Rumsfeld's Katrina Antics, Reported By GQ, Reveal How Congressional Investigations Were Whitewashes

Talk about running from your record. "The Bush administration is gone and people addicted to attacking it really have to get over that," said George Will. Bush may be gone, but his failures have a cost that accrues with time. And conservatives who aided and abetted Bush's failures haven't gone anywhere. They persist in arguing that the crimes have ended, so the cover-ups should continue.

And when new revelations emerge, the Republicans' credibility takes new hits. That's why GQ's reporting on Donald Rumsfeld is damning to Susan Collins, who spearheaded the Senate's sham investigation of the Katrina disaster. The GQ article reveals how Rumsfeld's illegal insubordination contributed to the delayed federal response during Katrina. (The National Response Plan specified that the Defense Secretary was to take direction from DHS Secretary Chertoff, who belatedly ordered additional troops to New Orleans.)

"The next day, three days after landfall, word of disorder in New Orleans had reached a fever pitch. According to sources familiar with the conversation, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff called Rumsfeld that morning and said, 'You're going to need several thousand troops.' 'Well, I disagree,' said the SecDef. 'And I'm going to tell the president we don't need any more than the National Guard.'

"The problem was that the Guard deployment (which would eventually reach 15,000 troops) had not arrived--at least not in sufficient numbers, and not where it needed to be. And though much of the chaos was being overstated by the media, the very suggestion of a state of anarchy was enough to dissuade other relief workers from entering the city. Having only recently come to grips with the roiling disaster, Bush convened a meeting in the Situation Room on Friday morning. According to several who were present, the president was agitated. Turning to the man seated at his immediate left, Bush barked, 'Rumsfeld, what the hell is going on there? Are you watching what's on television? Is that the United States of America or some Third World nation I'm watching? What the hell are you doing?'

"Rumsfeld replied by trotting out the ongoing National Guard deployments and suggesting that sending active-duty troops would create 'unity of command' issues. Visibly impatient, Bush turned away from Rumsfeld and began to direct his inquiries at Lieutenant General Honore on the video screen. 'From then on, it was a Bush-Honore dialogue,' remembers another participant. 'The president cut Rumsfeld to pieces. I just wish it had happened earlier in the week.'

"But still the troops hadn't arrived. And by Saturday morning, says Honore, 'we had dispersed all of these people across Louisiana. So we needed more troops to go to distribution centers, feed people, and maintain traffic. That morning Bush convened yet another meeting in the Situation Room. Chertoff was emphatic. "'Mr. President,' he said, 'if we're not going to begin to get these troops, we're not going to be able to get the job done.'

"Rumsfeld could see the writing on the wall and had come prepared with a deployment plan in hand. Still, he did not volunteer it. Only when Bush ordered, 'Don, do it,' did he acquiesce and send in the troops--a full five days after landfall.

GQ's anecdote was a small part of the information deemed off-limits to the Congressional investigations, which were designed to give the illusion that there had been a full accounting of events before, during and after the hurricane. The White House disclosed almost nothing about the basic flow of information to and from senior White House officials, including Rumsfeld, Chertoff, Chief of Staff Andy Card, or HHS Secretary Michael Levitt. It disclosed no emails, no phone logs, and no list of documents being withheld. Congressional staffers were not allowed to interview key individuals.

Before, during and after the hurricane, FEMA's Michael Brown said he had "innumerable" conversations with Bush, Cheney, Card, Card's deputy, Francis Townsend, and Karl Rove. Yet The White House deemed those conversations off-limits to Congressional scrutiny, and the Republicans in Congress dutifully complied.

So, even though she had no idea what went on between Brown and the people he spoke with, Collins, Chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, designated Brown as the party deserving primary culpability. Upon release of her, "plenty-of-blame-to-go-around" report on Katrina (the analog to those "a-few-bad-apples" reports on Abu Ghraib), Collins said:

"[T]here were several findings that I found particularly troubling. The first is the blatant insubordination of then FEMA Director Michael Brown. It was clear that he was disengaged from the onset of Katrina. He failed to communicate absolutely vital information about the condition of the levees in New Orleans. Most of all, he allowed his personal feelings, his distaste for being in the Department of Homeland Security, to override his clear obligation to provide effective leadership at a time when lives were at stake."

What about Collins' distaste for bucking the party line, which overrode her obligation to provide effective leadership in pursuit of the truth? Do you think anyone cares to find out what really went on during Katrina?

Comments

[Beninn]

Joe Lieberman was the ranking member of the committee and report, and after 2006 he became the chair of the Homeland Security Committee to Collins's ranking membership, and he pulled a Pelosi, by assuring the Bush administration he wouldn't reopen that investigation.

Democrats failed us, too!

[derekc06]

lieberman is a democrat in the loosest sense of the word...

[Marcospinelli]

Joe Lieberman is no kind of Democrat.

Democrats let Lieberman caucus with them, and let Lieberman chair the committee after he lost the Democratic primary in 2006, left the Democratic Party, stayed in the race as an Independent and won in the 2006 general election.

[kylie]

Lieberman wasn't a "Democrat" for a long time.
He was too busy pandering to Bush and the other Republican top dogs.
He had advised Gore to give up fighting for the presidency.
Gads, can't imagine how different it would have been had Gore been allowed to take his rightful office.

[GardenerNorCal]

But that would have made Lieberman Vice President. Imagine how much power Israel would have had then?

[BoyInBOYCOTT]

Susan Collins you just BOUGHT an ugly defeat, if it takes every DOLLAR from Louisiana.­...you are DONE!

[derekc06]

ayuh... good luck with that... I live in Maine and trust me... it's not like we haven't tried...

and she just won another 6 years this past election so... yeah... good luck

[BoyInBOYCOTT]

We are patient...­.and VINDICTIVE

[blukazoo]

When did GQ suddenly become our real source of news? Stewart, Colbert and now GQ--who'da thunk it.

[apoyo]

It's Will's way of saying "sometimes you just have to keep walking"

Let us forget about 2 landmark buildings in New York and the innocents in them.
Let us forget about a landmark American city and the people in it.
Let us forget about all the lives lost and all the soldiers injured

Maybe Mr Will can tell us how to forget.
Maybe Mr Will can tell us how he forgets.

[Kenny2k]

The responce to Katrina was typical "disaster capitlism". Ask yourselfs this" What happened to all the homes in the 9th Ward"? Where are all the people from the 9th Ward? Who is there now and who is profiting from the hurricane's afteramath? I believe the Katrina disaster was a way to rid New Orleans of most poor black people so that business could make huge profits. Why was Blackwater the first on the scene? Not FEMA. Who now runs the New Orleans school district?
I don't blame Bush for the lack of response, but I do blame him for putting incompitant and greedy people in positions of responsibilty.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and expect a major earth quake to hit in my lifetime. I truly believe that when it hits we will be on our own.
America...­.......Sto­ck up on food, water, gold and amunition.­......and don't be fooled again.

[skymuffin]

If you look at this from a purely selfish, political view, the GOP made a success of Katrina. Look at the political maps: they rid the state of a lot of Democrats. And, let's face it, they really don't give a hoot about some poor, black people.

[kylie]

How many people really died in the post-Katrina "rescue effort"?
Aaron Brown left his job at CNN over the events and deaths that were not reported.
Bodies filled warehouses but were not there when reporters went back to see what happened to them.(Prob­ably not counted, either.)
Lovely way to "redistrict".

[whitebird46]

You must be familiar with the shock doctrine?

[HalEBurton]

Another politician will blatantly lie about a matter of trust. Nothing will come of it. It is expected that our elected officials constantly betray our trust. They are deemed heroes if, by some chance, they keep their pledge.

[Johnbo]

And yet ANOTHER example of our pathetic Congressional system in action and yet ANOTHER reason why a so-called "Truth Commission" to investigate the torture policy of the B@#h Administration is such a bad idea. We don't need another exercise in dishonesty. NO MORE flabby, disgusting exercises in politicall­y-manipula­ted inquires designed to hide the truth, not find it (see the 9/11 Commission, The Warren Report, the investigation into drug-running by the Iran-Contra operatives, etc, etc, etc, etc . . )

We need a Special Prosecutor and a grand jury with FULL powers to subpoena any and every person and document and criminal trials for those found responsible. The courts are the only arena through which we can ever come close to the "truth".

Any questions? I didn't think so.

[youngat80]

At this point I would favor having the Special Prosecutor be someone other than an American -- perhaps an Australian, Swiss or from Sweden or Japan. I do not want to be accused of racism, but it seems all of Africa is in too much turmoil to become involved in our turmoil.
If not that, at least someone outside the political sphere in the US.

[Johnbo]

This pathetic example of our Congressional system in action is yet ANOTHER example of why a so-called "Truth Commission" to investigate the torture policy of the B@#h Administration is such a bad idea. NO MORE flabby, disgusting exercises in politicall­y-manipula­ted inquires designed to hide the truth, not find it (see the 9/11 Commission, The Warren Report, the investigation into drug-running by the Iran-Contra operatives, etc, etc, etc, etc . . )

We need a Special Prosecutor and a grand jury with FULL powers to subpoena any and every person and document and criminal trials for those found responsible. The courts, as imperfect as THEY are, are our only hope.

Any questions? I didn't think so.

[GreatNews27]

Bottom line: Never, ever trust a Republican. Any Republican.

[dragonlady620]

I'm glad to see this kind of story finally getting attention. There has been so much focus on the torture issue that there has been a tendency to ignore the considerable list of domestic crimes committed by the Bush administration-and Rumsfeld was one of the worst criminals on the team. He was a power-hungry hawk who operated in secrecy and pretty much outside the law. The utterly botched strategy in the Iraq was was largely his doing. The more heinous war crimes are probably more the responsibility of Rumsfeld's (mostly illegal) rogue operation than of the CIA. I'm convinced that he had a big hand in disseminating the phoney intel that provided the justification for the Iraq invasion.
One detail reported with regards to Katrina was Rumsfeld's stated reason for not sending in National Guards troops: He didn't think active-duty troops should be used as cops. (Just what in the HELL did he think the Guard was for??)
There is a long list of domestic transgressions that occurred under Bush. Maybe one reason the Republicans are so willing to keep the focus on torture is to divert attention away from everything else Bushco. was guilty of.

[azriel]

Kayne West was right!--although he should've included that, then SOD Don Rumsfeld was also one who didn't care. There's one image that I can't shake, from the Katrina episode. I think it was on ABC, it was of a little black boy of about 10 yrs old...mayb­e he had on a shirt, shorts, might've been barefoot. As the camera focused on him, he said "do you see this, look at this,...th­is is America?".­..it aint right, it just aint right" As the camera pulled away from him and panned the crowd, I saw a multitude of black folks wading through water, garbage and waste..hea­ding in a direction that seemed to stretch for miles. It reminded me of one of the scenes from slavery days. It was unbelievable

[1PALady]

Gosh, that scene still makes me cry and I think Katrina is one of the main reasons other than the war that I've disliked the Bush administration so. It seemed that they only cared about certain people and seeing those people, some with water up to their necks, will live in my mind for the rest of my life. Kanye West was right and it truly was unbelievable!

[GardenerNorCal]

The Bush administration loves to tell us how they made us safer. But they hate for us to remember those images from Katrina. But the US citizens will never forget them. Homeland Security..­..what a farce!

[Rmath]

Blame the media for "exaggerating" the crisis..ty­pical repub b.s.

[kylie]

No exaggeration.
Not enough coverage of the ineptness and arrogance of the Bush administration.
Halliburton made out well, though thousands lost their lives, their families, their homes.
Where did that one-hundred billion go?

[shannadarx]

Ya know, when the Soviet Union was still around, these types of people were called "Apparatchiks". Here's a link to the item in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik. Maybe we should stop calling the Repubs all the names we use and start calling them that.

[wmholt]

Nice link! I can see how "apparatchiks" is the best way to describe Bush's Rethugs.

[Mainer36]

Typical republican, party before country politics.

[mjc]

If there had been any monitoring of the hurricane, its effects on outlying areas just before it hit New Orleans directly, the federal government, and that includes the Secretary of Defense, would have offered help to the Mayor of the City almost immediately. It was clear that since the majority of the victims were black they would get help when it was available, not help that was made available at the whim or call of another sick member of the Bush administration. There were only a few in the media who understood what was happening until it was past the tipping point. Have to credit CBS's coverage and their team..a woman named Tracy ?... who went into the heart of the City with no help from any military to cover the gunfire and the catastrophe unfolding. And when the military and/or the guard finally did begin to mobilize there they were less than helpful to many trying to leave or salvage their belongings. Such a disaster alone, without the two wars Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld contributed to, would preclude ANY sane person for voting Republican for the rest of their life. It will always be a festering sore in the black community and for progressives and compassionate people everywhere.