President George Bush has vowed to get to the bottom of problems with how various levels of governments including his administration handled Hurricane Katrina, which wiped out New Orleans and decimated America’s beloved Gulf Coast.
He announced he’ll launch a probe to let the chips fall where they may — and, why, he’ll even oversee the let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may investigation himself.
The first part of his announcement is bound to be welcome to many Americans who’ve been revolted to see Their Tax Dollars At (Non) Work, thousands of deaths yet to be counted, images of death and destruction, a beloved city virtually lost, broadcast journalists furious at the conflict between false official reassurances and horrific conditions they’ve seen on the scene plus heartbreaking reports of families destroyed while the weak and sick fruitlessly begged for help – help that sometimes never arrived, or arrived too late… during a week when many administration officials vacationed.
The second part of it — Bush overseeing it HIMSELF — is bound to undermine the credibility of any such investigation, unless this becomes the norm (somewhere Tom DeLay is saying: “Me, too!!”)
Reports suggest that there were state and local snags and many unanswered questions. But if there is credible evidence that local and state officials deserve the brunt of public condemnation, it will be better accepted if it doesn’t come from a President whose political guru is reportedly trying to deflect blame from the White House by pointing the finger at local and state officials (who just happen to be Democrats).
And then there’s this: new unflattering allegations continue to emerge about the administration’s response to the storm, particularly the role of FEMA under Michael Brown — an official many politicians, the New Orleans Times-Picayne newspaper and a host of bloggers have demanded be fired (but an administration that values loyalty above all else says NO).
The latest damning report on FEMA comes via this Washington Post report which says, among other things:
The government’s disaster chief waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security workers to support rescuers in the region – and gave them two days to arrive, according to internal documents.
Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, sought the approval from Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff roughly five hours after Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29. Brown said that among duties of these employees was to “convey a positive image” about the government’s response for victims.
Before then, FEMA had positioned smaller rescue and communications teams across the Gulf Coast. But officials acknowledged Tuesday the first department-wide appeal for help came only as the storm raged.
Brown would also be an official who would respond if terrorists nuked or biologically attacked an American city. MORE:
Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as “this near catastrophic event” but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, “Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.”
Brown’s memo told employees that among their duties, they would be expected to “convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public.”
“FEMA response and recovery operations are a top priority of the department and as we know, one of yours,” Brown wrote Chertoff. He proposed sending 1,000 Homeland Security Department employees within 48 hours and 2,000 within seven days.
But is all of this criticism of Brown unfair?
After all, Brown’s agency did respond faster than OJ Simpson has in finding his wife’s real killer. And that’s important to keep in mind… MORE:
Employees required a supervisor’s approval and at least 24 hours of disaster training in Maryland, Florida or Georgia. “You must be physically able to work in a disaster area without refrigeration for medications and have the ability to work in the outdoors all day,” Brown wrote.
The same day Brown wrote Chertoff, Brown also urged local fire and rescue departments outside Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi not to send trucks or emergency workers into disaster areas without an explicit request for help from state or local governments. Brown said it was vital to coordinate fire and rescue efforts.
Are Brown and the federal government getting bum raps?
In a blistering piece syndicated by the Washington Post, Eric Holdeman, director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management, essentially accuses the Bush administration of destroying FEMA. Read it in its entirety but here are some excerpts:
Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment, the country’s premier agency for dealing with such events — FEMA — is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.
Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness? Given our country’s long record of natural disasters, how much sense does this make?…..
The advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed into the “homeland security borg.”
This year it was announced that FEMA is to ”officially” lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission…
Those of us in the business of dealing with emergencies find ourselves with no national leadership and no mentors. We are being forced to fend for ourselves, making do with the ”homeland security” mission. Our ”all-hazards” approaches have been decimated by the administration’s preoccupation with terrorism.
So the question comes back to a question that has often dogged this administration — one which it has always insisted is silly because it insists it can do it: can the Bush administration handle several major tasks at the same time? Holdeman is suggesting it cannot.
And it gets worse.
The Salt Lake City Tribune has a blood-boiling inducing report of firefighters eager to help being kept from doing so and turned into FEMA PR agents. (Question: how can patriotic Republicans defend this behavior??). A small part of it:
Not long after some 1,000 firefighters sat down for eight hours of training, the whispering began: “What are we doing here?”
As New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin pleaded on national television for firefighters – his own are exhausted after working around the clock for a week – a battalion of highly trained men and women sat idle Sunday in a muggy Sheraton Hotel conference room in Atlanta.
Many of the firefighters, assembled from Utah and throughout the United States by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, thought they were going to be deployed as emergency workers.
Instead, they have learned they are going to be community-relations officers for FEMA, shuffled throughout the Gulf Coast region to disseminate fliers and a phone number: 1-800-621-FEMA.
On Monday, some firefighters stuck in the staging area at the Sheraton peeled off their FEMA-issued shirts and stuffed them in backpacks, saying they refuse to represent the federal agency.
The paper reports that FEMA officials believe this is the proper use of resources and defend it:
“I would go back and ask the firefighter to revisit his commitment to FEMA, to firefighting and to the citizens of this country,” said FEMA spokeswoman Mary Hudak.
The firefighters – or at least the fire chiefs who assigned them to come to Atlanta – knew what the assignment would be, Hudak said.
“The initial call to action very specifically says we’re looking for two-person fire teams to do community relations,” she said. “So if there is a breakdown [in communication], it was likely in their own departments.”
GET IT?
With people begging for help, the firefighters are supposed to stick to their (bureaucractic) job descriptions — nothing more.
What’s the White House line? The bottom line of the White House line is this, as described by White House press mouthpiece Scott McClellan: if you DARE aggressively raise questions about this administration’s job performance — which flies in the face of how it has painted itself as the bastion of expertise on protecting Americans since 911 — you are playing the “blame game.”
Unless, of course, you’re White House political maven Karl Rove, who is reportedly trying to steer reporters to blame state and local officials (they’re Democrats, you see).
McClellan: You know, David, there are some that are interested in playing the blame game. The President is interested in solving problems and getting help to the people who need it. There will be a time —
Reporter: Wait a minute. Is it a blame game when the President, himself, says that we remain at risk for either another catastrophe of this dimension, that’s not manmade, or a terrorist attack? Isn’t it incumbent upon this administration to immediately have accountability to find out what went wrong, when at any time this could happen again? …
McClellan: We can engage in this blame-gaming going on and I think that’s what you’re getting —
Reporter: No, no. That’s a talking point, Scott, and I think most people who are watching this —
McClellan: No, that’s a fact. I mean, some are wanting to engage in that, and we’re going to remain focused …The time for bickering and blame-gaming is later.
So it’s “bickering” if you DEMAND answers from the White House and “the blame game” if you suggest they were deficient. But its OK to give a false piece of info to a Washington Post reporter saying Louisiana’s governor hadn’t declared a state of emergency (she had).
Congress may not respond the same way — even Republicans, if initial signs are any indication:
The Republican senator leading an investigation into the Hurricane Katrina crisis said on Tuesday the government’s response was “woefully inadequate” and it had raised doubts about the U.S. ability to cope with a terrorist attack.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, spoke as lawmakers prepared to provide a second round of emergency funds to cope with the devastation on the Gulf coast expected to total around $40 billion.
Collins said her Senate Homeland Security Committee would begin its investigation this week into the relief efforts.
“If our system did such a poor job when there was no enemy, how would the federal, state and local governments have coped with a terrorist attack that provided no advance warning and that was intent on causing as much death and destruction as possible?” she told reporters.
Collins and the panel’s top Democrat, Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, promised a bipartisan, wide-ranging review, which was requested by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.
But how can it be a REAL investigation into the role of governments including the Bush administration unless Bush himself oversees it? FOOTNOTE: Blogger John Amato says this is what Bush’s investigation will reveal.
In reality, as the Chicago Tribune notes, there are political risks for BOTH parties, depending on how they approach the Hurricane Katrina mess:
The situation holds peril for both sides. Bush has built a reputation as a leader who knows how to handle a crisis and make things happen, and his administration prides itself on competence and pragmatism. Those reputations may be at risk.
Congressional Republicans, whose fates are intertwined with the president’s, may find voters holding them accountable for the work of the executive branch.
And Democrats, even while they attack Bush and his team, could open themselves up to charges that they are seeking political advantage from one of the great natural disasters in the nation’s history.
With that backdrop, those on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue tripped over one another Tuesday to show that they are helping the victims. Saying he would not play a “blame game,” Bush told reporters after a Cabinet meeting on the relief efforts: “We’ve got to solve problems. We’re problem-solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right and what went wrong.”
No, Mr. President.
People need to know NOW what went wrong and fire the people who with each passing day are shown to as overhead in their jobs as the storm victims were in the merciless waters that drowned them.
Meanwhile, what’s the latest news out of New Orleans? Tidbits about progress amid the troubling and sad (the presence of e-coli bacteria; predictions the Superdome will have to be ripped down).
Yet, some stubbornly refuse to evacuate.
Sort of like some near-negligent Bush administration cabinet officials.
UPDATE:
—More indications that Katrina’s approaching wrath was not a surprise to federal officials, despite what they may say.
—This FEMA bungle is almost funny.
–On the other hand, Barcepundit DOES have a point here…
–An “anonymous U.S. Naval officer” defends U.S. military response to the crisis.
–Headline in the New York Post on Brown’s delay (a Murdoch paper): FEMA FOOL SAT ON HIS HANDS
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.