The heroic status accorded Rudy Giuliani for his role as New York mayor during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, was tarnished by a torrent of criticism from other American icons of that day: firefighters.

Mr Giuliani, who leads opinion polls in the race for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, has based his campaign largely on his strong name recognition and reputation for handling a national security crisis. At the International Association of Fire Fighters presidential forum in Washington yesterday, however, he was a notable absentee and a target for sustained attacks.

New York firefighters say that they have never forgiven him for cutting short search-and-recovery efforts for victims’ remains at the World Trade Centre. They say that instead of carefully removing debris in order to recover more remains Mr Giuliani promoted a “scoop and dump” effort to speed the cleanup at Ground Zero.

Mr Giuliani’s campaign says that the animosity of New York firefighters towards him stems from tough pay and conditions negotiations when he was mayor. It has distributed testimonials from other firefighters saying that they have the utmost respect for him.

Association officials had earlier made plain their anger by debating whether or not to bar the former mayor from their forum altogether because of “his egregious treatment of our 343 fallen on 9/11, their families and our members following that horrific day”.

Eventually, they decided to invite Mr Giuliani and he was scheduled to speak yesterday morning. Then, possibly mindful of facing a hostile crowd, he cancelled, saying that it was difficult to fit in the event between fundraising events.

Harold Schaitberger, the General President of the forum, urged his members to say “Hell, no” to Mr Giuliani: “If he’s going to run on his 9/11 reputation, he’s running on a very shaky foundation.” Members of the IAFF, which represents almost 85 per cent of American firefighters, were scathing about the candidate.

“Giuliani showed a clear disrespect for the lives of the firefighters that were lost,” said Pat Egan, from New Haven, Connecticut. “Like in any family, these men were there trying to recover their brothers, and he stopped those efforts.

“He shows that he does not want the support of firefighters, nor does he deserve it.”

Some charged that the credit Mr Giuliani received for rebuilding the city after 9/11 was undeserved. “New York City had the goodwill, love and sympathy of the world; everyone wanted to support the city, and Rudy was seen as the face of the city. But it was the workers in New York who put the city back together,” said John DeGenova, a firefighter from Cranston, Rhode Island.

Speakers at the forum yesterday included the two Democratic frontrunners, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as well as John McCain, Mr Giuliani’s chief rival for the Republican nomination.

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