Many Angered by Giuliani's Scheduled Memorial Appearance

Rudy Giuliani's attempts to exploit the terrorist attacks of 9-11 are still backfiring. Here's the latest.

This year Mr. Giuliani is no longer just the former mayor who led New York in the wake of the attacks, but a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. So when the city announced that Mr. Giuliani would speak next month at the sixth anniversary of the attacks, some relatives of people who died on Sept. 11 said they were dismayed, some because they feared his presence might inject politics into the event and others because they had been critical of him in the past.

"I think it’s disgraceful that he’s going to be there," said James Riches, a deputy fire chief who lost his son Jimmy in the attacks, and who said that he faulted Mr. Giuliani as not giving firefighters the proper equipment before or after the attacks. "It’s a photo-op for him."

The politics of Sept. 11 are complicated. Some firefighters have faulted the mayor for communications problems at the World Trade Center; some parents and widows have agitated for a greater role in designing the memorial; some first responders criticize the city as doing too little to protect them from dangerous pollutants.

Sally Regenhard, whose son, Christian, a probationary firefighter, was killed in the World Trade Center attack, said of the invitation: "I'm still very shocked and I'm very, very upset, for two reasons. Number one, the majority of firefighters and their families have made it clear how they feel about Mayor Giuliani. The second reason is that it’s totally unorthodox to have someone running for major elected office in the United States to have a forum."