Tape: Bush, Chertoff Warned Before Katrina

Breitbart (AP) ^ | 3/1/2006 | MARGARET EBRAHIM and JOHN SOLOMON

[wjersey]

WASHINGTON

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured soon-to- be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush's bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

"I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

_Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

"I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."

_Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility _ and Bush was worried too.

[wjersey]

The Dims new talking points

[dirtboy]

A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

As it turns out, that concern was moot, because Louisiana officials turned away aid to the Superdome anyway.

Funny how that isn't mentioned here.

[madison10]

So what? Landrieu & Nagin were warned, too. Lot of good THAT did.

[ncountylee]

Yep...AP reduces DNC fax costs.

[MNJohnnie]

More BS from Asso Propaganda. Funny how they NEVER cover the briefing documents from FEMA that warns local and state officials that it can take up to 96 hours for the Feds to ride to the rescue. More scum bag KNOWING lies by the Asso Propaganda.

[cardinal4]

Yawn. Katrina is so yesterday..

[kingu]

*yawn* I saw Mayfield tell me the same thing on The Weather Channel - he was rather blunt about it. And? People stayed, some paid the price, and short of declaring martial law, the federal response was appropriate and timely.

[Txsleuth]

This is much ado about stuff we already know...

AND---it was a HURRICANE FGS... and I know that even the "experts" never know exactly what will happen!!!

[SouthTexas]

And so was everyone in NO.

[newgeezer]

If I'm the President, and someone warns me about a huge hurricane approaching Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, I tell them to make sure all the information we have is forwarded to the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama state officials.

Then, having gone above and beyond the call of duty, I immediately return to taking care of my own responsibilities.

[Kylie_04]

Yep, expect to hear this over and over. They are putting the tape against GWB's statement a few days later that no one anticipated the levees being breached...ya know, more of the "dishonesty" of this admin.

Only problem I see is that the weather dude in the video spoke about water coming OVER the levees. There IS a difference between storm surge causing water to top the levees and breaks in said levee. This will, of course, be ignored.

[Bigg Red]

Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press.....Linked by secure video, Bush's....

%%
And the AP obtained this material how? Smells of a security breach of some sort.

[isthisnickcool]

It kept the crime down.

Not in the Houston area. The dumbest thing elected officals could have ever done was bring all those folks here.

[Southack]

Perhaps Louisiana's corrupt officals who stole levee money to pay for casinos should share part of the blame...the rest of the blame falling onto local and state officials (as well as New Orlean's residents themselves) for not evacuating...the storm was the sole item on the news for 4 days prior to making landfall, so people knew it was coming (and if everyone knew about the levee's then they hardly have an excuse for staying).

It's also worth noting that New Orleans was hit by the weaker West side of Hurricane Katrina. Mobile and Biloxi were hit by the more harsh East side of the storm, yet for "some reason" they managed their part of this crisis a bit better...

[dfwgator]

Gee and I guess that's why President Bush had to tell Blank-O to order the evacuations.

[BushWonGore'sDone]

How long after the storm was over did the levees begin to fail?

[RetiredArmy]

Actually, crime increased with the shootings at the rescuers.

[Perdogg]

I guess Bush should have driven the buses.

[goresalooza]

The lamestream media might "really really" have Bush on this one. I can hear Katie Coup-reek right now. Think about it: on 9/11 he "knew" and was supposed to reach up into the air while in that classroom and just yank those four planes out of the sky! Bush could have prevented a total disaster in only 7 minutes! Why, clintoon woulda done it!

And with Katrina, Bush was supposed to snap his fingers, click a mouse and presto chango pull each and every NOLA resident out of the 9th ward to safety while maintaining levee security during a raging cat 5 storm!

Why oh why didn't he use his presidential superpowers for the good of man? I really think the rats can win on this talking point.

/sarc and a big LOL

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Linked by secure video, Bush's bravado on Aug. 29 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm."

You know, I like it much better and find it totally re-assuring when my President is running around, screaming and crying like a sally-boy in the middle of a crisis. /sarcasm

Shades of how they picked on him while he remained calm on the outside and didn't panic a bunch of little kids on 9/11.

I hate the b@stards in the MSM.

[wjersey]

This part was just added by the AP --

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

"I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One," Brown said. "He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches."

_Louisiana officials angrily blamed the federal government for not being prepared but the transcripts shows they were still praising FEMA as the storm roared toward the Gulf Coast and even two days afterward. "I think a lot of the planning FEMA has done with us the past year has really paid off," Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana's emergency preparedness deputy director, said during the Aug. 28 briefing.

It wasn't long before Smith and other state officials sounded overwhelmed.

"We appreciate everything that you all are doing for us, and all I would ask is that you realize that what's going on and the sense of urgency needs to be ratcheted up," Smith said Aug. 30.

Mississippi begged for more attention in that same briefing.

"We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we'll have people dying _ not because of water coming up, but because we can't get them medical treatment in our affected counties," said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape.

Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government's disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.

"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary.

"Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me."

Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him. Neither asked questions in the Aug. 28 briefing.

"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm," the president said.

A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt, weighed in from Washington at Homeland Security's operations center. He would later fly to Atlanta, outside of Katrina's reach, for a bird flu event.

One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.

Chertoff: "Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?"

Brown: "We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now."

Chertoff: "Good job."

In fact, active duty troops weren't dispatched until days after the storm. And many states' National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.

The National Hurricane Center's Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.

"I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield told the briefing.

Other officials expressed concerns about the large number of New Orleans residents who had not evacuated.

"They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that," Brown said.

Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes.

Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome _ which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response _ would be safe and have adequate medical care.

"The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level.... I don't know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane," he said.

Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome.

"Not to be (missing) kind of gross here," Brown interjected, "but I'm concerned" about the medical and mortuary resources "and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe."

[LurkedLongEnough]

I wonder how the overall "news" would be different if the state hit were, say, blue-state Connecticut, and the damage occurred on the Caucasian and Jewish "gold coast"?

This just goes to prove desperate the AP is to keep feces pumping onto the Bush administration. The media are chopping away their own credibility with each newly re-engineered article.

[mcvey]

I just saw some of the tape. I don't think you all are really focusing in on just how damaging this is going to be. I often deal with the media, the Democrats and worse and the subject of Katrina keeps coming up. I was at a holiday gathering of professionals in December and an hour was spent on it.

The people who move things and who communicate things are going to be all over this.

It could be spun, but Bush clearly was alerted that this was going to be a disaster. The spin would be that, yea, we saw it, thank God, coming and our preparation was as good as humanely possible.

As I glance around the 'net, this is exploding.

This is going to hurt more than you can grasp at this moment.

Bush needs to roll heads as a diversion. A lot and I do mean a lot is going to be implied.

McVey

[L98Fiero]

Well, "armageddon" showed us what would happen if an asteroid hit our planet. Are we ready for that?

[Capt. Tom]

If I'm the President, and someone warns me about a huge hurricane approaching Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, I tell them to make sure all the information we have is forwarded to the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama state officials.

Then, having gone above and beyond the call of duty, I immediately return to taking care of my own responsibilities.

[garyhope]

Yeah, it's all Bush's fault, not the 30 years of graft and fraud and non preparing by the NO and LA. officials for the last 30 or 40 years. NO skated for a long time and did nothing.

Nagin is a drunk and drug addict. Blanco is a demo clown. I couldn't care less if NO falls in the lake. Try the word "Move".

[siunevada]

Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Nothing like waiting until it's too late to actually do anything.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Well said! I'll agree with you here.

[AlexW]

What BS...Was Bush not on the phone to Blanco, long before landfall, urging her to start evacuations?

[Kylie_04]

Yes, he was...what this is about is that the Dems and the MSM think they have found a GOTCHA (ya know, proof of their incessant "BUSH LIED!!" mantra) - I have heard the word "misleading" several times already just flipping the channels...it makes me ill

[dogcaller]

Bingo...I remember the President on national news the weekend before the storm hit urging everyone in its' path to evacuate inland. What a load of crap...the only thing I don't understand is why the White House lets this false picture be painted. What was he supposed to do...send the Secret Service war wagons down to the ninth ward to drive these unmotivated folks out of harms way.

[Recovering_Democrat]

This article written by Margaret Ebrahim?

Is it the same Margaret Ebrahim who:
1. Was a "young leader" of the French-American foundation, and
2. A producer for "60 Minutes II" at CBS News??

source: http://www.french-american.org/srt/extra/flb/minisite/show?location.id:=1381&id:=123

Margaret Ebrahim also has apparently written a hit piece for the "AP" on Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld, accusing them, in essence, of endorsing illegal wiretapping while they were in the FORD administration. The leftwingnut blogkooks are all over it.

Margaret Ebrahim: objective journalist? You decide.

[Ptarmigan]

Houston took in the worst from New Orleans. It has gone up in Houston. New Orleans has one of the highest crime rate in America.

[ncpatriot]

I remember that too. Blanco got on TV Sunday morning to say that "the President" had called and said to evacuate. She didn't seem to happy to order a mandatory evac; but then maybe she is always that dull.

Wish I had recorded that press conference she had, and the one Nagin had.

[MNJohnnie]

Glad there are some things we can still agree on :-)

[plain talk]

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility _ and Bush was worried too

They are taking quotes out of context. When they discussed the scenario of a Cat 5 hitting N.O. dead-on they discussed levee breaches. When the storm actually hit as a Cat 3-4 then many including Shep thought they had dodged a bullet until the 18th street canal broke many hours AFTER the hurricane passed.

This is just propaganda for the ignorant masses.

[groanup]

...federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers,

That's nothing. I was well aware that a storm like Katrina could do all those things as early as 1995. I even was aware of it when Katrina reached Cat 5 a week before landfall.

[houeto]

Yawn. Katrina is so yesterday..

Come down here to the Mississippi coast and tell us that.

[Rokke]

Welcome to FreeRepublic.

[billhilly]

Horse manure. Anyone who listens to the TV weather reports hears the same things everytime a hurricane heads across the gulf. There have been dozens of reports that I have personally heard about force four and five hurricanes and what they would do to New Orleans. I hope someone in the administration knows how to google so they can put this crap to rest. I hat to say it, but this administration could take some lessons in defense from the previous one.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I think we all knew this before the storm hit. We knew that if it didn't weaken, and if it went to the west of NO, that NO was going down. Bush knew this and took the unprecedented step of personally going out and telling N.O. people to evacuate -- something that should have been a state and local task.

The Superdome was the official N.O. evacuation site, and state and local officials had a WEEK to move supplies there and to line up emergency personell to operate the place. They didn't because they didn't want people staying there -- because the knew if people stayed there for more than a day, they'd lose the rest of the season of football.

Even after the storm, the locals planned to evacuate the superdome as soon as the clouds lifted, not realising that a flooded NO meant no traffic into and out of the superdome.

But, a lovely thing happened. The hurricane collapsed, hitting as a cat-3 rather than a cat-5. And it hit to the east, sparing NO most of the power of the storm.

Every expert had told the president than NO could handle a cat 3, especially hitting the east of the city. So while on monday morning the white house was ready to hear terrible news, by the afternoon they were assured that new orleans had "dodged a bullet".

Little did they know that at the very moment, due to years of corruption in LA and NO politics, the levies which were to withstand a Cat-3 were collapsing simply due to high water, because they were improperly built and improperly maintained.

And NO had NOBODY monitoring the walls, and had evacuated the pumping stations their citizens depended on, something else the feds were not told.

The only way Bush could have saved ANYTHING in NO was to send in federal troops 3 days before the storm hit. Those troops would have declared martial law, forced evacuations, taken over emergency services, and staffed/sandbagged the pumping stations.

How many people in the COUNTRY would approve of the feds taking over a city BEFORE a storm hits?

Blanco refused to let the feds take over TWO DAYS AFTER the storm hit, when it was clear her state government was useless.

[frogjerk]

I guess Bush should have driven the buses.

That would make a funny photoshop!

[K-oneTexas]

Interesting. I wonder what other advisor's around the table (on the phone were saying) such as the Corps of Engineers and possibly others on the ground. One man saying it doesn't make it the only option or situation that "could" occur.

[popdonnelly]

Man, the AP is all out to get Bush. It's obvious they're on the Dems' side.