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Skriven 2005-09-15 09:33:22 av Roy Witt (1:10/22)
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Ärende: Brown v Blanco
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Posted on Thu, Sep. 15, 2005

Ex-FEMA chief criticizes governor's response

By David D. Kirkpatrick and Scott Shane

The New York Times

WASHINGTON - Hours after Hurricane Katrina passed New Orleans on Aug. 29,
as the scale of the catastrophe became clear, Michael Brown recalls, he
placed frantic calls to his boss, Homeland Security Department Secretary
Michael Chertoff and to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card Jr.

Brown, then director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he
told the officials in Washington that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux
Blanco and her staff were proving incapable of organizing a coherent state
effort, and that his field officers in the city were reporting an "out of
control" situation.

"I am having a horrible time," Brown said he told Chertoff and a White
House official -- either Card or his deputy, Joe Hagin -- in a status
report that evening. "I can't get a unified command established."

A day later, Brown said he asked the White House to take over the response
effort. He said he felt the subsequent appointment of Army Lt. Gen. Russel
Honore as the Pentagon's commander of active-duty forces met the need for
more federal help.

Blanco is faulted

In his first extensive interview since resigning Monday as FEMA director
under intense criticism, Brown declined to blame President Bush or the
White House for his removal or for the flawed response. "I truly believed
the White House was not at fault here," he said.

He focused much of his criticism on Blanco, contrasting what he described
as her confused response with far more agile mobilizations in Mississippi
and Alabama, as well as in Florida during last year's hurricanes.

But his account suggested that Bush, or at least his top aides, were
informed early and repeatedly by the top federal official at the scene
that state and local authorities were overwhelmed and that the overall
response was going badly.

A senior administration official said Wednesday night that White House
officials recalled the conversations with Brown but did not believe they
had the urgency or desperation he described in the interview.

Brown's version of events raises questions about whether the White House
and Chertoff acted aggressively enough in ratcheting up the response. New
Orleans was rife with looting and violence after the hurricane, and troops
did not arrive in force to restore order until five days later.

The account also suggests that responsibility for the failure may go well
beyond Brown, who has been widely pilloried as an inexperienced manager.

Last week, Chertoff removed Brown from directing the relief effort. Brown
said he had been hobbled by limitations on the power of the agency to
command needed resources.

He said his biggest mistake was in waiting until the end of the day on
Aug. 30 to explicitly ask the White House to take over the response from
FEMA and state officials.

Of his resignation, Brown said: "I said I was leaving because I don't want
to be a distraction. I want to focus on what happened here and the issues
that this raises."

A spokesman for Blanco denied Brown's description of disarray in
Louisiana's emergency-response operation. "That is just totally
inaccurate," said spokesman Bob Mann in Baton Rouge. "Everything that Mr.
Brown needed in terms of resources or information from the state, he had
those available to him."

In Washington, Chertoff's spokesman, Russ Knocke, said there was no delay
in the federal response. "We pushed absolutely everything we could --
every employee, every asset, every effort, to save and sustain lives," he
said.

Frustrations

By Saturday afternoon, many residents were leaving. But as the hurricane
approached early Sunday, Brown said he grew so frustrated with local
authorities' failure to make the evacuation mandatory that he called Bush
for help.

"Would you please call the mayor and tell him to ask people to evacuate?"
Brown said he asked Bush.

"Mike, you want me to call the mayor?" the president responded in
surprise, Brown said. Moments later, apparently on his own, New Orleans
Mayor C. Ray Nagin announced a mandatory evacuation, but it was too late,
Brown said. Plans said it would take at least 72 hours to get everyone
out.

When he arrived in Baton Rouge on Sunday evening, Brown said, he was
immediately concerned about the lack of coordinated response from Blanco
and Maj. Gen. Bennett Landreneau, adjutant general of the Louisiana
National Guard.

"What do you need? Help me help you," Brown said he asked them. "The
response was like, 'Let us find out,' and then I never received specific
requests for specific things that needed doing."

The most responsive person he could find, Brown said, was Blanco's
husband, Raymond. "He would try to go find stuff out for me," Brown said.

Mann, Blanco's spokesman, said the governor was frustrated that Brown and
others at FEMA wanted itemized requests before acting. "It was like
walking into an emergency room bleeding profusely and being expected to
instruct the doctors how to treat you," Mann said.

Brown acknowledged that he has been criticized for not ordering a complete
evacuation or calling in federal troops sooner. But, he said, "Until you
have been there, you don't realize it is the middle of a hurricane."

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/12649184.htm


Roy

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