CONTENTS

12. THE INVESTIGATIONS

The Bush administration not only was irresponsible in handling the Katrina catastrophe, but Barbara and Neil Bush profited from the disaster that killed hundreds of people and left thousands homeless.

Barbara Bush donated to the Katrina relief fund – but she funneled her money through her Neil Bush’s (her son’s) software company -- Ignite Learning Company -- at a Houston middle school. Barbara Bush asked that group, in turn, to use the money to buy eight Ignite systems -- valued at $3,800 each -- for Harris County schools with large numbers of Katrina evacuees. (Houston Chronicle, March 24, 2006)

New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (SELA).

Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf states in August 2005. It took 1,183 lives, destroyed 270,000 homes, and inflicted $55 billion in insured damages. Up to $1.4 billion in government dollars was wasted by FEMA. More than 81,000 regional businesses were impacted by Katrina, resulting in the loss of 450,000 jobs. (Yahoo News, August 19, 2006; Washington Post, August 26, 2006)

One year after Katrina, 60 percent of businesses in New Orleans remained closed. Some business owners had to wait as long as 100 days after the storm for a decision on a loan application. (New York Times, August 26, 2006)

A Government Accountability Office report found that between $600 million and $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars has been wasted on improper and potentially fraudulent individual assistance payments. Payments went to Katrina evacuees to pay for items such as Dom Perignon champagne, New Orleans Saints season tickets, and adult-oriented entertainment. (Yahoo News, August 19, 2006)

A report by the House Committee on Government Reform found that 19 Katrina contracts -- worth $8.75 billion – experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement. (Committee on Government Reform, August 24, 2006)

One year after Katrina, a White House “Fact Sheet” noted that FEMA provided $5.6 billion to repair and replace damaged public infrastructure. But Gulf Coast Recovery Coordinator Donald Powell admitted that the federal government’s response was inadequate:

Nearly one-third of the trash in New Orleans was never picked up

Only 66 percent of schools were reopened

Seventeen percent of New Orleans’ busses were operating

Forty-four percent of adult caregivers lacked health coverage

Thirty-four percent of children in FEMA-subsidized communities had at least one chronic health condition that required treatment

The city’s suicide rate tripled

There was no capacity to deal with mental health and substance abuse problems

People still suffered from the lack of hospitals and the inability to receive immediate care from emergency rooms. (Washington Post, August 26, 2006)

Three months after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, about half a million survivors -- as well as the emergency workers -- were in need of mental health services, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. (Associated Press, December 7, 2005)

Still after three months, the situation in New Orleans was far from improving:

Unemployment increased 200 percent to 15.5 percentThe labor force decreased by 33 percent to 465,000

Only 10 percent of city buses were operational

Half of the homes werel without gas service

Only 46 percent of the hotels in the metropolitan area were fully operational

70 percent of the met area’s restaurants were still closed

Only one of the city’s 116 schools were open

FEMA spent $19 million of its $21 million allocation. (New York Times, December 6, 2005)

The displaced New Orleans -- 75 per cent of whom were Black -- were urged by Nagin to return to New Orleans from distant but temporary locations. Hey had been promised trailers, electricity, running water, and help finding jobs. But the stories they told Nagin revealed that they were deeply mired in government red tape, misinformation, no information, and an apparent lack of interest.

By the beginning of 2006, apartment rents had doubled. FEMA-paid hotel rooms were being phased-out, and FEMA trailers were in short supply. In February, 11,000 FEMA mobile homes, and 3-bedroom were sitting in an Arkansas cow pasture.

In January 2006, William Lokey, chief of response operations at FEMA, acknowledged that other federal departments’ offered to help rescue storm victims went unheard or were ignored. (Washington Post, January 30, 2006)

Lokey testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that he was unaware that the Interior Department offered to send boats, planes, trucks, and personnel to rescue Katrina’s victims immediate after the storm hit. (Washington Post, January 30, 2006)

Lokey said FEMA rejected a request by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries for rubber boats to rescue victims stranded in flooded areas. Instead, he said, FEMA provided a smaller number of flat-bottom boats that could not be punctured by debris in the water. The rubber boats could have been used to rescue sick and immobile victims in shallow-water areas. (Washington Post, January 30, 2006)

One year after Katrina, 60 percent of businesses in New Orleans remained closed. Some business owners had to wait as long as 100 days after the storm for a decision on a loan application. (New York Times, August 26, 2006)

A Government Accountability Office report found that between $600 million and $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars has been wasted on improper and potentially fraudulent individual assistance payments. Payments went to Katrina evacuees to pay for items such as Dom Perignon champagne, New Orleans Saints season tickets, and adult-oriented entertainment. (Yahoo News, August 19, 2006)

A report by the House Committee on Government Reform found that 19 Katrina contracts -- worth $8.75 billion – experienced significant overcharges, wasteful spending, or mismanagement. (Committee on Government Reform, August 24, 2006)

One year after Katrina, a White House “Fact Sheet” noted that FEMA provided $5.6 billion to repair and replace damaged public infrastructure. But Gulf Coast Recovery Coordinator Donald Powell admitted that the federal government’s response was inadequate:

Nearly one-third of the trash in New Orleans was never picked up

Only 66 percent of schools were reopened

Seventeen percent of New Orleans’ busses were operating

Forty-four percent of adult caregivers lacked health coverage

Thirty-four percent of children in FEMA-subsidized communities had at least one chronic health condition that required treatment

The city’s suicide rate tripled

There was no capacity to deal with mental health and substance abuse problems

People still suffered from the lack of hospitals and the inability to receive immediate care from emergency rooms. (Washington Post, August 26, 2006)

Sunday, August 28:

2:00 a.m. Katrina was upgraded from a category three hurricane to a level four.

7:00 a.m. Katrina is upgraded again to a category five. Forecasters warned that the levees in New Orleans would not hold.

9:30 a.m. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued the first ever mandatory evacuation of thee city.

Afternoon: Roughly 30,000 evacuees gather at the New Orleans Superdome.

Monday, August 29:

8:00 a.m. Mayor Nagin said, “I’ve gotten reports this morning that there is already water coming over some of the levee systems. In the lower ninth ward, we’ve had one of our pumping stations to stop operating, so we will have significant flooding, it is just a matter of how much.” (NBC’s Today Show, August 29, 2005)

Morning: Bush called DHS Secretary Chertoff. Later in the day, Bush said, “I spoke to Mike Chertoff today -- he’s the head of the Department of Homeland Security. I knew people would want me to discuss this issue (immigration), so we got us an airplane on -- a telephone on Air Force One, so I called him. I said, are you working with the governor? He said, you bet we are.”

Morning: Bush shared a birthday cake photo-op with Senator John McCain.

10:00 a.m. Bush visited an Arizona resort where he vacationed and golfed. He promoted his Medicare drug plan. Bush said, “This new bill I signed says, if you’re a senior and you like the way things are today, you’re in good shape, don’t change. But, by the way, there’s a lot of different options for you. And we’re here to talk about what that means to our seniors.”

Late morning: A large section of the vital 17th Street Canal levee, where it connected to the brand new ‘hurricane proof’ Old Hammond Highway bridge, gave way later in the morning.

11:30 a.m. FEMA head Michael Brown finally requested that DHS dispatch 1,000 employees to the region. He gave them two days to arrive. Brown’s memo to Chertoff described Katrina as ‘this near catastrophic event’ but otherwise lacked any urgent language. The memo politely ended, ‘Thank you for your consideration in helping us to meet our responsibilities.’” (Associated Press, August 30, 2005)

2:00 p.m. Bush flew to California to discuss his Medicare drug plan at a senior center. He said, “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell -- she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.”

9:00 p.m. Rumsfeld attended a San Diego Padres baseball game, joining the ball club’s owner, John Moores, in the owner’s box.

Tuesday, August 30:

9:00 a.m. Bush spoke on Iraq at a Coronado naval base in San Diego.

Morning: Chertoff finally was made aware that the levees had failed. (Meet the Press, September 4, 2005)

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said the states had adequate National Guard units to handle the hurricane needs. (WWL-TV, August 30, 2005)

A FEMA official who had just flown over New Orleans by helicopter seemed to have trouble conveying to his bosses the degree of destruction. Louisiana Congresswoman Cynthia Hedge-Morrell said “He (the FEMA official) got on the phone to Washington, and I heard him say, ‘You’ve got to understand how serious this is, and this is not what they’re telling me, this is what I saw myself.’ ” (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

New Orleans Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said, “The looting is out of control. The French Quarter has been attacked. We’re using exhausted, scarce police to control looting when they should be used for search and rescue while we still have people on rooftops.” (Associated Press, August 31, 2005)

3:00 p.m. Bush played the guitar with country singer Mark Willis. (Associated Press, August 31, 2005)

Bush returned to Crawford for the final night of his vacation.

Wednesday, August 31:

Tens of thousands of homeless were trapped in the Superdome. A 2-year-old girl slept in a pool of urine. Crack vials littered a restroom. Blood stained the walls next to vending machines smashed by teenagers. (Los Angeles Times, September 1, 2005)

Bush finally organized a task force to coordinate the federal response. He said he would fly to Washington to begin work with a task force that would coordinate the work of 14 federal agencies involved in the relief effort. (New York Times, September 1, 2005)

The Jefferson Parish emergency director said the food and water supply was gone. Director Walter Maestri said, “FEMA and national agencies not delivering the help nearly as fast as it is needed.” (New York Times, September 1, 2005)

80,000 were believed trapped in New Orleans. Former Mayor Sidney Barthelemy estimated 80,000 were trapped in the flooded city and urged President Bush to send more troops.” (Reuters, August 31, 2005)

3,000 were stranded at the Convention Center without food or water.

5:00 p.m. Bush made his first major address on Katrina. “Nothing about the president’s demeanor … which seemed casual to the point of carelessness -- suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.” (New York Times, September 1, 2005)

8:00 p.m. Secretary of State Rice attended the Broadway show “Spamalot.” She was booed by some audience members when the lights went up after the performance.” (New York Post, September 2, 2005)

9:00 p.m. FEMA Director Brown claimed he was surprised at the hurricane’s magnitude. “I must say, this storm is much much bigger than anyone expected.” (CNN, September 1, 2005)

Thursday, September 1:

Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out. New Orleans descended into anarchy. (Associated Press, September 2, 2005)

8:00 a.m. Bush claimed no one expected the levees to break. “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” (Washington Post, September 2, 2005)

Morning: Secretary of State Rice attended the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament in New York. The New York Post reported: Rice, (in New York) on three days’ vacation to shop and see the U.S. Open, hitting some balls with retired champ Monica Seles at the Indoor Tennis Club at Grand Central.” (New York Post, September 2, 2005)

The Bush administration still had failed to establish command and control. Terry Ebbert, New Orleans Homeland Security Director said, “This is a national emergency. This is a national disgrace. FEMA has been here three days, yet there is no command and control. We can send massive amounts of aid to tsunami victims, but we can’t bail out the city of New Orleans.” (Fox News, September 1, 2005)

FEMA finally authorized the use of Greyhound buses. No such buses arrived. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

2:00 p.m. Mayor Nagin angrily accused the Bush administration of not having a clue about what was going on. Nagin issued what he called a “desperate SOS” for help for up to 20,000 refugees stuck in the New Orleans Convention Center. Nagin said, “This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the convention center and don’t anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the convention center is unsanitary and unsafe and we’re running out of supplies.” (New York Times, September 2, 2005; The Guardian, September 2, 2005)

2:00 p.m. Brown claimed he had not heard of violence. “I’ve had no reports of unrest, if the connotation of the word unrest means that people are beginning to riot, or you know, they’re banging on walls and screaming and hollering or burning tires or whatever. I’ve had no reports of that.” (CNN, September 1, 2005)

Most of the people, who were stranded in New Orleans, were too poor to afford the means to leave. Brown referred to them as “those who are stranded, who chose not to evacuate, who chose not to leave the city.” (New York Times, September 2, 2005)

Chertoff offered little compassion for people who died or were trapped in cities due to the flooding. Widespread eyewitness reports for several days described refugees living like animals at the New Orleans Convention Center. Yet, Chertoff said, “I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the Convention Center who don’t have food and water.” (www.hereswhatsleft.com, September 1, 2005; American Progress Action, September 2, 2005)

Brown finally learned of evacuees at the Convention Center. He said, “We learned about that, so I have directed that we have all available resources to get that convention center to make sure that they have the food and water and medical care that they need.” (CNN, September 2, 2005)

Afternoon: Secretary of State Rice shopped at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue and spent several thousands of dollars on shoes. A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to Rice and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” (www.gawker.com, September 2, 2005)

Eric Tolbert until February 2005 was the disaster response chief for the FEMA. He said, “What you’re seeing is revealing weaknesses in the state, local, and federal levels. All three levels have been weakened. They’ve been weakened by diversion into terrorism.” (Knight Ridder, September 1, 2005)

Several men and women who had led relief efforts for dozens of killer hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, chastised the disaster leaders for forgetting the simple Boy Scout motto: “Be Prepared.” But Chertoff and Brown had no disaster experience. (Knight Ridder, September 1, 2005)

Friday, September 2:

Tens of thousands of refugees still did not receive water and food. Bush said that the response was “not acceptable.” Later that day, he flew to the devastated region and sung another tune. He spoke positively of the relief effort. He even praised Brown. (New York Times, September 2, 2005)

Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels had called a failure of the country’s emergency management. (New York Times, September 3, 2005)

Bush waited four days before flying to the stricken. He avoided areas where people still had not received help, and he stayed away from regions where dead bodies were left to rot on the streets.

Louisiana’s Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu said, “We witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.” (www.bellaciao.com, September 4, 2005)

Bush had posed for photo ops in several areas. Fifty firefighters were used a props in the disaster area. A group of 1,000 firefighters convened in Atlanta to volunteer with the Katrina relief efforts. Of those, a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew’s first assignment: to stand beside Bush as he tours devastated areas.” (Reuters, September 3, 2005)

3:00 p.m. Bush said, “I am satisfied with the response. I am not satisfied with all the results.” (Associated Press, September 3, 2005)

Bush praised the FEMA director: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” (New York Times, September 5, 2005)

Saturday, September 3:

A power struggle continued, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana’s Democratic Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Bush administration officials claimed Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency. They lied. She had issued the decree of August 27. (Washington Post, September 4, 2005)

The Bush administration sent Blanco a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans. This would give the White House control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. (New York Times, September 3, 2005)

Louisiana officials rejected the request, 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. If the Bush administration had been able to seize control from the locals, they the White House could have blamed everything on the local governments. (New York Times, September 3, 2005)

Bush finally authorized the dispatch of 7,200 active-duty ground troops to the area -- the first major commitment of regular ground forces in the crisis. The Pentagon announced that an additional 10,000 National Guard troops would be sent to Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total Guard contingent to about 40,000. (New York Times, September 3, 2005)

The last 1,500 people were evacuated from the Convention Center amid an overpowering odor of human waste and rotting garbage. The evacuees, most of them Black and poor, spoke of violence, anarchy, and family members who died for lack of food, water and medical care. About 42,000 people had been evacuated from the city by September 3.

Hurricane Frances inflicted millions of dollars of damage on Florida’s Miami-Dade County in September 2004. Heavy rain and winds of up to 45 mph were considered “minimal.” Yet, FEMA made $31 million in questionable payments to residents of even though the storm caused only minimal damage in that area. (Inter Press Service, September 13, 2005)

J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, who was a top federal flood-insurance official in the 1970s and 1980s, said that the Frances overpayments “are questionable given the timing of the election and Florida’s importance as a battleground state.” (Inter Press Service, September 13, 2005)

In May 2005, the inspector general’s report was made public at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. FEMA awarded $10.2 million to repair or replace household room items for Miami-Dade County residents. However, the procedures used by FEMA to award funds for those items did not limit assistance to only disaster-related losses as required by federal law and regulations. FEMA awarded $720,403 to 228 applicants for personal property items based upon the applicants’ verbal representations of their losses. (Inter Press Service, September 13, 2005)

Contract inspectors were not required to validate how damages to automobiles were disaster-related. The amount authorized for automobile replacement, particularly for older vehicles, was generally far in excess of the market replacement costs or an amount needed to acquire comparable transportation. FEMA awarded $192,592 for miscellaneous items to applicants in Miami-Dade County based only upon the verification that such items were purchased -- not whether a disaster-related need existed. (Inter Press Service, September 13, 2005)

Senator Susan Collins, chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said “FEMA paid to replace thousands of televisions, air conditioners, beds and other furniture, as well as a number of cars, without receipts, or proof of ownership or damage, and based solely on verbal statements by the residents, sometimes made in fleeting encounters at fast-food restaurants.” (Inter Press Service, September 13, 2005)

Shortly after Bush came to office in 2001, key federal disaster mitigation programs -- that were developed over many years -- were slashed and tossed aside by the White House. In addition, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) lost its independent status in 2003 as a result of the9/11 terrorist attacks. As a result, FEMA was placed under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) two years after 9/11. Both factors greatly impacted into diminishing the effectiveness of FEMA.

FEMA’s Project Impact -- a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration -- was canceled outright by the Bush administration on February 28, 2001. New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the United States. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war. The budget for the Army Corps of Engineers decreased from $14.25 million in 2002 to $5.7 million in 2005. (New Orleans CityBusiness, February 16, 2004)

In early 2004 -- as the cost of the war in Iraq soared -- Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Army Corps of Engineers said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain. (New Orleans CityBusiness, February 16, 2004)

On June 8, 2004, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Army Corps of Engineers’ project manager Al Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that the federal government did not fund. The Corps essentially stopped major work on the levee system. It was the first such stoppage in 37 years. Additionally, federal flood control spending for southeastern Louisiana was cut from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in 2005. (Knight Ridder, August 31, 2005)

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to find another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the federal government was also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain. (Knight Ridder, August 31, 2005)

Not only did the White House cut federal funding for proper civil engineering projects for the New Orleans, but Bush administration officials were unprepared to provide expeditious and adequate relief to the victims when Katrina struck in August 2005. (Knight Ridder, September 1, 2005)

THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF NEW ORLEANS. One quarter of New Orleans residents -- some 134,000 people – did not own a car. The city was 67 percent African American, but the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood, which was inundated by the floodwaters, was more than 98 percent Black. There, only 6 percent of residents were college graduate, compared to the national average of 22 percent. Average household income in that neighborhood was $27,499 a year, not even half the national average of $56,644. One-quarter of the Lower Ninth Ward’s households earned less than $10,000 a year. (American Progress Action, September 2, 2005)

Fifty percent of residents in New Orleans had no health insurance, and 75 percent of homeowners had no flood insurance.

HURRICANE PAM. In July 2004, FEMA spent $250,000 to conduct an eight-day hurricane drill for a mock-killer storm hitting New Orleans. Code-named “Hurricane Pam,” 250 emergency officials attended the seminar at the State Emergency Operations Center in Baton Rouge.

The purpose was to develop joint response plans for a catastrophic hurricane in Louisiana. Hurricane Pam brought 120-mph winds and storms that leveled levees in New Orleans. More than one million residents evacuated and Hurricane Pam destroyed 500,000 to 600,000 buildings. (FEMA website, July 23, 2004)

In the scenario, the waters were high enough in parts of New Orleans to top 17-foot levees, including some along Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet. Some of the water flowed through a gap in the hurricane levee in St. Charles Parish and into Jefferson and Orleans parishes. Part of the exercise included a helicopter evacuation of the Superdome, where chaos erupted for several days after Katrina struck. (Knight Ridder, September 1, 2005)

Dr. Ivor Van Heerden, director at LSU’s Hurricane Center, asked FEMA for thousands of tents in case of a disaster, helped oversee Hurricane Pam. His request was rejected. (MSNBC’s Hardball, September 12, 2005)

When Van Heerden suggested that FEMA purchase tents in the event of a hurricane disaster, a federal official responded, “Americans don’t live in tents.” (MSNBC, September 24, 2005)

Before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage that was expected, Bush said, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.” Then Katrina struck, inflicting the worst devastation in the history of the United States.

On August 27 -- as Katrina was barreling its way towards New Orleans -- Louisiana’s Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco declared a “state of emergency.” This meant that the federal government was given the responsibility to coordinate relief efforts with the state and local authorities. This never happened.

Blanco put the National Guard on alert. She arranged to have traffic patterns on outgoing roadways reconfigured. She made sure the parishes that were not at risk would have shelters and supplies for people from the ones that were. (Time, September 19, 2005)

Once an evacuation was ordered, Blanco would have one more job, according to the state’s official Emergency Operations Plan: “Request Federal Government assistance as needed.” (Time, September 19, 2005)

An order issued by Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director. The National Response Plan was the federal government’s blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. (Knight Ridder, September 14, 2005)

BUSH IS CAUGHT IN ANOTHER LIE. On August 28, just before Katrina struck, Bush was FULLY BRIEFED. During a conference call, Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, briefed state and federal officials -- including Bush, Chertoff, and Brown. Bush was at his Texas ranch and participated by videophone. (New York Times, March 1, 2006)

Mayfield told the officials he wanted “to make it absolutely clear to everyone that there is potential for large loss of life … in the coastal areas from the storm surge.” He emphasized that there was a “very, very grave concern” about the ability of the levees that separated Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans to stand up against the storm. (New York Times, March 1, 2006)

During the conference call, Bush NEVER asked a single question. Instead, he went on to tell state officials: “We are fully prepared.” (New York Times, March 2, 2006)

Bush lied four days later. On September 1, he denied that he had ever been warned. He said on ABC’s Good Morning America: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” (New York Times, March 1, 2006)

The day Katrina hit, Blanco asked Bush for “everything you’ve got.” But almost nothing arrived, and she could not wait any longer. So she called the White House and demanded to speak to Bush. When he could not be located, she asked for Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who was also unavailable. Finally, after being passed to another office or two, she left a message with DHS adviser Frances Townsend. She waited hours but had to make another call herself before she finally got Bush on the line. “Help is on the way,” he told her. (Time, September 19, 2005)

As New Orleans became paralyzed both by water and by lawlessness, so did the response by government. Officials at all levels were not coordinated. Blanco controlled state agencies and the National Guard; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin directed city workers; and Brown served as the point man for the federal government. No one person was in charge. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

Pentagon, White House, and Justice officials debated for two days whether Bush should seize control of the relief mission from Blanco. But they worried about the political fallout of stepping on the state’s authority, according to the officials involved in the discussions. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

Bush rarely had read newspapers or had listened to the television. Perhaps he was unaware of the magnitude of Katrina. Perhaps he did not want to cut short his vacation. At any rate, it was not until the third day that he was given a DVD on Air Force One, showing the devastation that was wreaked by Katrina.

Bush’s response was too late. The president was out of touch. In his photo ops, he frequently smiled when he should have displayed a stoic demeanor. And he was somber when he could have beamed. Katrina helped galvanize the culture war in America. If Bush learned one thing from his father, it was -- never raise taxes. But he never learned to stop playing the “blame game.” When Hurricane Andrew struck in 1991, the elder Bush refused to take responsibility.

As the federal government was castigated for its lack of response after Katrina hit, the younger Bush echoed his father’s comments. But finally on September 11, he took the unprecedented step of taking responsibility.

FEMA officials expected that the state and local governments would direct their own efforts and that they would ask for help as needed. Leaders in Louisiana and New Orleans, though, were so overwhelmed by the scale of the storm that they were not only unable to manage the crisis, but they were not always exactly sure what they needed. While local officials assumed that the Bush administration would provide rapid and considerable aid, federal officials were thinking of legalities and logistics. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

The federal government ultimately rejected the idea and instead decided to try to speed the arrival of National Guard forces, including many trained as military police. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

On August 31 -- two days after Katrina struck -- Blanco was frantic. Without any aides along, she and her husband had made an unannounced visit to the Superdome the night before and seen how desperate the situation there was becoming. The situation at the arena was dire. Its roof was leaking, and people had begun dying.

On September 3, Blanco finally came up with specific requests. She did request 40,000 troops; urban search-and-rescue teams; buses; amphibious personnel carriers; mobile morgues; trailers of water, ice and food; base camps; staging areas; housing; and communications systems. (Time, September 19, 2005)

Blanco’s fellow governors, frustrated by FEMA’s lack of response to their distress calls, began trying to coordinate help through the National Governors Association. Neither system worked. Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, initially told to expect 300 evacuees, got 9,000. Virginia Governor Mark Warner arranged for 1,400 beds in the city of Blackstone, complete with Internet access, a school, day care, a heated pool, and gym. But not a single person appeared. (Time, September 19, 2005)

The National Guard was spread thin. More than 3,000 Guardsmen -- 35 percent of the entire Louisiana National Guard -- was serving in Iraq. In Louisiana, the Guard lost 20 vehicles that could have carried soldiers through the watery streets and had to abandon much of its most advanced communications equipment. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY MICHAEL CHERTOFF. Secretary Chertoff had the authority to mobilize a federal response to Katrina. Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. (Knight Ridder, September 14, 2005)

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. (Knight Ridder, September 14, 2005)

As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water, and shelter in the days after Katrina’s landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives. But Chertoff -- not Brown -- was in charge of managing the national response to a disaster. (Knight Ridder, September 14, 2005)

However, Chertoff failed to shift that power to Brown until about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. Chertoff might have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department. (Knight Ridder, September 14, 2005)

FEMA DIRECTOR MICHAEL BROWN. Five of eight top FEMA officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters. They included FEMA head Michael Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick Rhode, and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks Altshuler who arrived with ties to Bush’s 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation. (Washington Post, September 9, 2005)

Four days after Katrina hit, Rhode commented on his agency’s performance amidst steadily increasing urban warfare, deeply flawed coordination, and continuing inability to evacuate refugees. Rhode said that the federal government’s response was “probably one of the most efficient and effective responses in the country’s history.” (New York Times, September 2, 2005)

Brown’s official biography on the FEMA web site said that his background in state and local government included serving “as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight” in Edmond, Oklahoma from 1975 to 1978. In fact, Brown had been only an “assistant to the city manager” from 1977 to 1980 --. He had no authority over other employees. (Washington Post, September 9, 2005)

On his www.findlaw.com profile, Brown claimed he was named “Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University.” Charles Johnson, a member of the university’s public relations office, said Brown “wasn’t a professor here, he was only a student here.” Johnson said the chair of the Political Science Department at CSU was not aware of the “Outstanding Political Science Professor” award. (American Progress Action, September 9, 2005)

In addition, Brown’s profile said that “from 1983 to the present he has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond.” An administrator at the home said Brown was not that anyone here was familiar with. The nursing home did not have a board of directors anymore and when it did, no one remembered Brown being on it. . (American Progress Action, September 9, 2005)

In the 1990s, Brown was hired as an attorney for the International Arabian Horse Association which was based in Lyons, Colorado. In 2001, he was fired by the horse association. The association was known for mounting litigation and financial disarray. Almost immediately. (Daily Kos, September 2, 2005; www.americablog.com, September 2, 2005)

With Brown out of a job, deputy director of FEMA Joe Allbaugh brought him in as the agency’s general counsel. Both had been roommates in college. Two years later, Bush awarded the inexperienced Brown by elevating him to director of FEMA. (Daily Kos, September 2, 2005; www.americablog.com, September 2, 2005)

After Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Brown was far removed from the horrific conditions brought on by Katrina. He responded to the homeless who had sought refuge at the New Orleans Convention Center. Brown said, “The federal government did not even know about the Convention Center people until today.” (American Progress Action, September 2, 2005)

During the crisis, Brown was more occupied with discussing his personal wardrobe. Cindy Taylor, FEMA’s deputy director of public affairs sent Brown an a-mail on 7:10 a.m. local time on August 29. She said, “My eyes must certainly be deceiving me. You look fabulous -- and I’m not talking the makeup.”

Brown e-mailed back, “I got it at Nordstroms. Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?”

An hour later, Brown added, “If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you’ll really vomit. I am a fashion god.” (Washington Post, November 3, 20045)

After botching relief efforts, Brown was finally relieved of his duties in New Orleans on September 9. He was sent back to Washington “to oversee the big picture” and “to prepare for another potential disaster.” It was just a matter of time before he would be dismissed. When asked about the rotation, Brown said he would spend the evening eating Mexican food and drinking a stiff margarita before returning to work the next morning. (NBC News, September 9, 2005)On September 12, Brown resigned. That afternoon, Bush was back in the New Orleans area for the third time. He stressed to the media that he was busy and on top of everything. But Bush seemed out of touch when a reporter asked him what he thought of Brown’s resignation. Bush replied, “You know more than me (sic). I haven’t heard that.” (New York Times, September 12, 2005)

Chertoff said Brown “did everything within his capability” to manage the government’s response to Katrina. Then Chertoff announced Brown’s replacement would be R. David Paulison, the United States Fire Administrator and director of preparedness for FEMA. (New York Times, September 12, 2005)

After 9/11, it was Paulison who stressed that Americans should stock up on duct tape to survive a terrorist attack. That led to a run on duct tape at hardware stores. But shortly afterwards, the entire “duct tape” story just disappeared. (MSNBC, September 12, 2005)

At a congressional inquiry on September 27, Brown took responsibility for two mistakes. First, he said he should have set up regular media briefings instead of conducting numerous television interviews. Second, he said he personally regretted that he was unable to persuade Blanco and Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together. (Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2005)

Brown admitted that FEMA’s ability to move life-sustaining supplies was flawed and “easily overwhelmed” by Katrina’s scale. He said that emergency communications broke down because the country made little “real progress” in learning from the 2001 terrorist attacks and warned that if United States authorities remained focused on preparing for terrorism instead of natural disasters, “then we’re going to fail.” (Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2005)

Yet, Brown contended that he was fully apprised before Katrina’s August 29 landfall. He said he had asked for MILLIONS and more staff members, but DHS disapproved his request. (Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2005)

Brown contradicted himself on several occasions.

Brown said that FEMA was stretched beyond its capabilities because, “over the past few years, the agency has lost a lot of manpower.” But in September 2004, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Brown whether his agency was prepared to deal with hurricanes hitting Florida. Brown said, “We absolutely are. We have all the manpower and resources we need. President Bush has been a very great supporter of FEMA.” (September 28, 2005)

Brown also defiantly stated, “FEMA doesn’t evacuate communities.” But in the midst of the hurricane aftermath, Brown said that FEMA was conducting “rescue missions” and would “continue to evacuate all of the hospitals.” (American Progress Action, September 28, 2005)

Furthermore, Brown said FEMA suffered “emaciation” because anti-terror operations had become a priority for the administration. But on CNN on August 16, 2004, Brown said, FEMA had “proven (in Florida) that we’re up to the task” of responding to both terrorism and natural disasters. (American Progress Action, September 28, 2005)

Under questioning by GOP Congressman Steve Buyer of Indiana, Brown suggested that Blanco had failed to issue an emergency assistance declaration for Orleans Parish, which included New Orleans. Buyer asked, “Since you went through the exercise in Pam, was that not shocking to you that the governor would have excluded New Orleans from the declaration?” Brown said, “Yes”" and that FEMA had questioned Blanco’s decision. But Blanco’s emergency declaration on August 27 was for all “affected areas” in “southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area.” (American Progress Action, September 28, 2005)

Under questioning by GOP Congressman Chris Shays of Connecticut, Brown said he coordinated the evacuation of New Orleans merely by “urging the governor and the mayor to order the mandatory evacuation.” When Shays suggested that was not enough, Brown asked, “What would you like for me to do, Congressman?” (American Progress Action, September 28, 2005)

After Brown resigned, he was kept on the FEMA payroll for several more months as a consultant. Then he began his own consulting firm to help private firms and individuals in the United States respond to disasters.

Only 70 percent of the New Orleans area’s 53 nursing homes were not evacuated before Katrina struck. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

FEMA dispatched only seven of its 28 urban search and rescue teams to the area before the storm hit and sent no workers at all into New Orleans until after the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

During the first four days, FEMA administrators not only acted slowly but they prevented aid from reaching the disaster sites. Amazingly, FEMA Director Brown ordered his agency’s officials to undergo training for the first 48 hours.

All congressional and governors’ offices had difficulty contacting FEMA.

The USS Bataan, a 844-foot ship designed to dispatch Marines in amphibious assaults, had helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food, and water. It also had the capability to make its own water, up to 100,000 gallons a day. Its hospital facilities included six operating rooms and beds for 600 patients. It just happened to be in the Gulf of Mexico when Katrina came roaring ashore. The Bataan rode out the storm and then followed it toward shore, awaiting relief orders. Helicopter pilots flying from its deck were some of the first to begin plucking stranded New Orleans residents. The federal government never asked the Bataan for assistance. (Chicago Tribune, August 31, 2005)

On August 31, Blanco needed buses to rescue thousands of people from the Superdome and the Convention Center. But only a fraction of the 500 vehicles promised by federal authorities had arrived. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

FEMA asked the Department of Transportation to look for buses to help evacuate the more than 20,000 people who had taken refuge at New Orleans’ Superdome. FEMA only asked for 455 buses and 300 ambulances for the enormous task. It was not until 8:05 p.m. on September 3 that FEMA finally settled on the number of buses. (American Progress Action, September 13, 2005)

Almost 18 hours later, FEMA canceled the request for the ambulances because it turned out, as one FEMA employee put it, “The DOT doesn’t do ambulances.” (American Progress Action, September 13, 2005)

FEMA did not settle on a final number of buses until 8:05 p.m. on September 3. Even then, buses trickled into New Orleans, with only a dozen arriving on the first day. (American Progress Action, September 13, 2005)

Thousands of firefighters, who had volunteered from across the country, were not permitted to help. When FEMA finally acknowledged them, many were given jobs to hand out pamphlets at Houston’s Astrodome. (Air America, September 6 and 7, 2005)

FEMA prevented animal rescue team from entering the New Orleans area. (MSNBC, September 24, 2005)

When an emergency response team arrived from Mississippi, FEMA officials blocked them from helping. Eventually, they treated one person for a small cut. (MSNBC, September 24, 2005)

FEMA sent an emergency response team from Alabama to Texas – not to the hurricane-torn areas. They treated one person for a cut. (MSNBC’s Hardball, September 12, 2005)

The federal government diverted hundreds of truckloads of bagged ice cubes from the Gulf Coast hurricane-relief effort to cold storage in Portland and other cities. FEMA said it had more ice than it can use in the hurricane zone and wanted to keep it in storage for use in a future emergency. Tens of thousands of dollars were wasted, as truck drivers were paid as much as $800 a day to haul the loads towards the Gulf Coast. (Portland Press-Herald, September 20, 2005)

A Coast Guard ship with 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel was not allowed to off-load its cargo. (Air America, September 6 and 7, 2005)

Three WalMart trucks loaded with water were prevented from reaching victims. (Air America, September 6 and 7, 2005)

The Red Cross was denied access to the area. (Air America, September 6 and 7, 2005)

It took three days before FEMA authorized the use of Greyhound buses. None ever arrived. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

The state of Arkansas repeatedly offered to send buses and planes to evacuate people. They were told they could not go. (New York Times, September 11, 2005)

Blanco asked FEMA for portable generators. FEMA never replied. (NBC News, September 9, 2005)

Amtrak volunteered its trains to transport the homeless out of New Orleans. (NBC’s Meet the Press, September 11, 2005)

The portion of the National Emergency Response plan that permitted the Occupational Safety and Health Organization (OSHA) to coordinate efforts to protect and monitor disaster workers and victims from environmental hazards, was not activated until 5:00 p.m. on September 11. That was only after officials from (National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Department of Labor, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to make frantic calls to DHS and members of Congress, demanding that the worker-safety portion of the national response plan be activated. (American Progress Action, September 13, 2005)

Hundreds of tons of British food aid -- 400,000 operational ration packs -- shipped to the United States for starving Katrina survivors was eventually burned. Because of red tape within the Bush administration, tons of NATO ration packs, the same as those eaten by British troops in Iraq, were condemned as unfit for human consumption. (Ryan Parry, U.S. Correspondent in New York, September 19, 2005)

The food, which cost British taxpayers millions, sat in a huge warehouse after the Food and Drug Agency recalled it when it had already left to be distributed. Much was dumped in Little Rock, Arkansas at an FDA incineration plant. (Ryan Parry, U.S. Correspondent in New York, September 19, 2005)

Hundreds of dead bodies still had not been removed from the streets, as federal, state, and local officials bickered over who had this responsibility. (NBC News, September 9, 2005)

Bush was asked several times by the media about the failure of the federal government to act responsibly. Each time he said, “There will be plenty of time to decide what went right and what went wrong.”

Even one week after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush refused to speak the truth. While touring the devastated areas, he praised the FEMA director: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” (New York Times, September 5, 2005)

Two days later, Bush met with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi who asked Bush to fire Brown. Bush replied “Why would I do that? … “What didn’t go right?” (NBC News, September 7, 2005)

On September 11 and 12, Bush again was asked about the failure of the federal government to act expeditiously. He refused to answer, charging the critics wanted to play the “blame game.” (New York Times, September 13, 2005)

But the next day, the president changed course. With his ratings at an all-time low of 38 percent (Newsweek Poll, September 12, 2005), Bush said he “takes responsibility for any government failures” in dealing with the aftermath of Katrina. This perhaps was the only time that he took responsibility for any flawed policies. (New York Times, September 13, 2005)

On September 8, Bush issued an executive order that suspended application of the Davis-Bacon Act, a federal law governing workers’ pay on federal contracts in the Katrina-damaged areas. The act set a minimum pay scale for workers on federal contracts by requiring contractors to pay the prevailing or average pay in the region. The suspension of the act allowed contractors to pay lower wages. (New York Times, September 9, 2005)

After pressured from the left and the right, Bush was forced to back down, rescinding his suspension of Davis-Macon.

Two days after Katrina hit -- at 8:00 p.m. on August 31 -- Secretary of State Rice attended the Broadway show “Spamalot.” She was booed by some audience members when the lights went up after the performance.” (New York Post, September 2, 2005)

The next morning, Rice attended the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament in New York. The New York Post reported: Rice, (in New York) on three days’ vacation to shop and see the U.S. Open, hitting some balls with retired champ Monica Seles at the Indoor Tennis Club at Grand Central.” (New York Post, September 2, 2005)

That afternoon, Rice shopped at the Ferragamo on 5th Avenue and spent several thousands of dollars on shoes. A fellow shopper, unable to fathom the absurdity of Rice’s timing, went up to Rice and reportedly shouted, “How dare you shop for shoes while thousands are dying and homeless!” (www.gawker.com, September 2, 2005)

Yet the morning before Rice was on her shopping spree, State Department spokesman Sean McCormick held his daily briefing. He responded to a journalist who asked whether Rice was involved with hurricane relief efforts by saying, “She’s in contact with the department as appropriate.” He made no mention that his boss had any plans to leave New York.” (www.gawker.com, September 2, 2005)

In addition, another State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore said, “The secretary is back in Washington, and she is being briefed on the situation.” Moore did not know whether Condi had planned a longer stay here. (www.gawker.com, September 2, 2005)

While Rice was concerned about her social life, more than 100 nations -- over half of the world’s countries – offered aid to the hurricane victims. They offered among other things cots, blankets, generators, water, and of course money. For more than one week, Secretary of State Rice failed to indicate to them how and where to deliver aid.

On September 3, Cuba volunteered its services. Fidel Castro offered 1,500 physicians. For days the State Department ignored his overtures. No medical help ever arrived. (CNN, September 5, 2005)

Just as quickly as Katrina hit, Venezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavez offered to send workers and supplies to the hurricane victims. He said, “We place at the disposition of the people of the United States in the event of shortages -- we have drinking water, food, we can provide fuel.” Chavez’s offers were also rejected. (Worldwide News Agency, August 29, 2005)

While millions lost their homes, Cheney bought another luxurious $2.9 million mansion in posh St. Michaels, Maryland. It was set amidst nine lush bayfront acres, with extensive gardens, ornamental pools, and spectacular views. Cheney was never to be seen for several days after Katrina hit.

NEW ORLEANS MAYOR RAY NAGIN. Forty-eight hours before Katrina struck, Mayor Nagin announced, “This is not a test. This is the real idea,” as he urged people to evacuate at an afternoon press conference with Governor Blanco. Nagin said the Superdome would be a shelter of last resort for people with special needs. He expected help to come with enough food and water in at least three or four days. This never happened.

The Superdome was not prepared for the 14,000 people who showed u. In the chaos, people stole some $8,000 worth of barstools and artificial plants and did about $46,000 in damage.

On Sunday morning -- less than 24 hours before the hurricane's landfall -- Nagin finally called for a mandatory evacuation. Some city buses were dispatched to take people without cars to the Superdome to ride out the storm. But there was no indication that buses also ferried people out of the city, beyond the reach of water. In fact, a fleet of several hundred buses was left in a lot that eventually flooded.

Soon after the hurricane struck, the radios used by police, fire fighters and Nagin drained their batteries. Then their satellite phones would not recharge. Hand-line and cell phones went out. For two days, the mayor and his emergency team were cut off. They settled at the Hyatt Regency, fending off gangs of looters. Nagin never used the city’s Mobile Command Center -- meant for just such a disaster. He never joined the other local officials at the emergency center in Baton Rouge.

Richard Zucschlag, head of Acadian Ambulance -- the largest ambulance transport company in southern Louisiana -- moved his dispatch center to the outskirts of New Orleans, where it became the only communications network in the early hours of the disaster. Although Zucschlag’s staff was not trained to do triage, he sent 10 ambulance medics to the Superdome while his 40 ambulances and seven helicopters served as the initial rescue force in the city. For 40 hours, his medics were the only treatment unit there.

THE CITY OF GRETNA LOCKS OUT THE VICTIMS. On the fourth day, hundreds of people in New Orleans hotels were forced to leave. They were told that “officials” said to report to the Convention Center to wait for more buses. National Guardsmen told them that they would not be allowed into the Superdome and that Convention Center was the only other shelter -- but that it was filled with chaos. The displaced people were on their own.

Two hundred of them organized themselves and marched to a bridge that led across a river to the city of Gretna. As the group approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before the sheriffs were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over the marchers’ heads. A few of the marchers managed to speak with the sheriffs. When the marchers asked why they could not cross the bridge to Gretna, the sheriffs answered that their city was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their city.

That evening, a Gretna sheriff showed up. He jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed his gun at their faces, and screamed, “Get off the fucking freeway.” As they retreated, the sheriff loaded up his truck with their food and water. Once again, at gunpoint, they were forced off the freeway. They broke down into small groups so as not to threaten law enforcement.

The next days, a group of eight people just walked. They made contact with the New Orleans Fire Department and were eventually airlifted out by an urban search and rescue team. They were dropped off near the airport. But they were delayed for several hours while Bush landed briefly at the airport for a photo op. They eventually flew to San Antonio, Texas. (www.emsnetwork.org, September 6, 2005)

Some journalists in the New Orleans vicinity expressed enormous outrage at government officials for their slow response. A few television reporters openly broke down on air as they report the horrific conditions and the desperation of victims. Reporters witnessed the militarization of the city and are starting to feel the effects of the government crack-down on information gathering. (Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, September 9, 2005)

FEMA rejected requests by journalists to accompany rescue boats searching for storm victims. In addition, journalists were asked not to photograph any dead bodies in the region. (Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, September 9, 2005)

NBC News Anchor Brian Williams reported that police officers were seen aiming their weapons at members of the media. Reporters Without Borders issued a warning about police violence against journalists working in New Orleans. In one case, police detained a news photographer for The New Orleans Times-Biscayune and smashed his equipment to the ground after he was seen covering a shoot-out with police. In the second case, a photographer from the Toronto Star was detained by police and his photos taken from him when police realized that he had snapped photos of a clash between them and citizens who the police claimed were looters. (Amy Goodman, Democracy Now, September 9, 2005)

On September 14, Bush made his third trip to the Gulf Coast. During the day, he toured a Chevron refinery near New Orleans, while bodies still lay in the city’s streets. That evening he addressed the nation. Foremost, it was a bid to repair his tarnished presidency.

Bush proposed the creation of a “Gulf Opportunity Zone” to encompass the region of the disaster in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. But he offered no specifics. According to the Heritage Foundation, the “opportunity” in the zones was actually for the wealthy few and for special interests seeking to strip away government protections and regulations.

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES REPORT. A bipartisan House select committee launched an investigation, entitled “A Failure of Initiative,” on September 15, 2005. The 11-member bipartisan committee examined the failures at the federal, state, and local levels. On February 12, 2006, the committee issued its blistering report. The report exposed the federal government’s failure to learn the lessons of 9/11. (New York Times, February 12, 2006)

The 600-plus page report, entitled “A Failure of Initiative,” spelled out a number of failures:

The single biggest federal failure was not anticipating the consequences of the storm. Disaster planners had rated the flooding of New Orleans as the nation’s most feared scenario, testing it under a catastrophic disaster preparedness program in 2004.

Government leaders from Bush on down disregarded ample warnings of the threat to New Orleans and did not execute emergency plans or share information that would have saved lives. About 56 hours before Katrina made landfall, the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center cited an “extremely high probability” that New Orleans would be flooded and tens of thousands of residents killed.

Given those warnings, the report noted Bush’s televised statement on September 1: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

Primary fault laid with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out HHS Secretary Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center, and the White House Homeland Security Council.

The White House did not fully engage the president or “substantiate, analyze and act on the information at its disposal,” failing to confirm the collapse of New Orleans’s levee system on August 29, the day of Katrina’s landfall. That led to catastrophic flooding of the city of 500,000 people. The report said, “Earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response” because he alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance.

Chertoff was detached from events. He turned to the government’s emergency response systems “late, ineffectively or not at all.”

He delayed the flow of federal troops and materiel by as much as three days.

He poorly executed many decisions, including declaring Katrina an “incident of national significance” -- the highest designation under the national emergency response plan and convening an interagency board of experienced strategic advisers on August 30 instead of August 27.

He designated an untrained Brown to take charge of the disaster.

He failed to invoke a federal plan that would have pushed federal help to overwhelmed state and local officials rather than waiting for them to request it.

The report said Chertoff was “confused” about Brown’s role and authority, and that it was unclear why he chose him, given his lack of skills and his hostility to FEMA’s downgrading under new plans.

After failing to foresee the need to muster buses, boats and aircraft, the next critical federal mistake was failure to confirm catastrophic levee breaches,. Despite a FEMA official’s eyewitness accounts of breaches starting at 7 p.m. on August 29, the president’s Homeland Security Council, led by homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend and her deputy, Ken Rapuano, did not consider them confirmed until 11 hours later, on August 30.

The first federal order to evacuate New Orleans was not issued until 1:30 a.m. August 31, and came only after FEMA’s ground commander in New Orleans, Phil Parr, put out a call for buses after finding water lapping at the approaches to the Superdome, where about 12,000 victims were camped.

The Homeland Security Council’s “failure to resolve conflicts in information and the ‘fog of war,’ not a lack of information, caused confusion.” The crisis showed the government remained “woefully incapable” of managing information, much as it was before the 2001 attacks.

Pre-storm evacuations by Gulf Coast leaders were praised. But the preparations and decisions by Louisiana Governor Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Nagin were criticized. They knew that 100,000 city residents had no cars and relied on public transit. The city’s failure to complete its mandatory evacuation, ordered August 28, led to hundreds of deaths.

Nagin was faulted for repeating, in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, rumors of armed gangs committing rapes and murder in an “almost animalistic state.” Few cases of gunshots or violence were confirmed, although few police were able to investigate and victims might have had little incentive to report crime. (New York Times, February 12, 2006)

THE WHITE HOUSE REPORT. In late 2005, the White House began investigating and evaluating itself for its role during Katrina. In February 2006, the Bush administration released a 228-page report on the “lessons learned” from Katrina. (New York Times, February 23, 2006)

But the White House report stood in sharp contrast to those of the House of Representatives and that Government Accounting Office -- as well as priorities outlined in Bush’s budget. (Washington Post, February 14, 2006)

In congressional testimony, Brown singled out the Homeland Security Department and Secretary Chertoff as a muddled bureaucracy that slowed relief to the Gulf Coast. Then the White House and Homeland Security struck back, describing Brown as a renegade who failed to follow a chain of command. (Washington Post, February 14, 2006)

The report failed to address the most important issues. It read more like a recitation of history, than a critical overview of what went wrong with the response. It offered rationales for mistakes. For example, the White House report said the federal government failed to recognize on the day the storm hit that major sections of the levees in New Orleans had been breached. But the report failed to explain exactly why the levees failed. (New York Times, February 23, 2006)

The House report found fault with Chertoff for failing to activate a national plan to trigger fast relief -- and Homeland Security, for overseeing an inexperienced emergency response staff. It also concluded that Bush could have speeded the response by becoming involved in the crisis earlier and that he was not receiving guidance from a disaster specialist who would have understood the scope of the Katrina’s destruction. (Washington Post, February 14, 2006)

Yet Bush immediately commented that he had full confidence in Chertoff and did not consider asking him to step down. That echoed Bush’s comments during the height of Katrina when he said, “Brownie, you’re doing a good job.” (Washington Post, February 14, 2006)

THE GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTING OFFICE’S REPORT. In February 2006, the GAO completed its inquiry and charged that the federal government failed to exercise adequate leadership in response to Katrina. The non-partisan organization said the government was slow to determine the scope of the catastrophe. The report placed principal blame on Chertoff for the fumbled response to Katrina. (Washington Post, February 1, 2006; Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2006)

The report said:

All levels of government failed to prepare and abide by disaster plans.

Chertoff failed to move quickly to mobilize resources despite advance warnings that Katrina was likely to be a devastating storm.

He failed to name an individual to spearhead the response was a prime factor in the delays and confusion that followed.

He failed to establish a clear chain of command.

He did not immediately designating Katrina a “catastrophic event,” a technical step that would have permitted federal officials to take the initiative in the emergency. Federal agencies instead had to wait for state and local agencies to request specific kinds of assistance. (Los Angeles Times, February 2, 2006)