Here are the high points of Mike Brown’s defense:
- says he was initially unaware of desperate conditions at the New Orleans Convention Center because it was not a planned Hurricane Katrina evacuation site
- After learning from television about the thousands of evacuees who gathered at the center, Brown ordered food and water be delivered there
- “there is no reason FEMA would have known about it [the Convention Center] beforehand.”
- Brown said he should have sought help more quickly from the Pentagon after Katrina hit, and expressed regret “that he did not start screaming” for the military’s involvement sooner. The first substantial numbers of active-duty troops responding to the Gulf Coast were sent on Sept. 3, five days after the storm hit.
- Brown said Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin “sparred during the crisis and could not work together cooperatively”
- described Blanco as “indecisive” and refusing to cede control of the Louisiana National Guard to federal authorities because “it would have undercut her image politically”
- Brown did not take any official notes during conference calls he ran with state and federal authorities and “just assumed that agencies would follow up on taskings resulting from the calls.”
- Brown said a federal takeover of emergency management responsibilities would be a “crutch” for local and state governments and could lead to future lapses in preparedness.
Related:
Staff writer Bruce Nolan reported some 7 weeks before Katrina: “In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm’s way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.” – [Drudge]
Katrina Response Sparks Outrage
New Orleans Mayor Faces Leadership Crisis
A Glance at Mayor Nagin pre-Katrina: some are not so sure that Nagin has his priorities in the right order.
This is all “ya ya gumbo”. The press is not interested in the truth, and neither are various Democrats with big mouths.
Has anyone asked Rep. William Jefferson about comandeering that National Guard truck and troops? Did anyone ask what he took out of his house, like incriminating evidence?
Anyone ask about various New Orleans officials taking disaster relief supllies for themselves, and not in reasonable quantities?
Is anyone going to ask where the billions in Federal dollars went that was supposed to prevent the levees breaking? I do mean over the decades that money has been pumped into this area.
I’ve asked these questions many times myself. I’m glad to see Mike Brown defending his position and I like the way he’s saying it. He did nothing wrong in my opinion and the media doesn’t seem to be going after Gov. Blanco at all. After all, she’s the one who played partisan politics with peoples lives.
Don’t forget Mr. School bus….has anyone locked his dumb ass up yet?
“In scripted appearances being recorded now, officials such as Mayor Ray Nagin, local Red Cross Executive Director Kay Wilkins and City Council President Oliver Thomas drive home the word that the city does not have the resources to move out of harm’s way an estimated 134,000 people without transportation.”- They most certainly did and do. It is called an Executive Order of the Governor directing the National Gaurd to drive the buses, that are owned by the cit/state, to destinations chosen for shelter. There were many options. Nagin/Blanco chose not to act. GWB gave her just enough rope to hang herself. I would have siezed control of the state as soon as that levy broke.
Except the buses were all underwater. Great forethought there, eh?
5- The Guard should have been called up by Friday! This storm didn’t just come out of nowhere. IMO, they had no intention of ever trying to evacuate the people. I guess it’s easier to let someone else worry about it.
5,6, Nagin did not want to use the school and city buses because they didn’t have bathrooms on them. Nagin should be hung from the nearest tall tree in the Ninth Ward.
7. AMEN
Why Nagin and Kofi Anan are not in shackles is beyond me.
I’d put them in a room with that master of torture, Lynddie England for an hour, let her point at their nuts…that’d show ‘em!!!
Well let me play devil’s advocate yet again. If a class 5 hurricane is coming to your city with 1 days notice, would you volunteer to drive a school bus filled with old people you don’t know out of town?
Me, no. I would get my 9 kids and leave. Screw all the rest of you; I have my hands full.
Okay that would work if there was just 1 day, but there was about 10, so that doesn’t really fit. Now tell us what happened to the 10th kid you had last year?
10? Well, I just don’t think so. Can you prove me wrong?
Listen sister, I never had no 10 kids, my kids was fine until they went to public schoool and got all messed up. It was them school teachers who screwed up my kids. Them school teachers was all talking about tests and bruises, Screw them. My kids play rough and get bruises. That isn’t no business of some school teacher thinken they so smart. Presdent Bush is right, dem school teachers is whak. We need to fire them all. They don’t know how hard it is to have 9 kids and be maken minimum wage. You’re all racist.
George Bush doesn’t care about black people.
Crackers!
Classic!:lol:
Z, you do that just a little too well.
I think somewhere inside Zelda is a stank Ghetto Girl just dying to get out.
well new orleans now has one less problem! all the school children will be home schooled now! all them damn buses got flooded! atta boy! nagin ;another fine mess yo got us out of!
mr.brown you are the dems poster child for the dems to have a sacrificial member of the bush administration. truthfully, if you were as big a screw up as they are portraying you to be i doubt that you would have been able to have dressed yourself in the morning!
11, there was more tnan one day’s warning, Zelda. It just took more than that time for it to sink in Nagin’s and Blanco’s ‘stuck on stupid” noggins.
I got a question for you, Zelda. Where were all the bus drivers who normally drive those buses? I mean that is their paid job. Shouldn’t they have been available to do it?
It doesn’t matter where those drivers were. They were never asked to do their job. Maybe some would have, but more than likely, the majority wouldn’t. The Guard was called up and the first thing that should have happened was for them to be assigned to drive those buses. A Governor, that is in charge as Blanco claimed to be, would have mandated the evacuation. But as we see in the paper trail, the evacuation did not become mandatory until Wednesday.
18, Zelda made the assertion that Bush doesn’t care about black people. Short of him kissing each and everyone of their asses on public TV, I don’t believe the Bush Haters and the black racists will believe otherwise.
This wasn’t a racist thing any way around, except in the mind of racists who also hate Bush.
She was being a smartass in response to me questioning what she did with her 10th kid that obviously went missing in a crack haze!
Today we will get to see Blanco defend herself! I wonder if they will ask her about the evacuation orders!
19: I think Zelda’s #11 was all in keeping with the crackhead mother of 9 (10?) by who knows how many fathers character.
Sasha, she had 10 after Christmas last year! If she would just go back to some of the corners she frequents, he is probably standing right there!
#8: LMAO
I can just imagine Kofi Annan, wearing a dog collar, and a leash held by Lynndie England who is pointing at Kofi’s genitals.
This one is in honor of Mike Kilo
24: How about offer them a choice of punishment:
Beheading
or
The Lynndie Treatment.
There are some people who pay good money for the Lynndie Treatment…:twisted: