Report Blasts Bush On Ground Zero Cleanup

In a strongly worded and minutely detailed report , the Sierra Club charges the Bush administration with " reckless disregard " for public health in the days and months following the collapse of the World Trade Center. "Many hundreds of people" are sick today, the report states, some debilitatingly so, because of the government's failure to alert the public to obvious health risks, including toxic smoke, asbestos and mercury at Ground Zero. The report concludes: "Much of the exposure that caused these illnesses, sadly, could have been avoided if our federal government had responded to the crisis...with proper concern for the people exposed." The report is the most comprehensive in a litany of evidence suggesting Bush administration officials ignored warnings , misinterpreted data and issued a series of overly optimistic and unsupported statements about environmental conditions which endangered and in some cases ruined the health of heroic rescue workers and residents in and around Ground Zero. [more ]