More blame-gaming

[lederhosen]

Everybody in Washington seems to have decided (about a week late) that the only priority now is to help Katrina's victims. Shouldn't we set politics aside and let questions of responsibility can wait until afterwards (i.e. when interest has died down)?

Well, no. Helping the victims is the most important thing right now, sure. But that process is going to take months, probably years, and we need to make sure that the same factors and people that screwed up the initial response so royally aren't going to screw up the rest of the process too.

Via remus_shepherd, this Washington Post article discusses one of the reasons why the Federal response was held up:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, 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. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

As per commentary here, "Declaring martial law would give the Federal government total control of the city: the Army would be brought in to police it and—perhaps most important to this corporate president—the Federal government would have charge of all the rebuilding contracts."

But wouldn't martial law have been a good thing, given the subsequent lawlessness in NOLA, I hear you ask? Well, I doubt things would ever have been *pretty* in NOLA, but I also doubt they'd have been anywhere near as bad if FEMA had pitched in to assist Louisiana's response - rather than sitting on their hands for days while the Feds tried to blackmail Blanco into giving them effective ownership of the city. Prompt and cooperative action by FEMA would've meant less refugees and more food in NOLA, and as this account from two Californian paramedics stranded in NOLA after a conference indicates, that would've gone a long way to calming things down.

As it was... well, rather than me cribbing all its content, just have a look at this Respectful of Otters post for tales of charter buses ready to evacuate refugees, stalled waiting for FEMA's OK, search-and-rescue-trained firefighters assigned to handing out fliers for FEMA (oh, and to stand behind Bush for photo ops), and National Guard troops from other states held up by paperwork in Washington.

BTW, despite the excuses of Chertoff and others, the federal government did *not* have to wait for a formal request from Blanco before getting aid into motion. The National Response Plan, which went into effect last December and is supposed to help streamline federal crisis response, states (p. 43): "Standard procedures regarding requests for assistance may be expedited or, under extreme circumstances, suspended in the immediate aftermath of an event of catastrophic magnitude. Identified Federal response resources will deploy and begin necessary operations as required to commence life-safety activities. Notification and full coordination with States will occur, but the coordination process must not delay or impede the rapid deployment and use of critical resources. States are urged to notify and coordinate with local governments regarding a proactive Federal response."

Contrary to that plan, they held off on the 'assistance' part - exacerbating the crisis - because they didn't just want to provide aid; they wanted to run the show.



Edit: The Washington Post article reports a 'senior Bush official' as claiming that "as of Saturday [Sept 3rd], Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency". In fact, as noted in a correction on that article, the declaration was issued on Friday August 26th (see press release here).

Comments

[jazzmasterson.livejournal.com]

More:

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006754.html

Why didn't people just leave? Because they were being turned away at gunpoint, apparently.

[panacea1.livejournal.com]

Cause, don't ya know, Black People are TEH SCARY. And so are White People Who Aren't Like Us. So we can't let them come anywhere near here, Just In Case...

*headdesk*