posted on September 10, 2005 06:43:15 AM new
Guard Stretched Between Katrina, Wars
Saturday, September 10, 2005 7:24 AM EDT
The Associated Press
By LIZ SIDOTI
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Guard is stretched so thin by simultaneous assignments in Iraq and the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast that leaders in statehouses and Congress say it is time to reconsider how the force is used.
Republicans and Democrats alike worry about the service's ability to balance its federal and state missions of fighting wars and responding to domestic crises.
"We need to look at what is going to be the long-term future of our Guard when states need to rely on these soldiers for emergencies and the nation continues to rely on them for overseas deployment," said Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat.
About 41,000 Guard members are scattered across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, along with 17,000 active-duty troops. About 30,000 Guard members are serving in Iraq, with smaller numbers in Afghanistan, Kosovo and elsewhere overseas.
Since the storm devastated the deep South, Republicans and Democrats have praised the Guard for what may be the most massive U.S. military response to a domestic natural disaster.
But lawmakers also have questioned whether poor coordination between the federal government and the states — and the overseas deployments — kept the Guard from getting where it was needed quickly after the hurricane.
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, intends to review the Guard's hurricane relief performance this fall.
The head of the National Guard Bureau said Friday the assignment of thousands of Guard troops from Mississippi and Louisiana to Iraq delayed those states' initial hurricane response by about a day.
"Had that brigade been at home and not in Iraq, their expertise and capabilities could have been brought to bear," said Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, the bureau's chief.
However, Blum said that overall, the Iraq assignment is not limiting the military's ability to continue the rescue and recovery operations.
The Pentagon has said the response was swift and another 319,000 Army National Guard and Air National Guard personnel are available if needed.
Nevertheless, lawmakers worry about the short-term impact of the dual duty on the Guard's manpower and equipment availability and the long-term effect on recruitment and retention.
"All those things are going to become much bigger issues that we're going to have to address," said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, a Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Another committee member, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., called Hurricane Katrina a wake-up call that will force Congress to re-evaluate "how do you maintain overseas deployment of significant numbers and still maintain a Guard force in the United States capable of responding to disasters?"
Some lawmakers say the responsibilities placed on the Guard now buttress their long-standing argument that the United States must permanently increase active-duty forces. But those lawmakers also acknowledge that's a tall order at a time of lagging recruitment.
"We're overextended worldwide," said Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. "We have too small an Army for the job that we're doing, yet we can't increase the size of the Army because it's volunteer and we can't enlist anybody."
The federal government has not always brought the Guard under its control for overseas military missions, choosing in many cases to leave the units in states to assist governors during civil disturbances and natural disasters.
But in recent years, the Pentagon has viewed the part-time citizen soldiers as a component of overall military operations and regularly sent Guard forces abroad, often for extended tours.
Governors and members of Congress have frequently questioned whether long active-duty tours harm recruitment, retention and soldiers' families.
Calling on the Guard for hurricane relief for an undetermined amount of time has intensified those concerns.
"Iraq and Afghanistan alone have been stressful," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "This doesn't make it any easier. And it probably makes it harder."
Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican, said the hurricane clearly adds strain. However, he said: "The level of catastrophe is so enormous it would tax us regardless" of whether or not the Guard was serving overseas.
President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld contend the military can handle the war and hurricane relief. But some lawmakers aren't convinced.
"It's pretty clear we have enough Guard people in the United States, but are they capable of handling our oversees commitments as well? We need to figure out how that impacts our ability in Iraq," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
posted on September 10, 2005 07:23:33 AM new
Cheryl, Bush will do anything to hold off on the Draft until after the 2006 elections. Then watch out!!!!!
posted on September 10, 2005 07:26:53 AM new
It's not a President's job to establish nor enforce the planning for emergencies in the states....it's the responsibility of the local and state officials....and their elected representatives who actually 'make the call' on what to do when'.
This President had to go so far as to personally call the governor of LA on August 28 and TELL her what she should do....declare a state of emergency. Did she...not until later.
And as time goes on....more and more are going to see who REALLY failed these people....their own mayor and governor by keeping the help that was ready, willing and able to come in and help, [b]but was BLOCKED by the governor, herself.
Might want to notice the numbers/percentages of National guards who are serving in Iraq. Might help put the issue of troops being in Iraq and not able to help their own state in perspectative.
Might....I say, with others NOTHING will EVER be put into perspectative....they have a different agenda going.
-------
Blacks fault lack of local leadership
By Brian DeBose
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 10, 2005
Some in the black community are beginning to question what happened to the black leadership during the Hurricane Katrina disaster, especially in the city of New Orleans.
While a few black leaders, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Congressional Black Caucus, have singled out the president for blame, others say Mayor C. Ray Nagin, who is black, is responsible for the dismal response to the flooding that stranded thousands in the city's poorest sections.
"Mayor Nagin has blamed everyone else except himself," said the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, founder and president of the Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny.
"The mayor failed in his duty to evacuate and protect the people of New Orleans. ... The truth is, black people died not because of President Bush or racism, they died because of their unhealthy dependence on the government and the incompetence of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco," he said.
As news and images of the dead, stranded, sick and hungry waiting days for help inundated Americans over the last two weeks, public officials at every level have sought to deflect blame. Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael D. Brown and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff have pointed their fingers at the first responders in New Orleans and Louisiana, while the mayor and the governor have sought to tag the Bush administration with botching the emergency response.
The New Orleans mayor has criticized the president for the slow response and the resulting loss of life, but recent reports show he failed to follow through on his own city's emergency-response plan, which acknowledged that thousands of the city's poorest residents would have no way to evacuate the city.
He took a second hit when an Associated Press photo showed 2,000 school buses under water and parked in a lot, unused in the evacuation. Reports say those buses could have ferried thousands of residents to safety outside New Orleans had they been deployed.
Black political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson, author of "The Disappearance of Black Leadership," said the problem lies with the current focus of black leadership, in both the elected and activist crowd, away from the poor and toward the new majority of middle-class black Americans.
"In the past two decades, there has been a middle-class-focused leadership," Mr. Hutchinson said. "It is one thing to talk about affirmative action and moving people into top management positions in corporate America, but that does not do anything for the black poor."
Julian Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said there is plenty of blame for all governments -- local, state and federal.
"Something like this has been predicted for years and years, and it seems none of [the government officials] did anything about it to stop it, not simply for people who had nothing before the storm and now have less than nothing, but for everyone there," Mr. Bond said.
But taking a cue from prominent black leaders, Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat, put the blame on Mr. Bush and his record as commander in chief. "The president's policies in Iraq contributed to the slow response of federal troops who should have been on alert even before the hurricane struck."
"Now, as bedlam reigns in New Orleans, 35 percent of Louisiana's and 37 percent of Mississippi's National Guard troops are in Iraq. The hurricane is clear evidence of how the war directly affects the domestic security of our country," he said.
Mr. Peterson, however, chastised those who would lay all the blame at the feet of Mr. Bush.
"If black folks want to blame someone for this tragedy, they only need to look in the mirror. Hopefully, this will help black people realize the folly of depending on the government or leaders and serve as a notice to avert future tragedies in other cities," he said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ edited by Linda_K on Sep 10, 2005 07:35 AM ]
posted on September 10, 2005 09:20:09 AM new
LindaKKK says,""""Now, as bedlam reigns in New Orleans, 35 percent of Louisiana's and 37 percent of Mississippi's National Guard troops are in Iraq. The hurricane is clear evidence of how the war directly affects the domestic security of our country," he said.""
(I'm glad you agree LindaKKK, that our "domestic security" is in trouble under bushy)
""Mr. Peterson, however, chastised those who would lay all the blame at the feet of Mr. Bush.
"If black folks want to blame someone for this tragedy, they only need to look in the mirror. Hopefully, this will help
"""""""black people realize the folly of depending on the government or leaders and serve as a notice to avert future tragedies in other cities," he said."""""""
So LindaKKKKKKKKK, YOU agree with a man who sets blacks apart from white Americans...how racist.
Is the statement: "White people realize the folly of depending on the government or leaders" true?
posted on September 10, 2005 09:38:54 AM new
Just pointing out how some black leaders can see the truth of the situation.
It's going to be interesting to see how many of the black population continue to support the democrats that turned away help from the Federal government, help from the Red Cross and help from other smaller organizations that were 'Johnny-on-the-spot' to save/help these people.
And when they watch their towns being rebuild...they'll see who really helped them....the republican party leaders....our republican led congress.....NOT THE DEMS they elected who obviously have no leadership abilities to handle a crisis like this.
I can see it now....more voting Republican.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 10, 2005 10:01:44 AM new
I notice how you quickly glanced over the FACT that only about 1/3 of their Guard units are in Iraq....they rest WERE there.....ready to be sent in to help. But the governor, a DEM, wouldn't allow it.
-------------
And I do agree with the black leaders who can see the truth of the situation. That doesn't make me nor them racists.
well.....in your twisted way of viewing things it probably does....but to mentally stable people it never would.
"The mayor failed in his duty to evacuate and protect the people of New Orleans. ... The truth is, black people died not because of President Bush or racism, they died because of their unhealthy dependence on the government and the incompetence of Mayor Ray Nagin and Governor Kathleen Blanco," he said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
[ edited by Linda_K on Sep 10, 2005 10:04 AM ]
For anyone who is not familiar with Washington D.C. newspapers, The Washington Times is a conservative right wing newspaper and does not represent the black viewpoint. They represent the Bush administration viewpoint which has no regard for poor people of any color anywhere.
posted on September 10, 2005 10:20:51 AM new
ROFL - helen...you really take the cake.
Show us ALL where THEY state THEY support the republicans.
And secondly you're acting stupid again.....the WA Times is quoting black leaders. It doesn't matter who reports what they say....it's just that the liberal WAPost and lying NYT won't report those who see the situation differently.
Get with it helen....a quote is a quote....and from a black representative of the black community there.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 10, 2005 10:22:17 AM new
Linda you should listen sometime to Larry Elder, he has some great observations and heaven forbid is black.
"Get with it helen....a quote is a quote....and from a black representative of the black community there."
Only you would read one quote from one Rev. and believe that it represents the feeling of most black people. You have the kind of gullibility on which the Washington Times relies as they spread their deception in favor of George Bush.
posted on September 10, 2005 10:44:52 AM new
Somehow, methinks the photo of 2000 flooded buses under the control of the mayor are worth a thousand words EACH about how it was the President's job to be mayor.
GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.”
5AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE [CNN]
GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.”
Office of the Governor
FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House]
White House
posted on September 10, 2005 11:04:23 AM new
Here, helen, a MUCH more leftist leaning paper...the Times. STILL agrees with a lot of what I've stated on different posts here....while doing what the left does best, complaining about this President. And even thought YOU'VE made it perfectly clear that YOU don't believe that the NYT nor the WAPO are liberal papers, I'm sure others see it differenty than you do.
-------
Warnings were loud and clear - but still city drowned
By Giles Whittell
09/08/05 "The Times" -- -- IF THERE is a smoking gun in the Gulf Coast wreckage, it is the hurricane warning issued by the New Orleans office of the US National Weather Service soon after 10am on August 28, the eve of Katrina's arrival.
"Devastating damage expected," the warning stated. "Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks . . . All gabled roofs will fail . . . All wood-framed low rising apartment buildings will be destroyed . . . Power outages will last for weeks . . . Water shortages will make human suffering incredible by modern standards . . . Trees will be snapped or uprooted. Only the heartiest will remain standing."
Another forecast, issued six hours later by the National Hurricane Centre in Florida, said that the levees in New Orleans could be "overtopped", and predicted the precise depth of flooding that would result.
A day later the city drowned. Hundreds, if not thousands, have died in the chaos. Some casualties were inevitable but many were not, and this much is clear about those in authority who might have minimised the losses: they had been warned.
Of all the warnings issued on Katrin, the National Weather Service bulletin of the August 28 was uniquely detailed and strongly worded. Why? "Because the people down here are somewhat complacent," Leonard Bucklin, a veteran forecaster at the service's New Orleans office, told The Times.
"There are those who have survived previous storms and think 'I lived through that and I can live through this'. We were trying to tell them that this was bigger, slower moving and with greater winds even than Hurricane Betsy in 1965."
Mr Bucklin was on duty that morning. He would not take credit for the warning but called it "a pretty good product" — a product distributed without delay to Louisiana's state and parish emergency preparedness offices, the Governor's office and the media. "They all have access to this data," he said.
It is hard not to conclude that the complacency which Mr Bucklin attributes to individuals also paralysed government agencies on at least five levels, whose initial responses to the worst natural disaster in US history have been shown to be late, inadequate and hopelessly confused.
Tragedy, at times, has descended into farce. As looters arrived to haunt the French Quarter, up to 200 New Orleans emergency personnel turned in their badges to help their families. As the city ran dry of drinking water, lorry- loads of it were turned back by police. On Tuesday, when 180 evacuees boarded a plane to Charleston, South Carolina, they were mistakenly flown to Charleston, West Virginia.
With hindsight, it is clear that the seeds of what one Republican senator called yesterday the "woeful" government response were sown with shoddy planning. Despite decades of lobbying by local politicians and media for stronger levees, those that ruptured on the night of August 29 had been built by the Army Corps of Engineers to withstand only a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina was a Category 4.
Despite calls since the September 11 attacks for a comprehensive new evacuation plan for New Orleans, the one in place last week had last been updated in 2000, according to the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.
The vaguely worded plan stated that "the primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles" even though an estimated 100,000 residents did not own their own cars. It was also implemented by Ray Nagin, the Mayor, too late for buses to reach those without cars, or to prepare the Superdome to receive them.
By the time he did, on August 28, it was clear from the National Hurricane Centre's flood warnings that federal assistance would be needed swiftly and on a huge scale. Yet it took four days to materialise, largely because of the inertia of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (Fema).
Fema, an umbrella for 14 federal agencies that form part of the giant new Department of Homeland Security, is a key link in the chain of command from President Bush and the US military to local "first responders". It has also proved to be the weakest link. It has been starved of funds and denied direct access to the President since September 11, and is led by a former head of the Arabian Horse Association.
As the blame game got into its stride on Tuesday, White House officials reminded reporters that Mr Bush, at the request of Louisiana's Governor Kathleen Blanco, declared a state of emergency for the Gulf Coast area as early as August 27. This should have hastened the delivery of federal aid but the President has no power to force such aid on a state that has not requested it.
Meanwhile, General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, claimed that the military had been "pushing" offers of help days before the hurricane hit, and Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, insisted: "The Department of Defence is not a first responder. You need to be invited."
That invitation should have come from Fema but was not received until last Thursday. Fighting for his political life yesterday, Michael Brown, the beleaguered Fema chief, revealed that he had asked the Department of Homeland Security for authority to send 1,000 personnel to the New Orleans area within 48 hours of the hurricane hitting, and a further 2,000 within the next week. The delays were to allow for special disaster training, a spokesman said. Congressional investigators are likely to ask why that training had not already been completed. The hapless Mr Brown and his two most senior subordinates are all political appointees with little experience of large-scale disaster management. Amid widespread calls for his dismissal, from Senator Hillary Clinton among others, some senior Republicans have come to his defence, pointing out that Fema has been weakened since being subsumed by the Department of Homeland Security, whose chief task is to defend the US against terrorism.
Michael Chertoff, the new Homeland Security Secretary, has performed little better than Mr Brown. On August 30, a day after the levees broke, both men revealed that they had no idea the city was under water. On September 1, as chaos reigned in the Superdome and at the Civic Centre, they expressed surprise at the horrifying conditions there even though graphic reports depicting them had been running on TV for two days.
In a country with three main layers of government and multiple sub-divisions within those layers, confusion is inevitable when all must work together without an agreed script. To minimise that confusion, responsibility for responding to disasters is supposed to start with those closest to them. In this case, they were among the victims. The entire echelon of first responders in New Orleans, including firefighters, police and local National Guard units, were driven from their own homes and often to despair. Two police officers committed suicide. The city government moved to Baton Rouge.
In such circumstances it should have been clear not only to Mr Brown but also to Ms Blanco that federal help was vital whatever the bureaucratic obstacles. Ms Blanco appears to have seen things differently. At a meeting on Air Force One outside Baton Rouge last Friday, Mr Bush offered her the full force of every federal relief agency including the military, he claims. Fearful of losing control of the relief effort and of being blamed later for doing so, she asked for another 24 hours to think about it. The system of checks, balances and multilayer government that was designed to protect Americans from tyranny has not merely failed to protect them from Hurricane Katrina. It has greatly increased the suffering of its victims.
At least two congressional inquiries will try to establishwhat went wrong, but one irony is already obvious: a President who stands for shrunken government has found himself presiding over far too much of it.
2005 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Warnings were loud and clear - but still city drowned!
posted on September 10, 2005 11:17:07 AM new
Ron - I have read him for a long time already. Also a couple of other black writers/journalists whose articles appear on Townhall.com
I like seeing how there are 'normal' thinking black men and women who also agree with many of the issues I do. And it wouldn't matter to me if their skin color was green....if they think the same way I do....I approve.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 10, 2005 02:41:19 PM new
Throughout the week, White House spokesman Scott McClellan assured the nation that it was only Democrats and troublemakers in the elite news media who delighted in playing that long-lost American sport known as the blame game. Every other American wasn't inclined to point fingers, he said, because we all know that kvetching about whether the federal government might have saved lives or eased suffering by doing more than it did, faster and more competently than it did -- well, Americans are better than that. We're not a nation of glum, hard-to-please, sad-faced, finger-pointing blame-gamers.
The thing is, though, it turns out we are! A slate of new polls released in the last couple days shows that when something goes catastrophically wrong, Americans, like people everywhere else, apparently want to hold someone accountable for the mistakes. In other words, the blame game has caught on. What's more, the White House is losing.
A poll by the Pew Research Center shows that 67 percent of Americans believe George W. Bush "could have done more" to aid hurricane victims. The picture is roughly the same in other surveys: A Zogby poll shows 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's hurricane response, CBS has 58 percent disapproval, Associated Press-Ipsos finds 52 percent, and Newsweek says that 40 percent of Americans think the federal government's hurricane response was "poor," while 32 percent say it was "fair." When SurveyUSA asked Americans to rate Bush's hurricane response on a scale of 1 to 10 --1 being a miserable failure, 10 being awesome -- 34 percent gave him a 1. More than half rated him a 5 or less. (But 24 percent of respondents -- call them blame-game-player-haters -- gave him a 9 or 10.)
All these polls show that Bush's poor hurricane response has damaged his overall approval rating. In some polls, Bush's unpopularity is breathtaking: Newsweek shows just 38 percent approve of the job he's doing. The poll also shows that what was once seen as Bush's greatest strength -- his capacity to convince Americans that only he could keep us out of danger -- has fizzled. The magazine reports that 52 percent of Americans "say they do not trust the president 'to make the right decisions during a domestic crisis' (45 percent do). The numbers are exactly the same when the subject is trust of the president to make the right decisions during an international crisis."
We could go on and on with the bad ratings -- we could tell you about the staggeringly high number of Americans who believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, or who disapprove of everything from Bush's handling of gas prices to the war in Iraq.... But maybe that's enough blame-gaming for one Saturday afternoon.
posted on September 10, 2005 04:27:05 PM new
If 99% of poll respondents thought New Orleans was a new military base on the moon, it still wouldn't change the timeline of Linda's post.
It is immaterial if 3 idiots' "perception" of something is the same. If it is wrong, it is still wrong.
If you ask me, not calling the feds because it will look like "you've lost control" of a situation is almost negligent homicide.
GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.”
5AM CDT — KATRINA UPGRADED TO CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE [CNN]
GOV. BLANCO ASKS BUSH TO DECLARE FEDERAL STATE OF EMERGENCY IN LOUISIANA: “I have determined that this incident is of such severity and magnitude that effective response is beyond the capabilities of the State and affected local governments, and that supplementary Federal assistance is necessary to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a disaster.”
Office of the Governor
FEDERAL EMERGENCY DECLARED, DHS AND FEMA GIVEN FULL AUTHORITY TO RESPOND TO KATRINA: “Specifically, FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency.” [White House]
White House
posted on September 10, 2005 05:53:46 PM new
helen - If you've read the NYT on either the 8th or the 9th...THEY specifically state that the Governor would NOT give up control to the Feds.
Remembering there was looting going on, people being shot, etc...much civil disobedience. Someone had to be in control, get the situation in control FIRST before any aid = water, food, etc. could be SAFELY brought in.
AND again, Blanco would not give up control....and the only way the Federal government could have stepped in would have been to go over her head, legally, and TAKE control against her objections. They decided the law did not permit them to do so....so they didn't.
This all is because of her actions....not the lack of actions on those trying to bring in necessary items.
Read the NYT for yourself....they discuss the whole issue of the Feds discussing if they legally could take control away from her.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 10, 2005 06:09:21 PM newRead the NYT for yourself....they discuss the whole issue of the Feds discussing if they legally could take control away from her. They decided the law did not permit them to do so....so they didn't.
I just dont think anybody wants to read that, Linda.
posted on September 10, 2005 06:39:47 PM newPolitical Issues Snarled Plans for Troop Aid
By ERIC LIPTON, ERIC SCHMITT
and THOM SHANKER
Published: September 9, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 - As New Orleans descended into chaos last week and Louisiana's governor asked for 40,000 soldiers, President Bush's senior advisers debated whether the president should speed the arrival of active-duty troops by seizing control of the hurricane relief mission from the governor.
For reasons of practicality and politics, officials at the Justice Department and the Pentagon, and then at the White House, decided not to urge Mr. Bush to take command of the effort. Instead, the Washington officials decided to rely on the growing number of National Guard personnel flowing into Louisiana, who were under Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco's control.
The debate began after officials realized that Hurricane Katrina had exposed a critical flaw in the national disaster response plans created after the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the administration's senior domestic security officials, the plan failed to recognize that local police, fire and medical personnel might be incapacitated.
As criticism of the response to Hurricane Katrina has mounted, one of the most pointed questions has been why more troops were not available more quickly to restore order and offer aid. Interviews with officials in Washington and Louisiana show that as the situation grew worse, they were wrangling with questions of federal/state authority, weighing the realities of military logistics and perhaps talking past each other in the crisis.
To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.
While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges.
But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.
"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.
Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.
"I need everything you have got," Ms. Blanco said she told Mr. Bush last Monday, after the storm hit.
In an interview, she acknowledged that she did not specify what sorts of soldiers. "Nobody told me that I had to request that," Ms. Blanco said. "I thought that I had requested everything they had. We were living in a war zone by then."
By Wednesday, she had asked for 40,000 soldiers.
In the discussions in Washington, also at issue was whether active-duty troops could respond faster and in larger numbers than the Guard.
By last Wednesday, Pentagon officials said even the 82nd Airborne, which has a brigade on standby to move out within 18 hours, could not arrive any faster than 7,000 National Guard troops, which are specially trained and equipped for civilian law enforcement duties.
In the end, the flow of thousands of National Guard soldiers, especially military police, was accelerated from other states.
"I was there. I saw what needed to be done," Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, said in an interview. "They were the fastest, best-capable, most appropriate force to get there in the time allowed. And that's what it's all about."
posted on September 10, 2005 06:46:47 PM new
Helen just loves that word "notified".
Hell, CNN "notified" me days before Katrina even hit. Put an umbrella in the car and everything. But as Linda and the papers pointed out the key word is "requested".
posted on September 10, 2005 06:51:37 PM new
Published: September 9, 2005
(Page 2 of 2)
But one senior Army officer expressed puzzlement that active-duty troops were not summoned sooner, saying 82nd Airborne troops were ready to move out from Fort Bragg, N.C., on Sunday, the day before the hurricane hit.
The call never came, administration officials said, in part because military officials believed Guard troops would get to the stricken region faster and because administration civilians worried that there could be political fallout if federal troops were forced to shoot looters.
Louisiana officials were furious that there was not more of a show of force, in terms of relief supplies and troops, from the federal government in the middle of last week. As the water was rising in New Orleans, the governor repeatedly questioned whether Washington had started its promised surge of federal resources.
"We needed equipment," Ms. Blanco said in an interview. "Helicopters. We got isolated."
Aides to Ms. Blanco said she was prepared to accept the deployment of active-duty military officials in her state. But she and other state officials balked at giving up control of the Guard as Justice Department officials said would have been required by the Insurrection Act if those combat troops were to be sent in before order was restored.
In a separate discussion last weekend, the governor also rejected a more modest proposal for a hybrid command structure in which both the Guard and active-duty troops would be under the command of an active-duty, three-star general - but only after he had been sworn into the Louisiana National Guard.
Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, director of operations for the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the Pentagon in August streamlined a rigid, decades-old system of deployment orders to allow the military's Northern Command to dispatch liaisons to work with local officials before an approaching hurricane.
The Pentagon is reviewing events from the time Hurricane Katrina reached full strength and bore down on New Orleans and five days later when Mr. Bush ordered 7,200 active-duty soldiers and marines to the scene.
After the hurricane passed New Orleans and the levees broke, flooding the city, it became increasingly evident that disaster-response efforts were badly bogged down.
Justice Department lawyers, who were receiving harrowing reports from the area, considered whether active-duty military units could be brought into relief operations even if state authorities gave their consent - or even if they refused.
The issue of federalizing the response was one of several legal issues considered in a flurry of meetings at the Justice Department, the White House and other agencies, administration officials said.
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales urged Justice Department lawyers to interpret the federal law creatively to help local authorities, those officials said. For example, federal prosecutors prepared to expand their enforcement of some criminal statutes like anti-carjacking laws that can be prosecuted by either state or federal authorities.
On the issue of whether the military could be deployed without the invitation of state officials, the Office of Legal Counsel, the unit within the Justice Department that provides legal advice to federal agencies, concluded that the federal government had authority to move in even over the objection of local officials.
This act was last invoked in 1992 for the Los Angeles riots, but at the request of Gov. Pete Wilson of California, and has not been invoked over a governor's objections since the civil rights era - and before that, to the time of the Civil War, administration officials said.
Bush administration, Pentagon and senior military officials warned that such an extreme measure would have serious legal and political implications.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said deployment of National Guard soldiers to Iraq, including a brigade from Louisiana, did not affect the relief mission, but Ms. Blanco disagreed. "Over the last year, we have had about 5,000 out, at one time," she said. "They are on active duty, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That certainly is a factor."
By Friday, National Guard reinforcements had arrived, and a truck convoy of 1,000 Guard soldiers brought relief supplies - and order - to the convention center area.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security say the experience with Hurricane Katrina has demonstrated flaws in the nation's plans to handle disaster.
"This event has exposed, perhaps ultimately to our benefit, a deficiency in terms of replacing first responders who tragically may be the first casualties," Paul McHale, the assistant secretary of defense for domestic security, said.
Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, has suggested that active-duty troops be trained and equipped to intervene if front-line emergency personnel are stricken.
But the Pentagon's leadership remains unconvinced that this plan is sound, suggesting instead that the national emergency response plans be revised to draw reinforcements initially from civilian police, firefighters, medical personnel and hazardous-waste experts in other states not affected by a disaster.
The federal government rewrote its national emergency response plan after the Sept. 11 attacks, but it relied on local officials to manage any crisis in its opening days. But Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed local "first responders," including civilian police and the National Guard.
At a news conference on Saturday, Mr. Chertoff said, "The unusual set of challenges of conducting a massive evacuation in the context of a still dangerous flood requires us to basically break the traditional model and create a new model, one for what you might call kind of an ultra-catastrophe.""
posted on September 10, 2005 06:55:49 PM new
LOL....dbl....sorry...I just now saw you 'nobody here wants to read it' post. Well....then they can just scroll past it/them.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 10, 2005 06:57:13 PM new
Isn't it funny how when the first criticism of Bush came out how all the neocons said how pointing fingers and blaming blame was just too naughty and not helpful at all ?
Now, that they've connived some defense of bush they are blaming away with both barrels
)
