The Dust At Ground Zero

Katie Couric Reports How It Affected Ground Zero First Responders

(CBS)  But a government investigation found that she spoke too soon when the EPA determined the air was safe because all the test results were not yet in and EPA press releases were changed by the White House Council on Environmental Quality to sound more reassuring. On another front, although the city required respirators and posted signs at the site, safety reports show only half of the workers wore them.

Asked if the EPA bears any responsibility that some of those first responders refused to wear respirators, Whitman says, "No. No, it doesn't. We didn't have the authority to enforce that."

"But with all due respect, your job as the head of the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, is to protect people from the environment. Did you really do it?" Couric asks.

"We did everything we could to protect people from that environment and we did it in the best way that we could, which was to communicate with those people who had the responsibility for enforcing what we were telling - saying - should be done. We didn't have the authority to do that enforcement, but we communicated that to the people who did," Whitman says.

Whitman says the city had ultimate authority over the site. "Really, the city was the primary responder," she says.

"Did your people do enough to call the people who were overseeing the site, i.e. Mayor Giuliani and city officials and say, 'Damn it, we've got to protect these people'?" Couric asks.

"Oh, EPA was very firm in what it communicating and it did communicate up and down the line," Whitman says. "No uncertain terms."

In fairness to the City of New York, OSHA, the federal agency in charge of safety in the workplace supplied and encouraged the use of respirators but decided not to enforce their use because of the extraordinary nature of the attacks.

60 Minutes wanted to ask former Mayor Rudy Giuliani about that. He declined to talk to 60 Minutes, but sent this statement: "The people who worked at ground zero are heroes. The government must do everything it can to make certain that they have the support needed to deal with any problems that may have developed as a result of their valiant service to our country."

Couric did talk to one of Giuliani's deputy mayors, Rudy Washington, who was caught in the dust cloud himself on Sept. 11. He says he and the mayor were scrambling to restore order during a time of complete chaos.

"You know, Rudy wasn't huddled in some corner somewhere, waiting on the federal government to come rescue him," Washington says. "We were out there, on the front lines forgin' ahead."

"Could a greater effort have been made to get the people, who were working day in and day out in those horrifying conditions, better protection?" Couric asks.

"Nobody anticipated this level of toxic exposure. We never had this before," Washington says.

And perhaps no one was caught off guard more than Washington, when, after months of working at ground zero, he too got sick.

"Did a doctor, at some point, say to you, 'Hey, you're sick because of what you were exposed to during - Sept. 11?" Couric asks.

"There's no ifs, ands or buts about it," Washington says. "And to make it worse, they said, 'We don't know if you're going to get better.'"