Lots of Blame, But It's No Game
Rebuilding after Katrina will take time and money, but it won't be enough unless the nation finds out what went wrong--and fixes it
There are months and years of work ahead, but it's still not too early for lawmakers to begin examining what went wrong and why. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois said the House and Senate plan to create a bipartisan committee made up of senior members to review what went wrong and report its findings to Congress no later than mid-February of next year. But that plan already appears to be off to a bad start, with Democrats noting that the announcement by Frist and Hastert was made without the presence of any Democrats. Democrats want an independent commission similar to the panel that investigated the 9/11 attacks and are threatening to boycott the hearings.
There are certainly plenty of questions. Did state officials seek federal aid quickly enough? Who put up the roadblocks that prevented help from getting to those who needed it? When was the Pentagon asked to dispatch troops? Why the delay? An angry Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, fumed: "Governments at all levels failed."
That was the sort of charge often leveled by troubadour Woody Guthrie, a champion of the poor Americans left homeless by the 1930s Dust Bowl storms. Guthrie didn't like the word refugee (though "Dust Bowl Refugees" is among his more popular songs). He thought it seemed elitist, and besides that, he added, "There are different kinds of refugees. There are people who are forced to take refuge under a railroad bridge because they ain't got no place to go, and there are those who take refuge in public office." Those Gulf Coast residents whose lives have been turned inside out by Katrina may eventually see their lives put back together. But for those in public office who failed their fellow Americans so signally--for them, there'll be a reckoning.
With Judd Slivka, Danielle Knight, Ilana Ozernoy and Julian E. Barnes
advertisement
