posterchild
Registered user
Global user
Registered: 04-2004
Posts: 23
Karma: 0 (+0/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
White House deception endangers WTC rescue workers
FortWayne.com
Posted on Wed, Aug. 27, 2003
Despicable deception at ground zero
The Bush administration displayed an appalling lack of concern for public safety workers and others when it distorted advisories about the safety of breaking air near ground zero in the aftermath of 9-11.
Last week's revelation from the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency that the White House ordered the EPA to mislead the public is yet another example of the administration's contemptible failure to be forthright with Americans.
The EPA, according to inspector general's report, had initially planned to warn volunteers and safety personnel of the dangers of possible lead and asbestos exposure. The White House told the EPA to change the warning to a statement that some contaminants had been found but "the general public should be very reassured by initial sampling."
On Sept. 13, the EPA drafted a statement warning: "even at low levels, EPA considers asbestos hazardous in this situation." The final news release: "short-term, low-level exposure of the type that might have been produced by the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings is unlikely to cause significant health effects."
A Sept. 16 EPA draft warned of higher-than-safe asbestos levels. After the White House got involved, the public was told asbestos was "not a cause for public concern." When the EPA told the public Sept. 18 the air was safe to breathe, it did not have the data to support it, the report states.
The misleading information is no mere spin, trying to put the best face on a political controversy. It has profound implications on the volunteer rescue workers as well as New York City residents who live near ground zero. "Many months after the attacks," the Los Angeles Times reported last week, residents near ground zero "continued to complain of health problems - such as a chronic cough, which health experts say was caused by corrosive concrete dust, ground glass and other lung irritants. ... Several studies have found that a high percentage of rescue workers and firefighters suffered from lung ailments and ear, nose and throat problems in the months after the attack."
Faced with the inspector general's report, the administration still refuses to come clean with the public. The acting EPA administrator, Marianne L. Horinko, complained that the report "trivialized a national emergency and focused on nits. ... As soon as you have data, you should tell the public what that data is, and what the data are telling you," Horinko said - something the Bush administration clearly did not do.
This is the same administration that exaggerated - at best - Iraq's ability to launch weapons of mass destruction to justify war. This is the administration that doesn't believe the mounting cost of the Iraqi war should be counted in the federal deficit it is unable and unwilling to control. This is the administration that greatly embellished the circumstances of Pfc. Jessica Lynch's capture and rescue. This is the president who said massive tax cuts were necessary because of the big surplus, then because of the big deficit.
The free flow of accurate information about issues important to Americans is an essential requirement for government to properly represent its citizens. In the case of how New York City was informed of the health risks of breathing air near ground zero - and in far too many other instances - the Bush administration failed miserably.
|
|
4/11/2004, 1:33 pm
|
Send Email to posterchild
Send PM to posterchild
|
