Congressional Report on Katrina Blasts FEMA, Homeland Security

One of the amazing things about the disastrous handling of the Hurricane Katrina damage was the resignation of FEMA chief Michael “Heckuva Job, Brownie” Brown. Usually when an incompetent lackey fails miserably in the Bush administration, a medal goes to the bumbler. A congressional select committee report on the mess suggests that Heimatschutzminister Michael Chertoff will get some kind of award for the general ineptitude of his department during August and September 2005.

The report was leaked to CNN, and the network says that part of it reads, “Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare. At every level -- individual, corporate, philanthropic and governmental -- we failed to meet the challenge that was Katrina. In this cautionary tale, all the little pigs built houses of straw.” It is important to note that the committee drafting this had 11 Republicans and no Democrats on it. The Democrats refused to participate and drafted their own report, claiming the GOP’s would be a whitewash – God, help the administration if this is whitewash.

The Republican report does exonerate the president to a degree; most of the time when he is mentioned it is to say that he didn’t get information he needed. The Democrats believe he probably shouldn’t have stayed on vacation, and they are right. At the same time, he only appoints people [usually the inept and unqualified], while the appointees are the ones who screw things up. All the same, he will forever be linked to FEMA director Brown saying, “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie,” while a major American city drowned.

The report also says, “In many respects, our report is a litany of mistakes, misjudgments, lapses and absurdities all cascading together, blinding us to what was coming and hobbling any collective effort to respond . . . . Too often there were too many cooks in the kitchen, and because of that the response to Katrina was at times overdone, at times underdone. Too often, because everybody was in charge, nobody was in charge . . . . If this is what happens when we have advance warning, we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not. Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time. This is particularly distressing because we know we remain at risk for terrorist attacks, and because the 2006 hurricane season is right around the corner.”

Indeed, the handling of the event was pitiful and a national disgrace. TV viewers sat amazed that the pictures they saw weren’t from Bangladesh but the bayou of Louisiana. However, the storm was almost half a year ago. Since then, the Department of Homeland Security (the beloved Heimatschutzministerium) and FEMA have accomplished little. For example, around 11,000 manufactured homes (the trailers from the term “trailer parks”) are sitting unused outside Hope, Arkansas, while FEMA has quit funding hotel rooms for the refugees (yes, that’s what they have been treated like, and that’s what they are). It’s one thing to put them in Hope in a trailer, and quite another just to kick them out of their lodgings. The Kensington Review figures this ought to be worth the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Mr. Chertoff; that's what George Tenet got as CIA director for telling Mr. Bush the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were real – “a slam dunk” certainty.

The Danish flag appears here as a protest against the violence being done to the free press of that country and elsewhere by those offended by some cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed, peace be unto him. A perceived insult is not an excuse for intimidation and violence, even in the name of the Creator. One cannot insult God, only small-minded men who falsely claim to speak for Him. © Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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