Running the Disaster

If we're bringing criminal charges against those whose negligence cost the lives of the poor elderly folks at St. Rita's Nursing home--ostensibly for dereliction of their duty to protect the residents of the home--there's plenty more indicting and, God willing, prosecuting to come. Starting right at the top. From KR comes a blistering report on a memo DHS Secretary Chertoff sent....late on the Tuesday after the storm:

"The Chertoff memo indicates that the response to Katrina wasn't left to disaster professionals, but was run out of the White House, said George Haddow, a former deputy chief of staff at FEMA during the Clinton administration and the co-author of an emergency management textbook.

'It shows that the president is running the disaster, the White House is running it as opposed to Brown or Chertoff,' Haddow said. Brown 'is a convenient fall guy. He's not the problem really. The problem is a system that was marginalized.'

A former FEMA director under President Reagan expressed shock by the inaction that Chertoff's memo suggested. It showed that Chertoff 'does not have a full appreciation for what the country is faced with - nor does anyone who waits that long,' said Gen. Julius Becton Jr., who was FEMA director from 1985-1989.

'Anytime you have a delay in taking action, there's a potential for losing lives,' Becton told Knight Ridder. 'I have no idea how many lives we're talking about. ... I don't understand why, except that they were inefficient.'"