This absoluted infuriated me when I read it on Saturday:

An investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general into official statements about air quality after the collapse of the World Trade Center has found that White House officials instructed the agency to be less alarming and more reassuring to the public in the first few days after the attack.

The draft of the inspector general's report also says the agency "did not have sufficient data and analyses" to make a "blanket statement" when it announced seven days after the attack that the air around ground zero was safe to breathe. "Competing considerations, such as national security concerns and the desire to reopen Wall Street, also played a role in E.P.A.'s air quality statements," the report said...

The title for the original version of one news release was, "E.P.A. Initiating Emergency Response Activities, Testing Terrorized Sites For Environmental Hazards." In the final version, the second clause was changed to read, "Reassures Public About Environmental Hazards." In the same release, a section that said, "Even at low levels, E.P.A considers asbestos hazardous in this situation" was deleted and replaced with a section that read, in part, "Short-term, low-level exposure of the type that might have been produced by the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings is unlikely to cause significant health effects."...

--New York Times

I didn't get to Lower Manhattan much after the attacks, but I did get below Canal Street once in November 2001 and once in December. The air still smelled foul -- a really unhealthy chemical smell. Is this any surprise. Think of what's on a floor of a typical office building -- computers, photocopiers, fax machines, refrigerators, synthetic carpeting. Now imagine more than 200 stories of this incinerated. Oh, and throw in asbestos. Think it was safe to breathe at Ground Zero a week after the attacks?