’s a failing of the Bloomberg administration—and was in the Giuliani administration—and a failing of our own government. Los Angeles requires helicopter pads on every skyscraper [for rescues]. But that’s the only city I know of that has begun to deal with the question of how to rescue people above a fire.

A recent poll showed Giuliani is the favored 2008 Republican presidential candidate. Would he make a good president?

Every poll shows he is a very serious presidential candidate. Some polls indicate he is the most admired figure in American culture. I think that’s largely a consequence of 9/11. But if the rationale for his candidacy is 9/11 then shouldn’t both the Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, be interested in the true story of his performance leading up to and after the attacks? I think so. Sometimes in America, as strong as spin is, the facts matter. I think these facts should matter.