Posted on 09/03/2005 7:19:37 AM PDT by Truthsayer20
Congress Likely to Probe Guard Delay By SHARON THEIMER Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Several states ready and willing to send National Guard troops to the rescue in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans didn't get the go-ahead until days after the storm struck - a delay nearly certain to be investigated by Congress.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard on Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday.
California troops just began arriving in Louisiana on Friday, three days after flood waters devastated New Orleans and chaos broke out. In fact, when New Orleans' levees gave way to deadly flooding on Tuesday, Louisiana's National Guard had received help from troops in only three other states: Ohio, which had nine people in Louisiana then; Oklahoma, 89; and Texas, 625, figures provided by the National Guard show.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Cutler, who leads the Michigan National Guard, said he anticipated a call for police units and started preparing them, but couldn't go until states in the hurricane zone asked them to come.
"We could have had people on the road Tuesday," Cutler said. "We have to wait and respond to their need."
The Michigan National Guard was asked for military police by Mississippi late Tuesday and by Louisiana officials late Wednesday. The state sent 182 MPs to Mississippi on Friday and had 242 headed to Louisiana on Saturday.
With many states' Guard units depleted by deployments to Iraq, Katrina's aftermath was almost certain from the beginning to require help from faraway states.
Republicans and Democrats alike in Congress are just beginning to ask why one of the National Guard's most trusted roles - disaster relief - was so uneven, delayed and chaotic this time around.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said the situation has shown major breakdowns in the nation's emergency response capabilities. "There must be some accountability in this process after the crisis is addressed," he said.
Democrat Ben Nelson, Nebraska's other senator, said he now questions National Guard leaders' earlier assertions that they had enough resources to respond to natural disasters even with the Iraq war. "I'm going to ask that question again," Nelson said. "Do we have enough (troops), and if we do, why were they not deployed sooner?" President Bush was asked that question Friday as he toured the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast area and said he disagrees with criticism the military is stretched too thin.
"We've got a job to defend this country in the war on terror, and we've got a job to bring aid and comfort to the people of the Gulf Coast, and we'll do both," he said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., plans to make oversight of the Defense Department, the National Guard and their assistance his top priority when he returns to Washington next week from an overseas trips, spokesman John Ullyot said Friday.
Bush had the legal authority to order the National Guard to the disaster area himself, as he did after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks . But the troops four years ago were deployed for national security protection, and presidents of both parties traditionally defer to governors to deploy their own National Guardsmen and request help from other states when it comes to natural disasters.
Though slow at the beginning, out-of-state Guard help was markedly increasing by the start of the weekend. As of Friday, nearly half the states had Guard members in Louisiana, boosting the total to at least 5,600 from out of state. Hundreds more were on the way.
Michigan, which was ready to help before the storm began, was sending 500 National Guard troops Friday and Saturday to help with water purification in Mississippi and police duty in New Orleans.
Arizona didn't get a request for military police until Thursday, when it received an urgent message sent to all state National Guards by the National Guard Bureau at the request of Louisiana, said Capt. Paul Aguirre. He said the unit cannot leave Phoenix until Sunday because arriving units must arrive at a pace the receiving end can handle. Among those headed in were several hundred from Wisconsin, where the governor took the unusual step of declaring a disaster outside his state to activate his Guard.
"This was the first time a governor ever declared a natural disaster in another state and activated to that other state," said Gov. Jim Doyle, who issued his order Wednesday. "We were ready to be deployed within 24 hours of that order."
In addition to Guard help, the federal government could have activated, but did not, a major air support plan under a pre-existing contract with airlines. The program, called Civilian Reserve Air Fleet, lets the government quickly put private cargo and passenger planes into service. The CRAF provision has been activated twice, once for the Persian Gulf War and again for the Iraq war. ---
"Did you see this?
"The state hurricane control center runs the entire operation. The LA governor delayed until Monday setting up her control center and did not hand out satellite phones to all the parrish control centers . so no communication to the key parrish in the south part of LA.
I should know I am involved in the hurricane operations in Brevard county FL. The marching orders come from the state capital not the feds!
We evacuated nursing home patients for katrina and the storm was 200 miles away !
The scoop I heard from FL officials was LA
governor's office was in inexperienced and in over there heads."
Yes, Ma'am. And it needs to be repeated.
Of course, you're leaving out the part where they all are going to use this for their 2006 and 2008 campaigns, right?
S**THeads.
" The President commands the NG. Period. "
Governor Blanco commands the Louisiana National Guard.
Blanco is a scary preview of Hillary Clinton as Commander in Chief.
Actually the National Weather Service declared Sunday morning what would happen when Katrina hit and they were totally right. This wasn't a case of bad intel. Bush declared an emergency Saturday. I'm suggesting that given the intel and the fact that Bush recognized the threat was imminent, that he didn't have a plan ready to activate as soon as Katrina hit, or that he decided not to activate it, which is odd since he knew the maroons he was dealing with in Nagin and Blanco, especially with the scope of the damage that would occur.
Better yet, let's send all the planes and the NG and all the supplies in BEFORE the storm.
Then they could have been trapped, too!
So is North Carolina; and we sure don't go looking for the president OR FEMA until AFTER the storm.
Let's assume that Governor Blanco was for one reason or another unable to act and coordinate the request for New Mexico NG federalization with NM Governor. Meanwhile, anyone watching CNN early wednesday saw people dehydrating on the streets of New Orleans and city descending into chaos. The White House was surely aware of what was happening. Couldn't the White House have a fricking telephone call with the governors down in Louisiana, New Mexico etc. and agree with them to federalize the necessary NG units and send them their way?
If it turns out that the bumbling idiots at state and federal levels couldn't have the fricking paperwork put in order IMMEDIATELY, and this was the reason for the delay in troop deployment, well, I don't know what to say.
I'm not necessarily interested in whose 'fault' the situation was, I'm only commenting on the evident inablity of the government to get even the simplest things done in a common sense manner.
The hard part about handling natural disasters should be logistics and similar things not the inability of the top-level decision makers to push the god-d*mn button on time!
Bump.
I am sick to DEATH of this A$$hole.
You mark this down: I will NEVER -- EVER -- under ANY circumstances vote for this man; if he is the nominee in 2008, I simply will leave that space blank.
or national emergency.
He could have formally declared one.
I agree
They also didn't have the brains to ask for help until it was too late
One of the things we have going on here is that the people who are pontificating about HOW LONG IT TOOk, and I do mean those on this forum, are not in states that have ever dealt with a hurricane!
Hmmm. The Dems may not want to 'GO THERE'. They might not like what they find at the end of that road.
OK..you win...it's Bush's fault...sheesh...
Gov. Rendell, who just successfully sued the feds arguing that PA's National Guard troops are his, would disagree with you, although he probably won't be saying much because that would damage the case against Pres. Bush.
Loiusiana has national guard units, but they seem to be conspicuously absent.
In playing the blame game, why don't we first look at why the LA Gov did not activate her own troops and position them in place BEFORE the storm?
And then there are the demanding ungrateful b@stards who don't appreciate what is being done for them.
You can't blame this on "paperwork" - any necessary documentation could be handled in good time, as circumstances permitted. All that was necessary was for Governor Blanco to call President Bush and say: "Mr. President, as Governor of Louisiana I hereby authorize and request that you provide federal National Guard assistance to Louisiana." That's it.
The truth is New Orleans for whatever reason allowed a large degenerate criminal subculture to live there. This large degenerate criminal subculture stopped massive volunteer relief efforts that would have greatly reduced the suffering in New Orleans days ago and mitigated the need for a huge national guard law enforcement presence. That was unexpected by all levels of government but should have been anticipated by local level (at least). Katrina was bad, but the degenerate gangsta subculture is making things much much worse and that was not planned for. Planners will do doubt revise their plans.
That is not the way it happened in Little Rock.
Ike sent in the 101st AND federalized the guard. The 101st left after a while and the FEDERALIZED guard took over police actions for the rest of the school year.
Knowing Fast Eddy ... he'll figure a way to attack the President
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