skippy the bush kangaroo

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

brownie's just the frosting

time to bite down on this baked up disaster and discover the nuts.

our knight ridder in shining armour. they obtained a memo. and what a memo it is. a fema whistleblower on nightline also painted a picture of homeland security impeding katrinia aid.

purposefully allowing a city to be destroyed and lives to be lost is far more insidious and evil than sexual romps in the white house. it is not the time for a resignation here and there, it is time for impeachment of the entire admininstration.

the federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to hurricane katrina was homeland decurity secretary michael chertoff, not the former fema chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.

even before the storm struck the gulf coast, chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. federal emergency management agency chief michael brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when chertoff designated him as the "principal federal official" in charge of the storm.

....chertoff - not brown - was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the national response plan, the federal government's blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. an order issued by president bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.

but according to a memo obtained by knight ridder, chertoff didn't shift that power to brown until late afternoon or evening on aug. 30, about 36 hours after katrina hit louisiana and mississippi. that same memo suggests that chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.

..a former fema director under president reagan expressed shock by the inaction that chertoff's memo suggested. it showed that chertoff "does not have a full appreciation for what the country is faced with - nor does anyone who waits that long," said gen. julius becton jr., who was fema director from 1985-1989.

"anytime you have a delay in taking action, there's a potential for losing lives," becton told knight ridder. "i have no idea how many lives we're talking about. ... i don't understand why, except that they were inefficient."

...the chertoff memo indicates that the response to katrina wasn't left to disaster professionals, but was run out of the white house, said george haddow, a former deputy chief of staff at fema during the clinton administration and the co-author of an emergency management textbook.

"it shows that the president is running the disaster, the white house is running it as opposed to brown or chertoff," haddow said.

time for hurricane justice to blow through the beltway.

posted by Cookie Jill at 9:09 AM |