Full-fledged inquiries into governments’ (plural) anemic response to Hurricane Katrina are essential in the wake of so much death and destruction in Louisiana and Mississippi. President Bush naturally wants to take charge of the federal Katrina probe, but the task requires an independent commission – otherwise the administration is investigating itself.
The president said he’d examine “what went right and what went wrong.” We’d point out that not a lot went right in the immediate aftermath. It took five days for rescue helicopters and supply-laden military convoys to arrive. Cabinet members were deployed last weekend to try to contain the political damage by placing the blame on state and local officials – who just so happen to be Democrats – and now the president has dispatched Vice President Cheney to assess relief efforts. But Cheney has chewed up his credibility with unreliable statements on terrorism and Iraq, and we have to wonder if he’s the right choice to make an honest analysis of the Katrina situation.
“My own impression is the whole system broke down,” said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
It’s critical that federal inquiries look closely at the performance of the newly created Department of Homeland Security in its first major field operation since the agency was created after Sept. 11. Only 2 percent of the department’s budget is spent preparing for natural disasters, and there have been urgent calls to restore the independence of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is convening the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to focus on “the way ahead.” She says, “It immediately occurred to me that if our system did such a poor job when there was no enemy, how would the federal, state and local governments have coped with a terrorist attack that provided no advance warning and that was intent on causing as much death and destruction as possible?”
The White House has been whining that critics are playing a “blame game,” conveniently ignoring that it won’t be possible to rejuvenate the recovery effort if no one knows what went awry. Washington pols are already arm wrestling over who should oversee the main Katrina inquiry. The task requires an independent panel.
