Key military help for victims of Hurricane Katrina was delayed

[sabra]

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/12666834.htm

Key military help for victims of Hurricane Katrina was delayed

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, President Bush went on national television to announce a massive federal rescue and relief effort.


But orders to move didn't reach key active military units for another three days.

....

The delay this time in tapping the troops, helicopters, trucks, generators, communications and other resources of the 1st Cavalry and the 82nd Airborne is the latest example of how the federal response to Katrina lacked organization and leadership. And it raises further questions about the government's ability to rapidly mobilize the active-duty military now that FEMA has been absorbed into the massive, terrorism-focused Department of Homeland Security.

....

Greenberger, the Maryland homeland security expert, said he wonders whether Chertoff and other top federal officials understand the National Response Plan or even had read it before Katrina.


"Everything he did and everything he has said strongly suggests that that plan was never read," Greenberger said of Chertoff.

[opihimoimoi]

1. Fuck the Chertoff guy...its the man in the White House...He and his staff

was supposed to be pounding on desks, throwing fucking phones, whatever, to get the god damn ball moving....that they did not, Cheney, Rummy, Condy, etc are all to blame for not punching Bush in the face to insist Help gets there like NOW... 3 fucking days...???

It just shows they never gave a fuck and wanted the misery/death/suffering to continue....those ass hole sadists...they were laughing....

[sabra]

2. laughing and sleeping

we will never forget.

peace

[opihimoimoi]

3. How could they possibly sleep knowing their inaction caused so much

pain and death??? Damn them all to Hell forever in a cell shared with Ernest Angley

[OneBlueSky]

4. and, despite all denials, the whole thing is intentional . . .

because you can bet your last dollar that they would have moved heaven and hell to respond if this had happened in, say, Miami Beach . . .

[tkmorris]

5. Of course it's intentional

By the Tuesday after the storm it was abundantly clear that the response from FEMA was lacking. It was a bloody mess and everyone knew it. A glance at DU from that day will illustrate that point clearly but it wasn't just us, the NATION was glued to their collective televisions in horror at what those people were enduring and demanding to know where the help was.

It simnply isn't possible that the White House didn't know the true situation. Waitresses in Des Moines knew the true situation. Any one of us, had we been president that day, would have picked up the phone and demanded that people get their ass in gear. I would have had Brown's and Chertoff's heads for bookends myself by dawn Wednesday. We all would have. Bush did nothing. He sat on his hands and issued no orders whatsoever. He raised funds. He ate fucking cake. He knew, and he did nothing but let New Orleans die.

[Up2Late]

6. "If the 1st Cav and 82nd Airborne had gotten there on time, I think we...

(Their is so much more here, much of it near the bottom of the article)

Posted on Fri, Sep. 16, 2005

Key military help for victims of Hurricane Katrina was delayed

By Drew Brown, Seth Borenstein and Alison Young

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Two days after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, President Bush went on national television to announce a massive federal rescue and relief effort. But orders to move didn't reach key active military units for another three days.

Once they received them, it took just eight hours for 3,600 troops from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C., to be on the ground in Louisiana and Mississippi with vital search-and-rescue helicopters. Another 2,500 soon followed from the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood, Texas.

"If the 1st Cav and 82nd Airborne had gotten there on time, I think we would have saved some lives," said Gen. Julius Becton Jr., who was the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Reagan from 1985 to 1989. "We recognized we had to get people out, and they had helicopters to do that." Federal officials have long known that the active-duty military is the only organization with the massive resources and effective command structure to handle a major catastrophe.

In a 1996 Pentagon report, the Department of Defense acknowledged its large role in major disasters. Between 1992 and 1996, the Pentagon provided support in 18 disasters and developed five training manuals on how to work with FEMA and civilians in natural disasters. "In catastrophic disasters, DOD will likely provide Hurricane Andrew-levels of support and predominately operate in urban or suburban terrain," the report said. "This should be incorporated into planning assumptions."

<http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12666834.htm>
(more at link above)