Response to Hurricane Katrina

[Sandman]

[Sandman]

Do you feel that an Independent Committee should investigate the lack of federal response to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?

[Sandman]

Bush, Congress to Investigate Response
Sep 06 1:11 PM US/Eastern


By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

President Bush and Congress pledged separate investigations into the widely panned federal response to Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday as Senate Democrats said the government's share of relief and recovery may top $150 billion.

"Bureaucracy is not going to stand in the way of getting the job done for the people," Bush said after meeting at the White House with his Cabinet on storm recovery efforts.

"Governments at all levels failed," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said at the Capitol. She announced that the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee would hold hearings, adding, "It is difficult to understand the lack of preparedness and the ineffective initial response to a disaster that had been predicted for years, and for which specific, dire warnings had been given for days."

Stung by criticism, Bush called congressional leaders to the White House for a meeting, their first since the hurricane spread death and destruction on a fearsome scope along the Gulf Coast and left much of New Orleans under several feet of floodwaters.

Congress formally returned from a five-week summer break during the day, signaling that the hurricane would take top billing on the agenda in the coming weeks.

The response "needs to be first and foremost," said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., although he, like Bush, also stressed the GOP goal of confirming John Roberts as the next chief justice by the time the Supreme Court convenes on Oct. 3.

Congress approved $10.5 billion as an initial downpayment for hurricane relief last week, and Senate Democrats were consulting among themselves in advance of the White House meeting.

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was possible Democrats would request as much as $50 billion as a next installment.

"I believe that the recovery and relief operations will cost up to and could exceed $150 billion. FEMA alone will likely require $100 billion in additional funding," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement issued after he talked with relief officials and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La. An aide to Reid, Rebecca Kirszner, added, "Our priorities right now are targeted assistance for health care, housing and education."

Apart from the investigation announced by Collins and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., the Senate Energy Committee arranged hearings on gasoline prices. The hurricane disrupted oil production and distribution in the Gulf of Mexico, and gasoline prices that had already been rising spiked sharply last week in some areas of the country.

For his part, Bush told reporters he was sending Vice President Dick Cheney to the Gulf Coast region on Thursday to help determine whether the government is doing all that it can.

The president has traveled to the storm-affected region twice since late last week.

"What I intend to do is lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong," Bush said. "We still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure we can respond properly if there is a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack or another major storm."

But Bush said now is not the time to point fingers and he did not respond to calls for a commission to investigate the response.

"One of the things people want us to do here is play the blame game," he said. "We got to solve problems. There will be ample time to figure out what went right and what went wrong."

Bush was devoting most of his day to the recovery effort. After the Cabinet meeting, he was gathering with the congressional leaders, representatives of charitable organizations and with Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to talk about assistance for displaced students and closed schools.

McClellan said the president also was increasing what he described as a sizable personal contribution to the Red Cross and also was sending money to the Salvation Army.

Meanwhile, Bush objected to references to displaced Americans as "refugees."

"The people we're talking about are not refugees," he said. "They are Americans and they need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens." The president raised the subject during a meeting with service organizations that are helping with the relief effort.

In another development, the commander of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division said that its paratroopers plan to use small boats, including inflatable Zodiac craft, to launch a new search-and-rescue effort in flooded areas of central New Orleans.

In a telephone interview from his operations center at New Orleans International Airport, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV said his soldiers' top priority is finding, recovering and evacuating people who want to get out of the flooded city.

There has been heavy criticism of the government's response to the hurricane, and city and state officials. Bush did not respond directly when asked if anyone on his disaster response team should be replaced.

The president said that he and his Cabinet members were focused on planning in several areas of immediate need _ restoring basic services to affected areas, draining the water from New Orleans, removing debris, assessing public health and safety threats and housing for those displaced by the storm. He said it was important to get people's Social Security checks delivered to them.

Earlier, McClellan rejected suggestions that the poor, and particularly blacks, had been abandoned when New Orleans was evacuated.

"I think most Americans dismiss that and know that there's just no basis for making such suggestions," McClellan said.

[Coldwolf]

It's not about blame. It is about responsibility. Let's not forget that the first of the inalienable rights listed by the Declaration of Independence is the right to life, and it is the primary responsibility of the American government to safeguard American lives. When American lives are in danger, it is the responsibility of government to act, not to cut cakes, strum guitars, buy a house, attend a baseball game, or cut a swath through Manhattan's finest shops.

While George Bush was eating cake with John McCain, rats were eating American corpses in American cities. While George Bush was strumming a dissonant chord with a country singer, a dissonant, desperate cry for help went unheeded from American voices in American cities. While Dick Cheney was closing on a new house, floodwaters were closing in on many more American houses, and, even worse, their owners. While Donald Rumsfeld was enjoying a game in an American baseball stadium, American citizens were dying in an American football stadium. While Condoleeza Rice was delightedly prancing through Manhattan shops in search of shoes, American citizens were desperately sloshing through New Orleans buildings in search of drinkable water. The largest natural disaster in modern American history is no time for absentee government, but that's what we got.

Certainly, it's unreasonable to assign responsibility for the hurricane itself. However, it is certainly reasonable to assign responsibility for actions that made this disaster as bad as it was. Who ignored FEMA warnings about both a New York City terrorist attack and a New Orleans hurricane, and then gutted FEMA? The Bush administration. Who assigned another layer of bureaucracy to FEMA? The Bush administration. Who appointed the architect of FEMA's astonishing incompetence? The Bush administration. Who gutted the funds for maintenance and upgrades of the New Orleans levees - which might have withstood this storm otherwise - to fund the war in Iraq? The Bush administration. Who sent a considerable percentage of first responders - the Louisiana National Guard - to Iraq? The Bush administration.

There have already been efforts to shift responsibility for this calamity onto New Orleans and Louisiana officials. There are more spin doctors at work in Washington than there are medical doctors at work in New Orleans. Inevitably, there will be talk about the inefficiency of government. Friends, this is not about the inefficiency of government. It is about the inefficiency of those who control its vast resources. In short, this is a problem with the administration, not the government. It is a problem with this administration's philosophy concerning disasters: don't bother preventing them. Much better to try to reap support from the overwhelming generous spirit of the American people, claim that the disasters were unforseeable (despite plainly written memos in one case and Discovery Channel specials in another), and spend more time looking to abrogate responsibility than looking for root causes.

Speaking of this administration's philosophy, one of its philosophical forerunners, Grover Norquist, said that he wanted to get government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Unfortunately, drowning is what we are left with today. American men, women, and children are drowned by floodwaters. A major American city is drowned by crumbling levees and crumbling budgets. And the government's effectiveness is drowning. Not in a bathtub. The United States government is far too big for a bathtub. No, it takes a vast sea of incompetence, inaction, and ambitious ineffectiveness, whipped up by the perfect storm, to drown this government. This particular Category Five hurricane is not named Katrina; it is named George W. Bush.

The Bush administration will, to its last day, scrabble to escape its responsibility for American deaths in Louisiana. And so we see what will become the true legacy of George W. Bush: uncaring, unfeeling, unthinking incompetence accompanied by furious efforts to absolve him of its consequences. These efforts bring responsibility to the American public: it is our responsibility to condemn this administration. It is our responsibility to drown the voices of its patrons and sycophants as thoroughly as the voices of the poor were drowned in New Orleans. It is our responsibility to attack its philosophical foundations as thoroughly as the foundations of the houses were attacked on the Gulf Coast. And it is our most important responsibility to never allow an administration like this into office again.

[concerned]

Right on.

[Summer]

Yes, its sickening, sad and true. And yes, it is about responsibility - or lack thereof. But the truth is right there in black and white and the "spin doctors" are having a tough time getting out of this one. Oh, no doubt New Orleans will be rebuilt - the fed $$ will pour into there - sort of like "see how great we are for helping so much" - but the fact will remain that it didn't have to happen in the first place. Sort of like guilt payback. Unresponsible, unethical and unpardonable.

[Sandman]

FEMA Chief Relieved of Katrina Duties
Sep 09 2:24 PM US/Eastern


By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being relieved of his command of the Bush administration's Hurricane Katrina onsite relief efforts, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Friday.

He will be replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts, Chertoff said.

Earlier, Brown confirmed the switch. Asked if he was being made a scapegoat for a federal relief effort that has drawn widespread and sharp criticism, Brown told The Associated Press after a long pause: "By the press, yes. By the president, No."

"Michael Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge," Chertoff told reporters in Baton Rouge, La. Chertoff sidestepped a question on whether the move was the first step toward Brown's leaving FEMA.

But a source close to Brown, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FEMA director had been considering leaving after the hurricane season ended in November and that Friday's action virtually assures his departure.

Brown has been under fire because of the administration's slow response to the magnitude of the hurricane. On Thursday, questions were raised about whether he padded his resume to exaggerate his previous emergency management background.

Less than an hour before Brown's removal came to light, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Brown had not resigned and the president had not asked for his resignation.

Chertoff suggested the shift came as the Gulf Coast efforts were entering "a new phase of the recovery operation." He said Brown would return to Washington to oversee the government's response to other potential disasters.

"I appreciate his work, as does everybody here," Chertoff said.

"I'm anxious to get back to D.C. to correct all the inaccuracies and lies that are being said," Brown said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Asked if the move was a demotion, Brown said: "No. No. I'm still the director of FEMA."

He said Chertoff made the decision to move him out of Louisiana. It was not his own decision, Brown said.

"I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife and, maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep. And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims," Brown said. "This story's not about me. This story's about the worst disaster of the history of our country that stretched every government to its limit and now we have to help these victims."