National Guards “played cards” amid New Orleans chaos: police official

[sabra]

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2005/September/theworld_September101.xml§ion=theworld

National Guards “played cards” amid New Orleans chaos: police official
(AFP)

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana - A top New Orleans police officer said Saturday that National Guard troops sat around playing cards while people died in the stricken city after Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans deputy police commander W.S. Riley launched a bitter attack on the federal response to the disaster though he praised the way the evacuation was eventually handled.

His remarks added to controversy over the government handling of the crisis as New Orleans descended into anarchic chaos after Katrina swamped the city’s flood defences. Thousands are feared dead in the disaster.

...

“For 72 hours this police department and the fire department and handful of citizens were alone rescuing people. We have people who died while the National Guard sat and played cards. I understand why we are not winning the war in Iraq if this is what we have.”

[bluestateguy]

1. The Coast Guard was a lot more on the ball in this thing

I suspect there will be a surge in Coast Guard enlistments as a result, but morale in the NG is so low because of the Iraq clusterfuck.

[John Q. Citizen]

6. Do the individual guards men pick and chose their missions

based on how they are feeling that day?

[bklyncowgirl]

21. Coast Guard was excellent

Why did the Coast Guard move instantly and the rest of the military essentially sit on the collective butts?

[progressivebydesign]

2. Why were they not ordered to go in there? More paperwork delays?

I mean, shit, how much paperwork does it take to get them in there to help??? Or were they waiting Bush to show up for his fucking photo op?

[tkmorris]

3. Before someone starts accusing anyone of troop bashing

I would like to point out that the troops do exactly what they are ordered to do. Here, as in Iraq, if anyone takes issue with what the troops do or don't do they should look to who gave the orders.

The NG sat on it's collective ass because that's what they were told to do. Ultimately their chain of command leads to Bush himself. That's where the blame lies.

[sabra]

4. I agree 99.9%...

[mchill]

5. The National Guard is used in federal firefighting

and their assignments are totally controlled by the Operations Section Chief (usually civilian govt official) in the Incident Command System (ICS). Most, if not all disasaterrs are managed under the ICS system and I would make a bet it was a federal, state or county civilian team that has control over the daily assignment of these Guards people.

[John Q. Citizen]

8. This was a "planned disaster" and the proof is in this part of the

article:

"The National Guard commander, Lieutenant General Steven Blum, said the reservist force was slow to move troops into New Orleans because it did not anticipate the collapse of the city's police force."

So the commander just had everyone sit around while people were dying?

This is bogus. it's criminal and from the top.

[Up2Late]

11. Nobody here is Troop bashing, but it had been rumored that...

...the NG had been ordered not to enter the city or start distributing supplies that had staged out on the edge of N.O., apparently waiting for our so-called "Commander-in-Chief" to arrive for his Photo-Opp, so that it would appear to the people of N.O. that the Cavalry had arrived.

The American Red Cross also has a note on their web site that said they were prohibited to enter the City of N.O. after they had arrived too.

This N.O. Police officer would appear to be another nail in that coffin.

[Dogmudgeon]

7. I offer only one defense --

Guardsmen can't do anything unless they are authorized.

We now know that the White House requested that Gov. Blanco hand over all authority to the federal government. She refused to do so, sensing a political motive. Chances are that the Guard was given orders to stand down until further notice.

I'm certain that Bush will use this as (one of) his excuse(s): "I thought Gov. Blanco was giving the orders. I just wanted to stay out of her way. How was I supposed to know she was waitin' on li'l ol' me?"

However, in her reply to Bush's demand for complete control, she made sure to inform him that HE was the guy calling the shots. He will have no cover unless he lies.

Whether he gets away with it is another matter.

--p!

[John Q. Citizen]

9. You offer an excuse, which we've seen a lot of lately, but

where is your evidence or link to this?

"We now know that the White House requested that Gov. Blanco hand over all authority to the federal government. She refused to do so,..."

How do we know this. Do you have some information you can share?

[Spazito]

10. Here is the article I think to which the poster is referring, I believe

"Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration officials blamed state and local authorities for what leaders at all levels have called a failure of the country's emergency management.
....
Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration had sought control over National Guard units, normally under control of the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request, noting that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. State authorities suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who is an adviser and does not have the authority to speak publicly."

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state's victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680.html

(An interesting aside, the original title of the article was White House Shifts Blame, it is now a subtitle)

[John Q. Citizen]

12. This was on Friday, yesterday. So what does this have to do

with the planned lack of Federal response for the last four days, the days that the article are talking about when the Feds sat on their hands?

The card playing is over now that thousands more have died and the leadership of the guard has finally moved out.

This is classic Rove dust in the air.

the Feds are criminally negligent for not responding in a timely manner. They did it on purpose. It was SOP as people died.

[Spazito]

13. I totally agree with you, the only reason I posted the link was

because it was where the discussion of taking responsibility away from the Governor was attempted by bush to cover his ass, that was all.

[John Q. Citizen]

15. My reply was mostly to the "person" who threw up the dust, not to you,

and thanks for the info on what the dust they were talking about.

I think the bush crime family is a little bit anxious. They seem to be working overtime.

[Dogmudgeon]

14. I'm not the enemy

Blaming ME for making excuses is absurd. You've confused my lack of boiling outrage for complicity.

Think about how it works: The National Guard is military. When you're in the military, you follow orders. They were ordered to go to the staging area and wait for further orders.

That's not an excuse. That is how it works in the military. PERIOD. And that's exactly what happened. Team Bush dropped the ball -- several times. And now, they're trying to blame their own inaction on anyone and everyone they can.

As to the White House power play:

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state's emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/03/AR2005090301680_pf.html

The White House is now trying to blame her for not formally declaring a state of emergency, in spite of having clearly defined power to let FEMA do as it deemed necessary.

The audit trail is fairly easy to trace, and several damning pieces of evidence have emerged. Bush & Co. know that they have a limited amount of time to do damage control before those death toll estimates start to come in.

--p!

[John Q. Citizen]

16. You are quite right, and I apologize for the misunderstanding on

my part. I went back and read what you wrote along with the info from the person who posted the WAPO article and I see what you mean, and I see that I mis-interpreted it before.

Sorry for my sort of snotty and ill-advised remark.

[Dogmudgeon]

18. 's alright ...

... this has been a brutal week for everybody.

--p!

[raysr]

17. We had a flood in

in NW Washington State a couple of years ago and people were complaining that the Guardsmen were rude and bullied people around and generally didn't do shit!

[texanwitch]

19. When I was in the Army we had a name for the National Guard, we called

the Useless Guard. We didn't like to work with them, some of them were very lazy, rude and nasty.

[NYC]

20. I would expect "lazy, rude, and nasty" to be a local problem.

Their officers didn't train them well, or something.

The card playing near the dying people of New Orleans is a national problem. Homeland Security is the top banana now. If things weren't going smoothly, and playing cards while people die is not going smoothly, they should have pounced on the problem. If Homeland Security didn't pounce on the problem, Bush should have pounced on them.

All roads lead to Rome. Was Bush eating cake again? Strumming his new guitar? Catching up on his beauty sleep? Perhaps planning his next vacation?

[Ice4Clark]

22. Some of the Guardsmen told me they were going down to NO

I stated I wished I could go and help with the relief effort and was shocked by what I heard. They said they didn't want to go, as it would cost them money. They would only get 75 dollars a day while they were down there and that when you make over $20 an hour it's hard to take that kind of pay cut. I went off on them. I told them that we all should do our part in resue and recovery, take time off of work, whatever it takes and cheerfully and gladly do it for free. I didn't care about being paid to help my fellow countrymen.

I guess many in this nation have become so cold and greedy that the almighty dollar is what motivates them, not saving the lives of others. As for loss of income, I don't have many bills, but if I could do something productive down there and could get down there, I'd skip a month of my bills just to help out. I hope this unit I spoke too is an exception, but maybe it's not.