It's not a 'blame game'

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/07/opinion/edkatrina.php

It's not a 'blame game'
The New York Times
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005

With the size and difficulty of the task of rescuing and rebuilding New
Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas still unfolding, it seemed early to
talk about investigating how this predicted cataclysm had been allowed
to occur and why the government's response was so slow and inept. Until
Tuesday, that is, when President George W. Bush blithely announced at a
photo-op cabinet meeting that he, personally, was going to "find out
what went right and what went wrong." We can't imagine a worse idea.

No administration could credibly investigate such an immense failure on
its own watch. And we have learned through bitter experience - the Abu
Ghraib nightmare is just one example - that when this administration
begins an internal investigation, it means a whitewash in which no one
important is held accountable and no real change occurs.

Bush signaled Tuesday that we are in for more of the same when he
sneered and said, "One of the things that people want us to do here is
to play a blame game." This is not a game. It is critical to know what
"things went wrong," as Bush put it. But we also need to know which
officials failed - not to humiliate them, but to replace them with
competent people.

It's obvious, for instance, that Michael Brown has met the expectations
of those who warned that he would be a terrible director of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency. This is no time to be engaging in a
wholesale change of leadership, but in Brown's case there seems to be
precious little leadership to lose. He should be replaced with someone
who can do the huge job that remains to be done.

But the questions go way beyond Brown - starting with why federal
officials ignored predictions of a disastrous flood in New Orleans - and
the answers can come only from an independent commission. We agree with
the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, Senator
Hillary Clinton, Democrat of New York, and others who say that such a
panel should follow the successful formula of the 9/11 commission:
bipartisan leadership and members chosen by the White House and both
parties in Congress on the basis of real expertise. It should have
subpoena power and a staff expert enough to find answers and offer

Clinton has also proposed pulling FEMA out of the Homeland Security
Department and restoring its cabinet-level status. That is premature.
The current setup makes sense, at least in theory. The United States
should not have to support two different bureaucracies for dealing with
sudden disasters.

Before throwing the system into chaos again, an investigation should
determine whether the problem lies in the structure or in execution. On
Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal showed how the Bush administration had
systematically stripped power and money from FEMA, which had been
painfully rebuilt under President Bill Clinton but had long been a
target of Republican "small government" ideologues. The Journal said
state officials had been warning Washington - as recently as July 27 -
that the homeland secretary, Michael Chertoff, was planning further
disastrous cuts.

We supported the creation of Chertoff's department. But it was poorly
run by the first secretary, Tom Ridge, with his maddening color-wheel
alerts.

It is clearly in need of a hard look and perhaps serious reorganization.
Senators Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Joseph Lieberman,
Democrat of Connecticut, have plans for hearings, which is fine. But
they created the department in the first place and may have more of a
stake in the outcome than a panel of impartial experts.

The panel should also look at the shortcomings of local officials and
governments. It was chilling, to put it mildly, to read Mayor Ray
Nagin's comment in The Journal that New Orleans's hurricane plan was
"get people to higher ground and have the feds and the state airlift
supplies to them."

But disasters like this are not a city or a state issue. They concern
the entire United States and demand a national response - certainly a
better one than the White House comments that "tremendous progress" had
been made in Louisiana. We're used to that dismissive formula when
questions are raised about Iraq. Americans deserve better about a
disaster of this magnitude in their own country.