Katrina's Ongoing Fury
New details about government blunders just keep coming
The Bush White House has never taken criticism passively. So it's no surprise it will be launching a full-out message war this week when the first congressional committee investigating the government's bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina announces what aides say will be scathing findings. U.S. News has learned that the White House is scrambling to blunt criticism from the report, as well as from senators who gained additional ammunition last week when Mike Brown, the fallen former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, revealed for the first time his communications with top administration officials in the days surrounding the storm (box).
The dribs and drabs of criticism so far have already met a slashing response. When the Government Accountability Office reported this month that a lack of "clear and decisive leadership" and the existence of "multiple chains of command" hampered the Department of Homeland Security's response, DHS spokesman Russ Knocke called the analysis "premature and unprofessional." The GAO argued that DHS could have designated Katrina a "catastrophic event"to eliminate a layer of bureaucracy; Knocke called that a "deep misunderstanding" of department policies.
Republican Rep. Tom Davis, head of the House Katrina committee, told U.S.News his report will try to answer questions about why crucial members of the White House--including President George W. Bush--remained on vacation in the days after the storm. The administration, Davis says, will "hear plenty"about information they refused to provide, including interviews and E-mails.
PR blitz. White House homeland security adviser Frances Townsend is clearly bracing for the firestorm, with several sources saying she'll put out a portion of her analysis of what went wrong ahead of Davis's. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will follow with a briefing on "retool[ing]" FEMA, including proposals for new communications devices, technology to track supplies, and teams of first-in DHS personnel who can quickly scout out a disaster area. Also coming this week: an administration request for an additional $20 billion in Katrina aid.
News of the White House's planned blitz sparked frustration in Congress. Sen. Susan Collins, who will be grilling Chertoff, says, "If he's trying to change the subject, we won't let him." And Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee, who boycotted Davis's panel, will issue their account of FEMA's actions and recommended reforms even before Chertoff can propose his own. "We were worried that our report might get lost under all the other news," says one Democratic aide. But Katrina seems to be a storm that just keeps blowing.
With With David E. Kaplan and
This story appears in the February 20, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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