NEW YORK — Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday compared the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American soldiers to the mistreatment, and possible killings, of suspects by the New York Police Department.
“It does not represent the majority. It’s an aberration, a horrific aberration,” said Mr. Giuliani, who during his two terms as mayor presided over the furor raised by the police torture of Abner Louima in 1997 and the fatal police shooting of an unarmed immigrant Amadou Diallo in 1999.
“We would have, sometimes, terrible acts committed by police officers. Sometimes they actually had been committed, and they went to jail. In some cases, they were accused wrongly; some were exaggerated, but still pretty bad. But these cases didn’t represent how the overwhelming majority of police officers conducted themselves,” the former mayor said.
He made his remarks yesterday after a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.
“This should not be seen as the general reaction of the American military,” he added.
Mr. Giuliani, 60, internationally recognized for his handling of the post-September 11 crisis in New York City, said, “The terrible sacrifices we are making in Iraq, although very difficult to bear emotionally — just as those losses at the World Trade Center were impossible to bear — are necessary to the goal of creating a decent government in Iraq.”
The former mayor used the words “decent” and “democratic” interchangeably to describe a future Iraqi government.
Mr. Giuliani said he is constantly asked whether Americans are safer since the war on terror began in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center. He said he thinks the country is much safer, mainly because the reality of terrorism has been confronted.
“For understandable reasons, there is something in our personality that makes it difficult to face ultimate evil,” he said.
In his view, the age of modern terrorism began in 1972 at the Munich Olympics when Arab gunmen killed 11 Israeli athletes. Twenty-nine years later, he added, it was President Bush who told a joint session of Congress that the United States would lead the war on global terrorism.
He compared law enforcement’s approach to terrorism to his prosecution of Mafia families when he was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
“It has many parts, a number of pillars of support, and they must be removed,” he said.
He said arresting al Qaeda members, seizing assets of the terrorist networks and passing the Patriot Act are some of the ways the United States has combated terrorism.
On the question of American allies, Mr. Giuliani singled out Spain as an example of how governments should not react in the face of terrorism.
Socialist Party candidate Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who in the wake of terrorist bombings in Madrid had pledged that if elected he would pull Spanish troops out of Iraq, was victorious in the recent Spanish elections. After taking office, the new prime minister promptly withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq.
“The Spanish government did exactly the wrong thing,” Mr. Giuliani said. “Terrorists should not be allowed to determine government policy.”
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