Miserable incompetent lying failure
In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.
Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."
...
Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.
"I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."
Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility _ and Bush was worried too.
posted by The Inside Dope @ 3/01/2006
2 comments
2 Comments:
This story gets progressively worse for Bush as details come out.
For one thing, Bush never asked ONE question during this entire briefing, confirming what everyone knows, that Bush just doesn't give a damn.
When asked during a recent interview what he felt like after the hurricane had hit and N.O. had flooded, he said he wished they could have "comforted" the victims more.
Great. Faith based disaster rescue. Just paddle up to the bodies floating in the sewage filled water and pat them on the back and say, "There, there."
The administration at first refused to provide these tapes, claiming executive privelege or even saying that they didn't exist or someone forgot to press the "play" button!!
And the press isn't immune either. This tape was sent by FEMA to all major news networks and it's been sitting in their archives for months now.
And after claiming exectutive privelege and all the other excuses to not provide this tape, the White House now has leaked another tape which shows Bush in a slightly better light.
It's an outrage that this administration tells congress to go Cheney itself when it subpenas White House docs, refuses almost all requests for information based on "national security" concerns, but yet has routinely put out top secret information when it suited their purpose, such as outing a CIA agent, and providing detailed transcripts of Clinton's meetings with various figures.
What more proof will people need than seeing Bush lie right in front of their eyes when he said that "no one could have anticipated that the levees would be breached".
Now their defense is that the weather service guy in the tape warned that the levees may be "overtopped", and Bush said no one could anticipate that they'd be breached.
All their dodges won't hold water, much like the levees.
This is just another brick in the wall of lies and manipulation that has been plain for years now to those paying attention. Maybe it's finally getting to the point of critical mass.
The press isn't giving Bush a pass on this as they do on so many stories, and Republicans in congress are not exactly rushing to defend him like they've always done before.
Feel free to add anything I've left out that you've heard about this story.
You know how he got the job, right?
Bush picked him to head the committee to pick his vice president, and then after he'd vetted all the candidates, he freaking picked himself!
As with so much about this gang, it's strange, but true.
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