Washington – The Bush administration removed Michael Brown, the embattled director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, from the Gulf Coast disaster zone Friday as the White House tried to regain footing amid criticism of its response to Hurricane Katrina.
A week after President Bush praised him for doing “a heck of a job,” Brown was stripped of duties overseeing relief efforts and ordered back to Washington.
Although Brown remains FEMA director and the administration presented it as a deployment decision, officials privately said the president’s aides wanted a more effective, hands-on manager at the scene.
Also Friday, FEMA officials said they would discontinue a problem-plagued program in which storm victims were to receive debit cards bearing $2,000 in immediate cash assistance.
FEMA officials said they lacked enough staff to continue with the effort and will end it after distributing cards this weekend at shelters in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Evacuees will still be eligible for funds through checks or direct deposits into their bank accounts.
Brown, a lawyer and former Colorado Arabian horse association official, had become the focal point for anger over the slow, disjointed mobilization when Katrina slammed into the coast Aug. 29, drowning New Orleans and wiping out whole sections of Mississippi and Alabama.
But demands for his dismissal were also a proxy for assailing Bush’s own handling of the crisis as well as past moves restructuring FEMA and populating its top ranks with political allies.
The move came as the White House announced that Bush will return to the devastated Gulf Coast for a third time Sunday.
The president made no mention of his own staff’s performance Friday, and his spokesman declined to express confidence in Brown when asked at a briefing. Instead, the president left it to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to handle the task of removing Brown.
Appearing at a news conference in Baton Rouge, La., with Brown at his side, Chertoff announced that he was sending the FEMA director back to Washington just in case another storm hits the country and put Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen in charge.
“Mike Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge,” Chertoff said. “I appreciate his work, as does everybody here.”
Brown came under fire in Washington for not moving more aggressively as the storm bore down on the coast or in the days afterward. At one point in a televised appearance, he seemed to blame those stranded in flooded New Orleans for their predicament because they did not flee, although many impoverished residents did not have the means.
He seemed uninformed when he told a television interviewer he did not know thousands of people were in the convention center without food or water.
Bush initially stuck by Brown, offering him a pat on the back during his first visit to the region Sept. 2.
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” Bush said before cameras.
But other administration officials were not so sure and pulled Brown off television in favor of Chertoff, who brought Allen in as Brown’s deputy.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and three fellow Democratic senators sent a letter to Bush demanding that he fire Brown outright.
“It is not enough to remove Mr. Brown from the disaster scene,” they wrote, adding that he “simply doesn’t have the ability or the experience to oversee a coordinated federal response of this magnitude.”
Colorado politicians generally agreed.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., who on Tuesday called for Brown’s firing, said his removal from Katrina oversight “is just one step toward accountability and toward ensuring confidence in the recovery efforts. I still believe that Mr. Brown should be dismissed from FEMA entirely and replaced with a leader … truly prepared for the next time our country faces a catastrophic event.”
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who had earlier sought Brown’s firing, Friday also called for the resignations of Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin for their handling of the crisis.
The Denver Post Washington bureau contributed to this report.
