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| WaPo: White House Shifts Blame to Local Officials |
| 2005-09-04 |
| Let the games begin....select cuts follow: Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management. Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday. The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly. These folks are in defense mode, the hell with their constituents A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor. Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said. "The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana," White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. "The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana." Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort. More at link |
| Posted by:Captain America |
| #15 The blame is 100% with the local government. They had a hurricane last year, they went through this and had a year to prepare. They have a detailed plan on how to get the poor out. They did not follow their own plan. Blogs are already flogging this, it won't be long before it gets into the mainstream media. Someone should be thrown in jail for gross incompitance and I think it's the mayor of NO. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2005-09-04 20:26 |
| #14 The only thing that is missing...so far: KatrinaGate: "Bush failed to speak eloquently and serve pancakes" |
| Posted by: Poison Reverse 2005-09-04 15:41 |
| #13 Definitely plenty of blame to go around. The amount fingerpointing is amazing. The way I see it only state and local people really know the vulnerabilities of a particular area. I don't expect the people in Washington to know what structures are vulnerable in my town during an earthquake or a tsunami or , like last year, a massive wildfire. Most of the disaster preparedness must be done on the local level. But if we're busy pointing fingers here's my list by percentage responsible (for the lack of response). 40% - Mayor and city officials of New Orleans. Nobody knew more about the risks and what responses were available in the initial hours. 30% - Governor and state officials - They had the closest resources and the authority to use them quickly. 10% - Feds - The combination of all of our different government entities to create the Dept of Homeland Security was supposed to make things more efficent. Clearly it has not worked(yet). 10% - The people of New Orleans. Too many of these folks were instant victims. No preparedness on their part at all. It's really probably more the fault of the beaurocrats that have instilled in these people a sense of helplessness and dependency on government. 10% - The press. We should not let these people off the hook. They were reporting a day before the storm hit that the intesity of the storm was decreasing and that New Orleans "dodged a bullet". People relied on that information and it was clearly wrong. |
| Posted by: intrinsicpilot 2005-09-04 13:33 |
| #12 I noticed that, RC. Nice 2b. I'll copy and send to the WAPO assholes. |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2005-09-04 13:31 |
| #11 Lots of people to blame here. Except it sounds to me like Bush tried everything he could to get it right. He had the poor luck to have to deal with Democrats in Louisiana. Anyone notice that the other states seem to have had competent administrations? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-09-04 10:42 |
| #10 Lots of people to blame here. One person who has escaped blame (although only a little blame can be justified) so far is Joe Lieberman. He was the prime mover behind a Homeland Security Administration. The very size and complexity of this bureaucracy aggravated the problem. |
| Posted by: mhw 2005-09-04 09:39 |
| #9 Even the title - SHIFTS blame. One bright spot - at least the title wasn't 'TRIES to shift blame.' I whish I thought it was progress. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2005-09-04 08:25 |
| #8 The WAPO reporters and television commentators continue to show the public that they are ignorant - and - politically biased. That they continue to think that the rest of the American public is as stupid as they are shows how deluded they are with the scope and nature of exactly what service it is that they provide their consumers. In every city in America, respected public health workers, government officials, emergency response teams, police, firefighters, military members, red cross members, etc., etc., etc. ALL know and understand that it goes, LOCAL, STATE, FEDERAL. They all know that the feds don't come marching in with guns and trucks and that they outside help takes about 72 hours to mobilize. There is plenty of blame to be dished around after this hurricane. Part of the blame will be that, once again, reporters have shown themselves to be slack-jaw ignorami unwilling to report facts they don't find politically convenient. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-09-04 06:25 |
| #7 Several times a year my county goes through earthquake preparedness drills. All the Cities in the county participate it's not optional the way it's set up. The State does a state wide one once a year it's not optional. There is no excuse for this failure in Louisiana. The State Office of Emergency Services and New Orleans dropped the ball. Ask any one trained in disaster preparedness and response. Drills and practice are not "optional." The Federal government did not drop the ball. It marshaled it's response as soon as it could and provided assistance as soon as it was able. People need to go to jail over this. Their failures were criminal. People who blame Bush and "race" need to look in the mirror. Their derangement and agendas are showing. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-09-04 03:22 |
| #6 Hay wapo you f-tards, where are the pictures of the swamped busses? WHere is your research into the standing published emergenyc plans at the state and local level> Hmm - what the hell happened to journalism? The Bush administration is not "putting the blame" anywhere - its point out the factsm and the FACTS show where the blame BELONGS - the idiots at the lcoal levels who killed thier people with incompetence. |
| Posted by: Oldspook 2005-09-04 02:48 |
| #5 To bypass or overlook local government's responsiblity here and allow them to blame their ineptness on Bush is ridiculous. The fact that at the local level they didn't assist folks with transportation for the mandatory evacuation starting before the storm hitting, that the plan for evacuation was for the Superdome which is also below sea level, and that they didn't stock the Superdome anticipating the folks arriving there. I never heard of any folks stationed at the Superdome assisting and helping out. What I did remember hearing was that folks were expected to bring their own food and water, that the Superdome didn't have any. Setting the situation up for failure in my book. Yes hindsight is very clear, but the local government should have been practicing evacuation plans so folks would know what to do in case of an emergency such as this. I also remember before this hurricane hit that folks were talking about staying and riding it out, as the mandatory evacuation was being implimented. |
| Posted by: Jan 2005-09-04 02:11 |
| #4 As the world looks directly at us, with these two people in charge, Bush gets blamed. Bush has been a governor of a "hurricane state." He knows the drill. He knows the steps between state power and federal power. You just gotta believe, as he watched this disaster unfold, he knew it was a disaster for his country. |
| Posted by: Sherry 2005-09-04 01:23 |
| #3 The MSM is more than willing to kill as many are necessary to do what ever stupidity they are scheming as long has they bring down the Bush government. That the WaPo who knows how the system of Disaster response function is printing such total crap shows their hand. Open season on Journalists. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-09-04 01:21 |
| #2 If you want to look at issues concerning logistics of disaster relief, check out this site. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2005-09-04 00:59 |
| #1 move to p. non-wot plz |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-09-04 00:45 |