Rudolph Giuliani Ad Check: The Serial-Exaggerator Strikes Again

December 5, 2007 -- After consistently exaggerating a myriad of facts and figures about his record as mayor of New York City on the campaign trail, Rudy Giuliani is at it again. Giuliani launched a new TV ad in New Hampshire today that overstates the details of the 1979 hostage crisis in Iran and fails to mention that Rudy has exaggerated his experience with Islamic terrorism.

The ad also fails to point out that Giuliani has done extensive work for clients such as the government of Qatar, Hugo Chavez, and businesses tied to organized crime that raise national security concerns.

"Whether it's exaggerating his experience with Islamic terrorism or misrepresenting history, Rudy Giuliani just isn't credible in the eyes of Granite State voters. His latest ad is another example of how far Rudy is willing to stretch the truth to score political points," said DNC Spokesman Dag Vega.

Title: "One Hour"
TV :30
http://www.joinrudy2008.com/article/pr/840

Giuliani: "I remember back to the 1970s and the early 1980s. Iranian mullahs took American hostages and they held the American hostages for 444 days. And they released the American hostages in one hour, and that should tell us a lot about these Islamic terrorists that we're facing. The one hour in which they released them was the one hour in which Ronald Reagan was taking the Oath of Office as President of the United States."

* Exaggeration Alert. USA Today noted the morning the ad was released that Giuliani fudges the facts, writing that he "implies in a TV ad released today that it took Reagan just 'one hour' to win the release of Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days from 1979-1981." USA Today pointed out that "Giuliani does not say that the Algiers Accord that ended the hostage crisis was negotiated by the outgoing Carter administration and had been agreed to the day before -- Jan. 19, 1981 -- as records posted at the State Department's website (here and here , for example) and elsewhere confirm." Similarly, the New York Times consulted their diplomatic correspondent from the era, who pointed out at the time that ""Iran appeared so eager to resolve the hostage crisis last September that it alerted Washington ahead of time to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's statement outlining for the first time Iran's four conditions for releasing the hostages" and in 2007 expressed skepticism that the release could be attributed to Reagan, saying the "release was negotiated over a period of months first in Bonn, and then in Algiers by Warren Christopher, who was the deputy secretary of State in the Carter administration." ["On Politics," USAToday.com, 12/5/07 (http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2007/12/despite-histori.html)]

* Time Magazine: Giuliani Claim Of Years Of Experience With Islamic Terrorism "Exaggeration." "Giuliani and his aides have said he has been 'studying Islamic terrorism' for 30 years. This is an exaggeration." Time found that he had little real experience while a prosecutor, and that in 80 major speeches from 1993 to 2001, he made only one brief mention of terrorism 'in a brief reference to emergency preparedness.'" [Time Magazine. 8/22/07, http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1655262,00.html ]

* Flashback to 1989: Giuliani Distanced Himself From Reagan. Running for mayor, "Giuliani has tried to distance himself from the conservative [Reagan] Administration, pointing to occasions when he dissented from its policies and portraying himself as the candidate of a nonpartisan reform movement." Giuliani "maintained that he never embraced Mr. Reagan's broad conservative agenda." [The New York Times, 10/11/89]

* Giuliani On Agreeing With Reagan: "Of Course Not." Do I agree with everything Ronald Reagan did or all of his philosophy? Of course not." [Newsday (New York), 6/22/89]

Giuliani: "The best way you deal with dictators, the best way you deal with tyrants and terrorists, you stand up to them. You don't back down. I'm Rudy Giuliani and I approve this message."

GIULIANI HAS DONE EXTENSIVE BUSINESS WORK FOR CLIENTS RAISING NATIONAL SECURITY CONCERNS.

* Giuliani Tied To Qatar Government, Including Controversial Official Believed To Have Harbored 9/11 Mastermind. Reporting by the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek and the Village Voice uncovered that an arm of Giuliani Partners, Giuliani Safety and Security has extensive contracts with the Qatar government for various security projects, with the relationship beginning while the controversial Abdallah bin Khalid al-Thani was interior minister. Al-Thani in particular is widely believed to have helped Khalid Sheikh Mohammad escape the FBI when they attempted to arrest him in 1996. As the Wall Street Journal explained, "Mr. Mohammad slipped away, apparently tipped off by an al-Qaeda sympathizer in the Qatari government, U.S. officials told the bipartisan 9/11 commission. Mr. Mohammad went on to mastermind the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks." [Wall Street Journal, 11/7/07; Newsweek 12/10/07]

* Giuliani Did Business Deal With Figure Tied To Organized Crime, Kim John Il and Saddam Hussein. "Nine days after registering his presidential exploratory committee last November, Rudolph Giuliani appeared in Singapore to help a Las Vegas developer make a pitch for a $3.5 billion casino resort" by "a complex partnership with the family of a controversial Hong Kong billionaire who has ties to the regime of North Korea's Kim Jong Il and has been linked to international organized crime by the U.S. government." Stanley Ho, an investor in the project, also was reported to have "conveyed an offer of asylum in North Korea by Kim to Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein" before the US invasion. [Chicago Tribune, 11/21/07]

* Giuliani Firm Lobbied For Bill Undermining Anti-Terror Efforts. "Although Rudolph W. Giuliani is campaigning as President Bush's staunch ally in the war on terror, his law office has lobbied Congress on behalf of legislation that the Bush administration calls a threat to antiterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa" on behalf of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy. [New York Times, 12/4/07]

* Giuliani Business Ties To Hugo Chavez Revealed. Bloomberg reported that Giuliani's law firm, Bracewell & Giuliani netted $125,000 to $250,000 lobbying for Citgo, starting only weeks after Giuliani joined the firm. Citgo is controlled by Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's president and a "strident" critic of the US. This income was part of the 40-fold increase of the firm's lobbying income after Giuliani joined, jumping from $150,000 in 2004 to more than $6 million in 2005. [Bloomberg, 3/14/07; Boston Globe, 3/15/07; AP, 1/10/07]

* Flashback: 1989 Giuliani Campaign Troubled By His Business Ties To Noriega, Libya. During Giuliani unsuccessful 1989 mayoral bid, controversy emerged from evidence that his law firm, White & Case, did work for "the government of Panamanian Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega," as well as personally doing work for a company thought to be "involved in the construction of an Libyan chemical-weapons plant." [Newsday, 10/29/89]

Source: DNC