It’s high time for the White House to cooperate fully with the Senate inquiry about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and turn over documents to the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Given the pathetic performance of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the administration’s reluctance to release possibly embarrassing information is understandable – but wrong-headed.
It is ludicrous for the White House to claim it is committed to cooperating with Senate and House investigations of the Katrina fiasco and then in the same breath say it wants to protect the confidentiality of advisers. The Senate panel isn’t asking the administration to divulge secrets bearing on national security; it wants to know why the federal response was so inept in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf coast.
A report in Tuesday’s Washington Post suggests that the White House received prescient warnings of the storm’s likely impact, including breached levees, massive flooding and major losses of life and property during the two days before the storm made landfall.
A FEMA computer slide presentation produced on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina hit, likened the looming storm to a July 2004 readiness exercise on the effects of a major hurricane hitting New Orleans, only worse.The National Infrastructure and Analysis Center e-mailed the White House situation room on Aug. 29, the day of, to warn that the storm could cause “severe flooding and/or levee breaching,” specifically focusing on levees along Lake Pontchartrain.
Senators from both sides of the aisle have criticized the administration’s obfuscation. “No one believes that the government responded adequately,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., “And we can’t put that story together if people feel they’re under a gag order from the White House.”
Committee chairwoman Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, added that “I think the White House has gone too far in restricting basic information.”
Instead of cowering behind executive privilege, the White House should fully respond to congressional requests. People died; Congress needs to understand the government’s poor response and its future plans.
