Bush's reflex on every controversy, from energy policy to handling of
intelligence, is to invoke executive privilege.
Katrina is no different.
He is refusing to provide Congress documents that might show how
seriously Chief of Staff Andrew Card and other top advisers took
Katrina.
The refusal is galling in light of this week's revelations that gut
Bush's most famous statement on Katrina.
Three days after Katrina hit, Bush told ABC-TV, ''I don't think anyone
anticipated the breach of the levees.
From The Boston Globe, 1/28/06:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/01/28/stonewalling_the_critics/
Stonewalling the critics
By Derrick Z. Jackson
PRESIDENT BUSH assured us full information about the government's
response to Hurricane Katrina.
On Sept. 6, a week after the storm destroyed much of New Orleans and
the Gulf Coast, Bush vowed that he would ''lead an investigation to
find out what went right and what went wrong."
On Sept. 15, Bush reaffirmed that ''Congress is preparing an
investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make
sure this effort is thorough."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan repeated this pledge in at least
five press briefings between Sept. 7 and Oct. 12. In his Sept. 19
briefing, McClellan said:
''We're going to work closely with Congress to make sure that they
conduct a thorough investigation so that we can apply those lessons to
future response efforts . . . There's going to be a bipartisan
investigation by Congress. They're going to do a thorough
investigation . . . The president's made it very clear that he accepts
responsibility for the federal government's role."
The flood of promises have receded behind the White House's recovery
and reconstruction efforts.
This does not refer to the rebuilding of New Orleans.
This is about the new stone walls at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Bush's reflex on every controversy, from energy policy to handling of
intelligence, is to invoke executive privilege.
Katrina is no different.
He is refusing to provide Congress documents that might show how
seriously Chief of Staff Andrew Card and other top advisers took
Katrina.
The refusal is galling in light of this week's revelations that gut
Bush's most famous statement on Katrina.
Three days after Katrina hit, Bush told ABC-TV, ''I don't think anyone
anticipated the breach of the levees.
They did anticipate a serious storm, but these levees got breached,
and as a result much of New Orleans is flooded."
But several major print news organizations reported that two days
before Katrina hit on Aug. 29, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
had a computer slide presentation that warned Katrina could be worse
than a fictional Category 3 hurricane in its mock preparedness
exercises.
Katrina roared into a Category 5 storm over the Gulf of Mexico
(sustained winds of over 155 miles an hour) before hitting the coast
as a Category 3 (sustained winds of 111 to 130 mph).
The FEMA report said Katrina's storm surge ''could greatly overtop
levees and protective systems."
It also said that mock projections of destruction ''is exceeded by
Hurricane Katrina real-life impacts."
At 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29 and hours before the storm hit, the Department
of Homeland Security sent an e-mail to the White House situation room.
The e-mail, which the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported was written
when Katrina was a Category 4, said, ''The potential for severe storm
surge to overwhelm Lake Pontchartrain levees is the greatest concern
for New Orleans."
The report said any Category 4 storm ''will likely lead to severe
flooding and/or levee breaching. This could leave the New Orleans
metro area submerged for weeks or months."
And yet the White House responded like a deer caught staring at a
tidal wave.
Under criticism for saying no one could have anticipated the breach of
the levees, Bush tried on Sept. 12 to retrofit his statement into the
context that ''a lot of people said we dodged a bullet. When that
storm came through, at first people said, 'Whew!' There was a sense of
relaxation . . . I was listening to people, probably over the air
waves, say, 'The bullet has been dodged.' "
The problem for Bush is that the contradictions go beyond him.
On Sept. 3, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff also said the
combination of a Category 4 hurricane and the breach of the levees was
a combination that was ''unreasonably foreseeable."
He said, ''This major breach of the levee, while something itself that
might have been anticipated, coming together (with the Category 4
storm) I think, was outside the scope of what people I think
reasonably foresaw."
At that time, we did not know that there was a report from Chertoff's
own storm analysts that warned, ''Any storm rated Category 4 or
greater will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching."
At a press conference Thursday, Bush defended his executive privilege
on Katrina.
He said he needs to protect the right to get ''sound" and
''unvarnished" advice in private.
But his sound advice told him that Katrina's destruction was
reasonably foreseeable.
Despite Bush's stone walls, the truth has breached the levees.
________________________________________________________
Better get those leeves fixed, the ***** rising in the Bush White
House.
Harry
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