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9:01:00 AM EDT
The Buck Stops Here, Mr. President
MR. PRESIDENT, YOU ARE NO HARRY TRUMAN
President Bush blamed the "bureaucracy" for the federal government's incredibly inept response to the Katrina disaster. The President kept up the same spin all day - "This is not the right time to be involved in blame games". But that is buck passing, Mr. President. Either the job gets done or it doesn't get done. FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) head Michael Brown was appointed by YOU, Mr. President. Mr. Brown had no experience in disaster relief before he was selected to lead FEMA. I'm sure you knew of Mr. Brown's inexperience in disaster relief. But I'm sure that you knew that Michael Brown was a close friend to Joe Allbaugh, a political crony who you appointed to lead FEMA in 2001. Perhaps you knew that Michael Brown was Joe Allbaugh's college roommate. Mr. Brown never should have been appointed. It was a disgrace that he was appointed.
Brown waited several hours after Katrina struck to propose sending FEMA personnel to the devastated region. He allowed 48 hours (!) for 1000 FEMA personnel to reach the Katrina death zone and proposed allowing one week for another 1000 FEMA personnel to reach the crippled area. His memo stressed public relations concerns more than "save lives" concerns. FEMA did not request airline evacuation help until several days after Katrina's fury. The distribution of food and water to disaster victims was completely inept. More than a few people probably died because of FEMA's incompetence.
There should be an INDEPENDENT commission with subpoena power to investigate the government response to this disaster. Any panel appointed by the Bush Administration deserves absolutely no credibility - it will be a whitewash inquiry saturated with political spin and PR "damage control". Perhaps the commission could have nine members - two appointed by the Speaker of the House (although Speaker Dennis Hastert seemed to imply that New Orleans should not be rebuilt), two appointed by Majority Leader Bill Frist, two appointed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, two appointed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, and one appointed by President Bush. These Congressional leaders should appoint "the best and the brightest", men and women of unimpeachable integrity who have some professional knowledge of disaster relief.
Mr. President, your PR machine could work twenty four hours a day on political spin, and it will not be enough. You can't walk away from this without absorbing severe political damage, and your buckpassing blame on the "bureaucracy" will not help you regain the trust of the American people.
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Dubya is so used to blaming the gubment that he forgets that this bureaucracy is his.
9/7/05 11:32 AM
The short version is that the National Response Plan (NRP) + the WH invocation of the Stafford Act on Aug. 27 made Katrina an "Incident of National Significance." This is significant! It means all this mewling and claims of federal powerless (because Blanco didn't say pretty please etc.) are just self-serving and misleading BS.
It means FEMA had full authority and responsibility to do all in its power TWO DAYS BEFORE Katrina hit. It also means it had full power and responsibility to put in place resources PRIOR to the hit, and that included getting medical and food/water resources to the Superdome, which had already been designated as a refuge.
<a href=http://tinyurl.com/79jym>Plenty more here at http://tinyurl.com/79jym.</a>
The bitter irony is that the NRP was crafted by DHS to eliminate the very bureacratic snafus that DFS is trying to hide behind now -- which largely didn't exist anyway. If state and local politicians weren't up to the job, if one of the poorest states in the union didn't have adequate resources, or if all the local resources were obliterated in a nuclear attack, FEMA was empowered and obligated to take charge.
If state and local pols were incompetent, MIA, or AWOL, then all the more reason for FEMA to have taken charge -- as Blanco made possible on Aug. 26!
I believe the federal non-response was criminal, and resulted in the unnecessary loss of thousands of lives.