The Bush political defense

After watching blurbs from the morning news/interview shows, it seems the Bush administration's defense on the deadly poor response to hurricane Katrina comes down to two basic arguments.

1) The claim that no one could have forseen the level of disaster in New Orleans; this is often being described using the two disasters motif, the hurricane being the first and the levee break being the second. I won't go into all the details refuting this, but it is quite plain that all the previous disaster planning/modeling/exercises included the flooding of New Orleans through the levees. Publicly available, there are countless articles discussing the problem and probability of a levee break in a large storm, as well as shelves of scientific papers analyzing the impact. I won't go into all of them here, but if you're really interested, leave your email in comments and I'll respond in more detail.

2) The claim that the whole "coordination problem" comes down to the governor of Louisiana failing in her duty. The best counter argument I can make is this, from the Whitehouse.gov website. It states quite clearly that FEMA is to take the role of coodination of relief efforts.

The President today declared an emergency exists in the State of Louisiana and ordered Federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts in the parishes located in the path of Hurricane Katrina beginning on August 26, 2005, and continuing.

The President's action authorizes the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to coordinate all disaster relief efforts which have the purpose of alleviating the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population, and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures, authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act, to save lives, protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in the parishes of Allen, Avoyelles, Beauregard, Bienville, Bossier, Caddo, Caldwell, Claiborne, Catahoula, Concordia, De Soto, East Baton Rouge, East Carroll, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Franklin, Grant, Jackson, LaSalle, Lincoln, Livingston, Madison, Morehouse, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, Ouachita, Rapides, Red River, Richland, Sabine, St. Helena, St. Landry, Tensas, Union, Vernon, Webster, West Carroll, West Feliciana, and Winn.

Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency. Debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, will be provided at 75 percent Federal funding.

Representing FEMA, Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, named William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: FEMA (202) 646-4600.

Oh, by the way, the statement was issued for immediate release on Aug 27, before the storm even hit.

The truth is, Micheal Brown was a political appointee who was given a patronage post as the head of FEMA. That political decision has killed people.

I wonder if he'll get a Presidential Medal of Freedom like "slam-dunk case on WMD in Iraq" Tenet or "let's disband the Iraqi army and police ourselves" Bremer.

UPDATE: A third defense has come forward today, (see Chertoff on Meet the Press) expect to see it spread. It runs roughly, "there will be plenty of time for after action analysis; we're focused on what we have to do in the next hours. Do you want us to spend our time seeking accountability? Some things have worked very well, and some things that haven't."

So, the third defense summed up is, don't bother us with criticism unless you want people to die. aka. people who criticize this administration want people to die.(see Bush comments on people who are against the Iraq war giving sustenance to our enemies.)

Bastards.