Harsh words for ex-EPA chief on WTC air quality

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Former Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman continued to come under harsh criticism Friday for blaming the city for 9/11-related health woes after assuring New Yorkers in the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks that the air in Manhattan was safe.

"Christine Todd Whitman should go to jail," said Joseph Zadroga, whose son, NYPD officer James Zadroga, died of 9/11-related lung disease. "I cannot understand how she could say the air was good. You can't say they didn't know. Maybe they wanted to hide it so people didn't know."

In a "60 Minutes" interview to be aired Sunday, Whitman blamed the city for failing to force workers at the World Trade Center site to wear their respirators. "EPA was very firm about what it communicated and it did communicate up and down the line," she said in the interview with Katie Couric.

But several family members of 9/11 victims, first responders, city officials and lower Manhattan residents at a congressional hearing on 9/11-related health effects said they did not get the message.

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