Brown: I Told Bush And Chertoff US Wasn't Ready For Disasters

BROWN: Well, a lot of anger because I recall telling Secretary Chertoff back in 2004 and 2005 that this country was not ready for a catastrophic event. I had been to the tsunami in southeast Asia, and I came back and I told the president and I told Chertoff that we're not ready. We don't have the plans, the processes in place to do this.

And I think two years later, when we look at these photographs, it's proof that we're not ready for this kind of thing. And I think, too, when you look at -- right now, they're trying to redo the natural response plan. This is the fifth rewrite of this thing since DHS was created. We're in the middle of hurricane season, they put one out without even talking to state and local governments. It shows that DHS is just completely dysfunctional.

Comments

[MAC2]

02:23 PM on 08/29/2007

I am not gay nor have I ever been GAY. I am not gay nor have I ever been GAY. I am not gay nor have I ever been GAY. I am not gay nor have I ever been GAY. I am not gay nor have I ever been GAY. I am not gay nor have I ever been GAY. I am not gay nor have I ever been GAY.

Think maybe the Republican bull shit machine has gone wack-O.....................?

[alfrede]

01:37 PM on 08/29/2007

Hi,
The response to Katrina and the "national disaster" 'plan' is as the neocons want: i.e. the private sector and/or charity groups will take care of what is needed (or else it really isn't needed). Why get the government involved in it at all, they say.
How can the Corps of Engineers "rebuild" the levees and have them no better than they were before the hurricane?
We will probably not find out where and how the Federal money authorized for Katrina cleanup was spent until after this Administration leaves office. It would be nice to know about it before the 2008 election.
It will be interesting to see what the Republican candidates for President in 2008 say about their President's and Party's response to Katrina and the national disaster plan! (if someone asks them about it).
What do U think??????????????

[philjames]

02:19 PM on 08/29/2007

Where it was spent? You are kidding, right? One word. Four letters. IRAQ

[Nommo]

03:30 PM on 08/29/2007

I think that the "third world boogie man", having been the stuff of collective nightmares for decades has come, finally. Around here, after watching for a while, one might get the impression it has all gone to the lowest bidder. I work to maintain the things I am earthly bound to but the world around me is falling apart and may very well creep on up 'cross the threshold of my Anywhere, USA.
Welcome to the third world. We've been drowning for years now. With government like this, who needs Al, go fly-a kite-a?

PS. It is all kind of moot if the wetlands become gone. Stop the immediate bleeding.

[raker]

01:04 PM on 08/29/2007

This is delightfully Rovian. Brownie has a chance for revenge against Chertoff and sets out to torpedo his chances of becoming Attorney General. Bush, at some point, will be forced to condemn Brownie as an incompetent crony who can't be trusted. Sweet. But then the Democrats will vote to confirm Chertoff, apologize if they inconvenienced anyone, and chant please-sir-may-I-have-another.

[TexasDem0]

11:50 AM on 08/29/2007

Wouldn’t that imply that heck-of-a-job-Brownie had some actual knowledge and experience in disaster management in order to make that assessment?

[dannyo152]

11:25 AM on 08/29/2007

Internal memos and discussions, the stuff of CYA bureaucratic practice. Are we sure that the memo was motivated by lessons learned or did the tsunami provide a context to get more budget for your corner of the complex?

Real guts and real leadership for revealing and correcting the government's neglect would have involved breaking out of the insular world and telling the American public. You'd lose your job. You'd be drummed out of the club. You'd have every questionable moment of your life revealed to the public by administration-friendly journalists. And you'd be paying the cost of doing the right thing.

This is not a Democrat/Republican thing, this is a power thing. Syncophancy has always been a good job if you can get it. Us voters just hope that the logrolling, resume-padding, quid pro quos, partisan machinations, and pork are within a tolerable level while something useful gets done.

But please, please, Mr. Brown, don't point to a memo as proof that you were guarding the public. It might fly if we're talking about a dip in commodity prices, but it is monstrous in the context of New Orleans where the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and the White House provided a deadly demonstration of the perils of business as usual, appointment by connections and not expertise, and the dismantling of the public sector infrastructure.

[AnnArky]

10:42 AM on 08/29/2007

What a wonderful world it would be if God had forgotten to give us index fingers.

[sugarmoes]

10:31 AM on 08/29/2007

bush is johnny on the spot when there's oil or blood to spill but not when people need help.

[Mutineer]

09:53 AM on 08/29/2007

Brown was not qualified, but it's pretty clear now that the responsibility for the non-response to Katrina lies at DHS and the White House.

[Jericho]

08:25 AM on 08/29/2007

The US is not ready for disasters...are you kidding me? Ofcourse we weren't ready, the guy at the helm of FEMA did not know the first thing about emergencies! Maybe the US would have been ready had you told Bush you were incompetent, unqualified to be running FEMA. Go back to your horse shows, fool. Ofcourse the country is going down the tubes if the president can't even spell his own name correct but still is under the impression that he's qualified to lead the mightiest country on earth. They say all wisdom starts with knowing yourself.... These people are too dumb to be even allowed to procreate.

[bythePeopleforthePeople]

10:13 AM on 08/29/2007

THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT DUMB....THEY ARE TAKING CARE OF THEIR OWN...CREATING A SUPER-RICH CLASS PROTECTED BY THE SUPER IGNORANT...WHAT A GRAVY TRAIN. FEDERAL INCOME TAX DEDUCTED RIGHT FROM YOUR PAY THEN MONEY LAUNDERED THROUGH A CORRUPT GVT INTO THE HANDS OF THE ELITE.....THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT DUMB...THEY ARE CRIMINALS

[VOTER]

08:18 AM on 08/29/2007

We get almost 30 % of our oil and gas from the

Gulf of Mexico.

ALL Gulf states, EXCEPT LA, get a percentage of the

taxes paid by the oil and gas industries.

LA's percentage goes directly to the federal government.

Come one, Bushie, make at least ONE POSITIVE CHANGE!

[nick1936]

08:15 AM on 08/29/2007

Will this President ever appoint anyone who has the experience to do the job instead of these Hacks

[alncarter]

07:31 AM on 08/29/2007

Brown wasn't ready for a disaster. Running a horse association didn't provide much useful experience for Katrina, did it?

Even the horse people canned Brownie. Only a complete moron would have hired Brown to head FEMA--and so he did.

[snake in the grass]

06:21 AM on 08/29/2007

- We can't secure a country the size of Texas

- One out of ten people in your neighborhood probably has nine guns

- Poop is going to hit the fan soon

[showme54]

02:53 AM on 08/29/2007

I cannot believe that Brownie the Creep is slithering around the media circuit again...well, knowing him, yes I can believe it. So, he feels 'anger' because he told Chertoff in 2004 & 2005 about problems?

What I would like the media to ask him is why that is not what he was saying in the days before Katrina on his 'media junket' on every tv & radio show that would put him on, or every newspaper or magazine that would listen to him. If he knew of such problems, why did his pre-Katrina interviews contain 'grandiose' readiness and preparedness assurances for a 'worst case scenerio' that he gave the citizens, as well as to state and local officials of the Gulf Coast? Too bad he didn't feel the need to warn them that there were possible major problems with the agency's readiness. If I remember correctly, wasn't it Michael Brown that blamed the Gov of the state of Louisiana and the Mayor of NOLA for the major problems? In fact, didn't he testify under oath something to that effect? Of course, that was before he blamed the media, the victims, politics and everyone else up and down the line but him. Yet, now he feels somehow on moral 'high ground' at 'exposing' the truth now, 2 YEARS LATER?

[RogerHWerner]

01:25 AM on 08/29/2007

To put it bluntly: Brown is completely full of shit. What he should be saying is that the federal government's disaster preparedness program tanked under Bush. In the early 1990s, FEMA handled Hurricane Andrew just fine. What happened in 2005 is pretty easy to understand. Bush came into town and gutted FEMA even before DHS was established. He hired campaign donors and admirers with no EMS experience and demoralized the professional staff to the degree that most of the experience people left leaving Brownie holding the empty bag. If Brown was any kind of leader, and, if the man had spine, he would have made his concerns known to Bush and Chertoff. If they refused to acknowledge them, Brown should have taken the honorably route and publicly resigned, making his beliefs known before disaster hit. Had he done that, he could reasonably stand before the court of public opinion and say "I told them so." Instead, Brown sat on his tush, collected his salary, but isn't willing to play the roll he was hired to fill: He was the fall guy. He was being paid to take the hit if and when it came and he now wants to change the rules. Brown is irrelevant and why Blitzer would waste his time on an interview is perhaps testimony to the irrelevancy of Blitzer.

I do hope Congress doesn't forget the utter incompetence of Chertoff in light of Katrina. He and Bush can dump on Brown but anyone with even a modicum of understand of bureaucratic procedure should understand that Brown had little control over an agency that had been gutted. It is clear, DHS was focused on terrorism and natural disasters just never registered. Ultimate responsibility of course lies with Bush but Chertoff even more than Brown bears much of the blame for what occurred.