In the month following 9/11, a significant amount of the steel debris from the WTC collapses is removed from the rubble pile, cut into smaller sections, and either melted at a recycling plant or shipped out of the US. [US Congress, 3/6/2002] Each of the Twin Towers contained 78,000 tons of recyclable steel. Much of this is shipped to India, China, and other Asian countries, where it will be melted down and reprocessed into new steel products. Asian companies are able to purchase the steel for just $120 per ton, compared, for example, to a usual average price of $150 per ton in China. Industry officials estimate that selling off the steel and other metals from the WTC for recycling could net a few tens of million dollars. [New York Times, 10/9/2001; Reuters, 1/21/2002; Reuters, 1/22/2002; Eastday, 1/24/2002; CorpWatch, 2/6/2002] 9/11 victims’ families and some engineers are angered at the decision to quickly discard the steel, believing it should be examined to help determine how the towers collapsed. A respected fire fighting trade magazine comments, “We are literally treating the steel removed from the site like garbage, not like crucial fire scene evidence.” [Fire Engineering, 1/2002] Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY) will later call the loss of this evidence “borderline criminal.” By March 2002, 150 pieces of steel from the WTC debris will have been identified by engineers for use in future investigations (see March 6, 2002). [Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, pp. D-13] A study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which commences in August 2002 [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/21/2002; Associated Press, 8/21/2002] , will have 236 pieces of recovered steel available to it. Of these, 229 pieces are from WTC 1 and 2, representing “roughly 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent of the 200,000 tons of structural steel used in the construction of the two towers.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 85 
] New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg defends the decision to quickly get rid of the WTC steel, saying, “If you want to take a look at the construction methods and the design, that’s in this day and age what computers do. Just looking at a piece of metal generally doesn’t tell you anything.” Officials in the mayor’s office decline to reply to requests by the New York Times regarding who decided to have the steel recycled. [New York Times, 12/25/2001; Eastday, 1/24/2002]
9:45 a.m.-10:15 a.m. March 31, 2003: New York Officials Testify to 9/11 Commission, Mayor Tries to ‘Blindside’ Inquiry
At its first public hearing, the 9/11 Commission takes testimony from New York Governor George Pataki and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Pataki arrives early and insists that he be allowed to speak immediately, so Commission Chairman Tom Kean interrupts the commissioners’ opening statements expressing their pride in serving on the investigation. Pataki then reads a prepared statement pledging the state’s co-operation with the investigation and leaves without taking questions. Bloomberg testifies next. He had originally said he would not appear, but would send a written statement to be read by somebody else. Then he agreed to appear, but said he would not take questions. Then he agreed to take questions, but insisted his police and fire commissioners would not accompany him. However, he arrives with both of them and says they will take questions. Author Philip Shenon will comment, “it was clear to the commissioners and the staff that the mayor was trying to blindside them,” as the Commission had not had the chance to prepare questions for the police and fire commissioners, vital witnesses in their inquiry. When Bloomberg enters the room to testify, in Shenon’s words, “In a gesture that seem[s] designed to make his disdain even clearer, he casually tosse[s] his prepared testimony onto the witness table before taking his seat, as if this were a routine meeting of the zoning board.” When he starts, he offers an aggressive defense of the way the city responded to the attack, and sharp criticism of the way federal emergency preparedness funds are distributed. Bloomberg conducts himself in this way throughout the inquiry (see November 2003), and Shenon will write that it is never clear if Bloomberg is “genuinely furious or if his anger [is] a well-choreographed show by the billionaire mayor to intimidate the 9/11 Commission.” The Commission does not schedule testimony from former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani for this day, as it wants to wait until it better understands his performance on the day of the attacks. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 96-98, 100-101]
November 2003: 9/11 Commission Subpoenas New York Emergency Tapes and Transcripts
The 9/11 Commission issues its third and final major subpoena, this time for emergency tapes and transcripts from New York City authorities. However, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg decides to fight the subpoena and says he will go to court. A settlement is reached a couple of weeks after the subpoena is issued and the Commission gets access to all the material, under the condition that nobody heard on the tapes will be named in a public document without their consent, or that of their survivors. The Commission’s staff is puzzled by Bloomberg’s tactics, as he was not mayor on 9/11 and personally has nothing to hide. There is speculation he was, in the words of author Philip Shenon, “put up to it by his Republican predecessor, Rudy Giuliani, who might not be so eager to see all of the facts aired, especially given the glory that his performance on 9/11 had otherwise brought him.” Shenon will add, “They [the tapes] were the clearest evidence obtained by the Commission of just how unprepared the city was to deal with a catastrophic terrorist attack.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 306-307]
