Department Of Homeland Security Inaction At the Top

Well, we did change it. Remember? That's what the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security was. That's why Bush spent all that money on an entirely new federal bureau - to coordinate disaster/terrorism response at the Federal level.We were supposed to be prepared for stuff like this. Do you imagine that, had it been a terrorist bomb that breached the levees and not a hurricane, that the response would have been any better?Things like this weren't supposed to happen again. Bush promised that, after the lessons of 9/11, our responses to these threats would be immediate and effective.Bush promised. What happened? That's a failure of leadership, incompetence that he needs to answer for.

Think? You haven't been paying attention? Monk's already leading the charge.

I don't know. The Bush faithful don't need much spin to salve their guilty consciences. But Bush's brand of crap is wearing pretty thin with normal people, as I think the polls show. And his support amongst African-American voters evaporates every time CNN shows the sea of black faces stranded on their own rooves.

So, in other words it's your view that FEMA's mission is not one it's supposed to actually do? So shouldn't we prepare for the most likely, most catastrophic ones?They don't call it "hurricane season" because it's dollar shooters at Applebee's, Monk. What happened in New Orleans was predicted to be one of the most likely catastrophic disasters to affect America in the immediate future in 2001.Don't you think that calls for preparedness? I realize we can't prepare for them all, but what's the rationale for not having prepared for this one? The expense? The damage is going to cost ten or a hundred times that.They knew it was going to happen. They knew what it would do not only to NO, but to our oil-based economy. They knew how much it was going to cost us to prepare and how much it would cost to not prepare. By not spending the former they've forced us to spend the latter. How is that a defensible action?

Since apparently Monk doesn't remember, let me quote from Bush's 2004 National Response Plan, which details the role of the Federal government in proactively responding to disasters:

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The NRP establishes policies, procedures, and mechanisms for proactive Federal response to catastrophic events. A catastrophic event is any natural or manmade incident, including terrorism, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, and/or government functions. A catastrophic event could result in sustained national impacts over a prolonged period of time; almost immediately exceeds resources normally available to State, local, tribal, and private-sector authorities in the impacted area; and significantly interrupts governmental operations and emergency services to such an extent that national security could be threatened. All catastrophic events are Incidents of National Significance.

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Why did the Bush administration ignore their own plan?More on the supposed "local agencies" that supposedly dropped the ball, from Andrew Sullivan:

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"MR. RUSSERT: Hold on. Hold on, sir. Shouldn't the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of New Orleans bear some responsibility? Couldn't they have been much more forceful, much more effective and much more organized in evacuating the area?

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MR. BROUSSARD: . . . Let me give you just three quick examples. We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines." Sheriff Harry Lee said that if America--American government would have responded like Wal-Mart has responded, we wouldn't be in this crisis." - from yesterday's "Meet The Press."

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FEMA was turning away aid. It's time for Michael Brown to go. True to form, though, Bush will probably give him a medal.

See? Blame anybody but Bush. He's always last to be blamed, even behind private citizens who could have done nothing. Implication? That's my explicit position. They knew for years and did nothing. Circular reasoning. It wasn't a "political reality" because they didn't choose to make it one. A needless war in Iraq wasn't a "political reality" either, until they made it one. Ah, so we're blaming the liberals now. Blame anybody but Bush, I guess.

Do people even pay attention to what their president actually says?

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"'The good news is - and it's hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.' (Laughter)." - president George W. Bush

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Is Andrew Sullivan maybe the world's smartest Republican? Or is he maybe the only one that hasn't drunk the Bush kool-aid? Here's his remarks:

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Just think of that quote for a minute; and the laughter that followed. The poor and the black are dying, dead, drowned and desperate in New Orleans and elsewhere. But the president manages to talk about the future "fantastic" porch of a rich, powerful white man who only recently resigned his position because he regretted the failure of Strom Thurmond to hold back the tide of racial desegregation.

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No way, dude. This is just what they want to hear. "Hrm, I wonder if those folks from New Orleans are really hard up? Maybe I should do something to help - oh, what's that, Barbara Bush? Heck, I guess you're right! This is the best thing that's ever happened to those folks! Guess I don't need to feel bad for them at all. Thank goodness."

Apparently he was too busy making sure that FEMA actually turned away volunteers, donations,and civil and military aid. Headlines at FEMA's own website? "First responders urged not to respond".Edit: Read the part about the trucks being turned away...PBThis message has been edited by AdminPhat, 09-06-2005 06:35 PM

Well, not quite a headline as I said - misunderstood the DailyKos article, but here it is: FEMA.gov | Federal Emergency Management Agency - FEMA.gov is experiencing technical difficulties

I don't appreciate you adopting admin mode in a discussion you've participated in, and as this appears to be not an act of moderation but Jar merely disagreeing with my interpretation of an article, I've chosen to ignore your suggestion, as it appears that you've posted as admin by mistake.Moreover I don't see that the passage you've quoted changes the intent or meaning of the press release as I referred to it. Perhaps you can explain how? When, indeed, any kind of aid whatsoever - regardless of origin or oversight - would have been needed.Notice too that the release does not say "fire and emergency services not dispatched by aid agreements should report to a staging area and await orders, so that they can immediately spring into action", it says that they shouldn't go anywhere at all, so that it could take days for these volunteers to reach anywhere they might be useful once FEMA decides to call for them.

What moderation was contained in your post? You told me to edit my post to reflect your interpretation of the article.I'm sorry but that's neither appropriate moderation nor appropriate behavior for a moderator. I'm amazed, Jar. I've never seen you abuse your privledges to this degree before.

I'm sorry that a genuine mistake was viewed as "quote mining", though it's not clear to me how I could be accused of mining quotes without actually quoting from the article.But, to set my remarks in context and defend myself against the accusation of willful deception, let me show you the text of the article that I did read, and what led me to make the comments I did:

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Can FEMA Do Anything Right?
by DavidNYC
Mon Sep 5th, 2005 at 13:04:55 PDT

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Just take a look at this list of stories:

FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations

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FEMA turns away experienced firefighters

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FEMA turns back Wal-Mart supply trucks

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FEMA prevents Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel

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FEMA won't let Red Cross deliver food

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FEMA bars morticians from entering New Orleans

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We know FEMA's budget and operations have been gutted. We know FEMA's currently run by a washed-up hack attorney who couldn't even get a job at Jacoby & Myers. But this is beyond outrageous. I am sure there are plenty more stories like this; I collected these in just ten minutes on Google News and DKos. Looking at this list, it would be hard to blame you if you thought FEMA actively wanted rescue and relief operations to fail.

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Of course, that's not the case - but these ranks failures transcend even the corrupt indifference we've grown sadly accustomed to over the past five years. If there's any hope for the recovery efforts, it'll come from guys like Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré and Clinton-era FEMA director James Lee Witt, not criminal incompetents like Michael D. "Brownie" Brown.

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P.S. If you know of any more stories like the above, list them in the comments - along with links - and I'll add them to the list.

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Update [2005-9-5 17:10:50 by DavidNYC]:

FEMA blocks 500-boat citizen flotilla from delivering aid

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FEMA fails to utilize Navy ship with 600-bed hospital on board

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FEMA to Chicago: Send just one truck

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FEMA turns away generators (See entry from 3:32 P.M. by Ben Morris, Slidell mayor)

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FEMA: "First Responders Urged Not To Respond"

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That last one sounds like an Onion headline, but, believe it or not, it's straight from FEMA's website. See also this post at Kossack 8051FSW's blog "Constructive Interference" for an even bigger list, including some not on this one. I think at this point, I'll stop updating this list, but feel free to keep adding new stories in the comments below.

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from Can FEMA Do Anything Right?Now, I realize that I was considerably misled when this poster characterized his excerpt as "straight from FEMA's website", and it was wrong of me to have characterized this as a "headline", which I already owned up to.But in what sense is this malicious "quote mining"? I presented the quote exactly as it was presented to me, and I sourced it. I apologize for not investigating it myself, but I did not reference the article to support any point, merely to illustrate a statement that I made - FEMA turned away aid, donations, and volunteers. And that statement is true.I'm appreciative to whatever occured behind the scenes to allow me to post again. I will not ask for an apology from Jar because I do not believe one will be forthcoming. But I continue to believe that he has misused his moderator powers, both to bully an opponent - he did ask me to do something that, as a moderator, he certainly had the ability to do himself - and to set his rebuttal to my points beyond challenge behind a shield of moderator authority.I don't believe it's appropriate to ask for repurcussions against Jar; I continue to believe that for the large part he acts for the good of the board. But if what I've said causes him to take a good hard look at his own behavior, as I was caused to do very recently, then I've achieved my goal.Sorry for the brief off-topic digression. I know discussion of moderation issues belongs in the thread for that purpose, and I invite any replies to that part of my post be posted in that thread, accessable via AdminJar's signature.

Let me ask you something. Completely off-topic, so just answer the question and don't start a discussion.Is the CIA part of the executive branch or the legislative branch? If they're part of the executive branch, then when members of Congress see CIA evidence, did they get it by asking the CIA directly and getting all the relevant information handed right to them, or do they get the evidence because members of the executive branch handed it to them?

What, all 300 or so of them? That's what, maybe 10,000 people? Out of the 90,000 estimated to have stayed in the city?