- NEW YORK - New York City
has called on the former chiefs of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency
and the Israeli Mossad to head an anti-terrorism task force within its
fire department, which, it says, functioned below par when terrorists attacked
the World Trade Center on September 11 last year, news reports said Wednesday.
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- A former head of the CIA, James Woolsey, and Shabtai
Shavit, a former Mossad director, would evaluate the fire department's
technical capabilities to deal with terrorist threats, including its communications
technology, a statement from city government said.
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- The two former spook directors will be assisted by a
team of American officials who have worked previously in the fields of
health, nuclear physics and fire-fighting.
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- The task force members were chosen by New York Mayor
Michael Bloomberg, who earlier announced his intention to revamp the fire
department.
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- "Today, the universe of potential dangers and emergencies
facing New Yorkers has changed and increased dramatically," said Nicholas
Scoppetta, the chief of the fire department, "and so, the department
has to change also."
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- Evaluations and studies of the department's performance
in the rescue operations on and after the September 11 terrorist attacks
showed that the department had been caught unprepared by the magnitude
of the events.
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- Its leadership was disorganized and fire-fighters were
equipped with outdated radio communication gear, which failed them when
the center's Twin Towers collapsed.
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- Fire-fighters made up 343 of the more than 2,800 people
who died in the attack on the World Trade Center.
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- http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=205496&cont
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