Ditto: Iraq

The point is: FEMA had it, FEMA got it, FEMA didn’t use it. Although FEMA functioned just fine through four major hurricanes in Florida, FEMA could not meet even the most basic needs of New Orleans citizens after Hurricane Katrina. The big question is “Why?”.

Could it be that Bush and Cronies didn’t—and still don’t—want to ‘save’ New Orleans? Could it be that our current ‘government’ sees New Orleans as just another opportunity to get rich when the former citizens of New Orleans cannot meet their mortgage payments and those mortgages are foreclosed?

That’s a lot of up-for-grab riches there in that wasteland of a former major American city. (Let’s call it Savings and Loan Debacle instead of New Orleans.)

Now, FEMA faces the displaced folks in New Orleans, and predictably cries “Help me, Daddy” when angry folks demand action or else. It is neither the little folks working for FEMA, nor the returning former citizens of New Orleans who are at risk here.

What is at risk is the Bush Regime. That Bush and Cronies will continue to rape New Orleans and her citizens is a given—nothing which has been said, written, or exposed will stop the looting of New Orleans under the current administration.

This modus operandi is seen throughout all of the Bush dealings: exposure means nothing. “Shame” does not apply to the Bush people.

You still don’t get it: these people are criminals. They do not hold themselves to the American standard of fairness.

You only have to look at the parallels between what eventually became Nazi Germany and America today to see how all of this will play out. You only have to believe that exposing all the malfeasance that has come to light over the past month means nothing. A suspension of disbelief by the press and the people of America is in order here.

Exposure is not working.

The only thing that will work is removing these people from positions of power—the sooner the better.

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Ridge Assesses Storm Response
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Calls for More Training

By Spencer S. HsuWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, December 3, 2005; A14

U.S. officials failed to employ a national disaster plan before Hurricane Katrina struck, but even if they had, the plan was so untested that it would not have made a dramatic difference, former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge said yesterday.

Speaking at length publicly for the first time about the Aug. 29 storm, which killed more than 1,200 people and triggered a domestic crisis for the Bush administration six months after Ridge left office, the former secretary defended the leadership of former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael D. Brown. However, Ridge said in an interview that more training is needed to unify disaster plans, managers and command systems at all levels of government.

Ridge said his old department should name regional chiefs to work closely with governors, mayors and state homeland security officials in each section of the country to prevent the breakdowns that hampered Brown, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) and New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin before and after the storm.

Ridge unsuccessfully pushed for a regional structure before stepping down in February. White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend is scheduled to finish work later this month on a broad internal review ordered by President Bush of the government's flawed response.

Now consulting and engaged in several private sector initiatives from temporary quarters on Capitol Hill, Ridge did not criticize his successor, Secretary Michael Chertoff. Instead, Ridge credited Chertoff for embracing some of Ridge's suggestions, such as a stronger focus on emergency preparedness and policy-setting.

Ridge said that he did not know what information Chertoff had at the time. And without casting blame, Ridge said that authorities did not use a response plan drafted in September of 2003 and finalized in January, activate a multi-agency crisis management group, or prepare adequately before the storm hit.

"There just didn't seem to me to be any collaboration up front, any communication," he said. "You don't have to be a meteorologist to see a big red ball going to New Orleans to say, 'Oh, my God, this is going to be big.' Shouldn't you be over-prepared, rather than under-prepared?"

Ridge said that "even if they had employed the National Response Plan before the disaster, rather than after the disaster, you'd have found probably, you know, some gaps in the response."

But if authorities had had a year or two to practice and exercise the plan, "the response would have been entirely different and far more positive," he said. "Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn't care . . . that the NRP hadn't been fully implemented."

Ridge said whatever Brown's performance, there was not a shortage of qualified leadership in FEMA, which Chertoff has criticized. Ridge said Brown and his team "did a pretty good job of managing" four hurricanes in Florida in 2004 and that the ranks below him "were all professional managers."

But Ridge called "predictable whining" and "way overblown" Brown's statements to Congress that the department pursued the "emaciation" of FEMA's budget and personnel since 2003.

"At the end of the day, they got the money to do their day-to-day operations," Ridge said. "When it required additional federal assistance because of the severity of storms, they got it."

© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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FEMA Pulls Out of Lower Ninth
Agency Calls for Troops, Reporting Threats of Violence

By Spencer S. HsuWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, December 3, 2005; A14

The Federal Emergency Management Agency pulled all its workers out of New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward yesterday after threats of violence and planned to request additional police or National Guard support, a FEMA spokeswoman said.

A spokeswoman for Mayor C. Ray Nagin said the police commander for the district knew of no incidents or threat complaints.

The Lower Ninth Ward was reopened Thursday; it was the last neighborhood in the city to remain closed as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Residents, who had been limited to bus tours, were allowed to reenter homes, inspect damage and retrieve items but not stay in the area, which still lacks electricity.

But U.S. Army Corps of Engineers workers near levees and FEMA workers -- who were on hand to help remove debris, set up disaster service centers and coordinate relief -- received numerous threats, said FEMA spokeswoman Nicol Andrews . About 20 FEMA workers were withdrawn from the area, Andrews said.

"It's unfortunate that threats of violence would be made against anyone, as we all work together to recover from this disaster," Andrews said. "The first priority is to protect and ensure the safety of FEMA workers. There are a lot of employees working hard . . . to help folks return to their homes and ensure they are receiving the assistance they are eligible for under the law."

Andrews said local FEMA workers planned to seek an increased presence by local or federal law enforcement or Guard troops before resuming their duties.

But Tami Frazier, a spokeswoman for Nagin, said the New Orleans Police Department commander in charge of the area reported no incidents, complaints or removal of anyone for making threats. "We have stated . . . that we would have guards out there and police officers escorting people during this time," Frazier said, "but there has not been an increase in police or guardsmen."

One relief worker in the region said an angry resident berated a Corps of Engineers employee before delivering a threat to the effect of "I'm going to go get my gun, and I'm going to kill you." Federal agents have arrested six people in the New Orleans area in recent weeks for making threats against FEMA workers, who have been advised against wearing clothing with the agency logo in public.

A New Orleans Police spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

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December 3, 2005

Op-Ed Columnist

W.'s Head in the Sand

By MAUREEN DOWD

In the Christmas spirit, the time has come for the reality-based community to reach out to the White House.
The Bush warriors are so deluded, they're even faking their fakery.

This week, the president presented a plan-like plan for "victory" in Iraq, which Scott McClellan rather pompously called the unclassified version of their supersecret master plan. But there would be no way to achieve victory from this plan even if it were a real plan. If this is what they're telling themselves in the Sit Room, we're in bigger trouble than we thought.

Talk about your unknown unknowns, as Rummy would say.

The National Strategy for Victory must have come from the same P.R. genius who gave President Top Gun the "Mission Accomplished" banner about 48 hours before the first counterinsurgency war of the 21st century broke out in Iraq.

It's not a military strategy - classified or unclassified. It's political talking points - and not even good ones. Are we really supposed to believe that anybody, even the most deeply delusional Bush sycophant, believes the phrase "Our strategy is working"?

The president talked about three neatly definable groups of insurrectionists. But as Dexter Filkins reported in yesterday's New York Times, there are dozens, perhaps as many as a hundred, groups fighting the U.S. Army in Iraq, and they have little, if anything, in common.

Mr. Bush's presentation claimed that the U.S. was actually making progress in Iraq. But outside the Bush-Cheney-Rummy bubble, 10 more marines were killed by a roadside bomb outside Falluja, for a total of 2,125 U.S. military deaths so far.

The administration must realize it needs a real exit strategy, because it's advertising for one. The U.S. Agency for International Development is offering more than $1 billion for anyone - anyone at all - who can come up with a plan to pacify and rebuild 10 Iraqi cities seen as vital in the war.

Maybe the White House should apply - Usaid's proffer says the "invitation is open to any type of entity."

When Bush officials weren't telling us fairy tales about the big, bad W.M.D. in Iraq, they were assuring us that the unprovoked war would be a kindness for Iraq, giving it democracy. But they are not just failing to bring democracy to Iraq as they help Iranian-backed mullahs install an Islamic republic with Saddamist torture chambers. They are also degrading democracy in America.

They've tarnished American moral leadership with illegal detentions, torture, secret C.I.A. prisons in countries only recently liberated from the Soviet gulag, and Soviet-style propaganda both at home and in Iraq.

Guess the Bush administration didn't learn anything this fall when federal auditors said it had violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of its education polices. Bush officials got right back into the fake news business, paying to plant propaganda in the Iraqi press. They outsourced this disinformation campaign to something called the Lincoln Group - have they no shame?

You have to admire Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman. He kept a straight face when he called the U.S. "a leader when it comes to promoting and advocating a free and independent media around the world." He added, "We've made our views very clear when it comes to freedom of the press."
Exceedingly clear. The Bushies don't believe in it. They disdain the whole democratic system of checks and balances.

At the Naval Academy, President Bush talked about how well the Iraqi security forces were fighting. He claimed that 40 Iraqi battalions were taking the lead in the fight against insurgents, and that in the battle of Tal Afar this year, "the assault was primarily led by Iraqi security forces - 11 Iraqi battalions backed by 5 coalition battalions providing support."

Anderson Cooper of CNN swiftly produced Time magazine's Baghdad bureau chief, Michael Ware, who was embedded with the U.S. military during the entire Tal Afar battle. "With the greatest respect to the president, that's completely wrong," Mr. Ware said, adding: "I was with Iraqi units right there on the front line as they were battling with Al Qaeda. They were not leading."

He also told Mr. Cooper: "I have had a very senior officer here in Baghdad say to me that there's never going to be a point where these guys will be able to stand up against the insurgency on their own."

Mr. Ware recalled that in a battle two weeks ago, he saw an Iraqi security officer put down his weapon and curl up into a ball when he was under attack. "I have seen that on - on many, many occasions," he said.

Curling up in a ball. Good National Strategy for Victory.

· Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company