A Colossal Failure of Leadership
Saving people and maintaining order are the first order of government in any disaster. In New Orleans, neither has been achieved.
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek
Updated: 12:29 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005
Sept. 2, 2005 - I didn"t see the movie "The Day After," which depicts the desolation and desperation in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. Staring at the images from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is like watching that disaster movie in real time. People trying to survive, scavenging like wild animals, dead bodies stuffed in corners of the Superdome, the governor of Louisiana fighting to hold back tears.
Where is Rudy Giuliani when we need him? We"ve had four years since 9/11 to prepare for a crisis with mass casualties, yet we seem totally unprepared. To be sure, there are countless unsung heroes performing tasks of kindness and going out of their way to help their fellow man. But this was a moment for national leadership, and nobody rose to take charge the way Giuliani did in New York.
This has been a colossal failure of government. President Bush spent Tuesday, the day after Katrina struck, at a Medicare event in Arizona and then he made his way to a San Diego naval base for yet another anniversary tribute to the Greatest Generation. His concession to reality was adding a few words of compassion to his prepared remarks. Meanwhile, the greatest natural disaster in a century was unfolding at sickening speed with television cameras capturing footage of looting reminiscent of the days after the invasion of Iraq. Things were so bad "you almost wonder if Donald Rumsfeld is in charge," said Marshall Wittmann, an analyst with the Democratic Leadership Council.
Saving people and maintaining order are the first order of government in any disaster, and neither was achieved. The much-touted Department of Homeland Security appeared too caught up in its internal bureaucracy to perform, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) called off its rescue missions Thursday because residents trying to board boats were getting violent. The disorder and lawlessness was breathtaking to watch. At one point, the evacuation of patients from a hospital was halted because of gunfire. Bush talks about "zero tolerance" for looters, but there aren"t enough police to stop them and the jails are under water. One third of the National Guard from the affected states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they"re the ones trained to perform the police functions that restore civil order.
Instead of declaring a national emergency and deploying the military from all those nearby Texas bases, Bush deployed his father and President Clinton for a photo op at the White House as a prelude to a fund-raising tour. Callers to cable shows called the unfolding disaster "our tsunami" and wondered whether other countries would come to our aid the way the American government did when the tsunami hit Asia. We are the richest nation on earth with the resources, as Bush rightly said, "to take care of our business." Even so, gestures of support are welcome; NEWSWEEK has learned that the former ambassador from Sri Lanka is rallying medical doctors from his country"s expatriate community to go to New Orleans to help. "I figured this is the least we could do to reciprocate for all the help we got," Ambassador Devinda Subasinghe says.
We"re getting a taste of what poorer parts of the world have experienced along with a glimpse into a frightening future. Scientists say we have entered a cycle of frequent and dangerous storms. September is the peak season for hurricanes, and we"re already through the letter K with Katrina.
Bush"s comment that nobody thought the levees in New Orleans would break is false, and he will regret those words just as Condoleezza Rice did her comment that nobody could imagine a plane flying into a building like a missile. Local authorities and the Corps of Engineers had war-gamed hurricane scenarios and issued repeated warnings about the vulnerability of the levees. Their pleas were turned down and funding cut instead. Now the money will flow. Congressional leaders rushed back to Washington early to pass legislation to free up $10 billion for hurricane relief, a mere down payment on what it will cost to rebuild the stricken areas.
Congress had been planning to eliminate the estate tax, draining billions from a federal budget already reeling under the costs of a war. Marshall Wittmann, who used to advise John McCain, predicts that Bush"s tax-cutting days are over. "We"ve been living in la-la land," he says. "This is a moment of sobriety when business as usual can"t continue."
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You know, Rick, I can't decide who I despise the most. The oil giants who are using Katrina as a further excuse to shaft the American consumer, or the Bush-bashers and Democrats who are using Katrina as political fodder.
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To bad local officials didn't wargame how they would evacuate their people with 5 days notice in such an event.Or for that matter how THEY would handle immediate rescues,food and water relief and anything else that should have been thought of.
Whatever your politics, there are certianly some lessons here to be learned. Those that specifically jump out to me are:
1) Despite creation of H.S., all the first responder upgrades, etc., almost five years after 9/11, we are STILL underprepared in case of a national emergency. Sure, this was a natural disaster, but response is response. We did not have adequate National Guard ready to deploy to maintian order (this would be needed in a terrorists attack) and our evacuation plan was inadequate.
2) Maybe putting paving up and track housing on every available strip of land is not so smart. Wetlands are there for a purpose,and if they had not been overbuilt, some of this might have been prevented. Maybe it is time we woke up to global warming and habitat destruction. This would be a bonus for us hunters.
3) Is is not obvious? The time has come for alternative fuels. I don't know if it is biodiesel or something else, but depending on foreign oil weakens us. Many Americans will suffer due to fuel prices and heating oil prices as we creep into winter. If this is not a wake up call to the President and Congress that drilling ANWAR and democracy in Iraq is just a bandaid, I do not know what it will take.
4) If we are going to continue fighting two wars, we cannot continue to expect tax cuts. Cutting money to your infrastructure to fight in Iraq is a huge gamble, and this time we lost. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. War in Iraq and low taxes don't work without something going out the window.
1) Despite creation of H.S., all the first responder upgrades, etc., almost five years after 9/11, we are STILL underprepared in case of a national emergency. Sure, this was a natural disaster, but response is response. We did not have adequate National Guard ready to deploy to maintian order (this would be needed in a terrorists attack) and our evacuation plan was inadequate.
I agree that we do need more planning. Declaring a state of emergency, evacuation order and marshall law should have been done much sooner by local and state officials. Locals have some responsibility in this also. We probably do have enough National guard troops available but probably do not have enouggh transportation units (i.e. helicopters, amphibious vehicles, boats, buses, etc.) to make optimum use of their capabilities and ability to restore order in an emergency such as this.
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2) Maybe putting paving up and track housing on every available strip of land is not so smart. Wetlands are there for a purpose,and if they had not been overbuilt, some of this might have been prevented. Maybe it is time we woke up to global warming and habitat destruction. This would be a bonus for us hunters.
Bingo. You nailed this one.
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3) Is is not obvious? The time has come for alternative fuels. I don't know if it is biodiesel or something else, but depending on foreign oil weakens us. Many Americans will suffer due to fuel prices and heating oil prices as we creep into winter. If this is not a wake up call to the President and Congress that drilling ANWAR and democracy in Iraq is just a bandaid, I do not know what it will take.
Agreed. We should be building safe nuclear power plants as an interim measure to reduce our dependence on oil and continue devekoping technology to use solar, wind and other types of renewable energy.
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4) If we are going to continue fighting two wars, we cannot continue to expect tax cuts. Cutting money to your infrastructure to fight in Iraq is a huge gamble, and this time we lost. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. War in Iraq and low taxes don't work without something going out the window.
Cutting taxes does result in an increase in tax revenue. However, cutting taxes is only part of the solution. Government hasn't addressed the problem of not enough oil refining cpacity (a shorter term solution), price gouging by individual stations, distributors and oil companies and creating a short term energy solution such as nuclear power plants until we can develop solar, wind and other renewable sources that are cost effective.
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It's obvious the whiners are starting to come out of the woodwork.
And your comment about the original article is absolutely right on the money Rick. Ben makes a good point also about how some people simply cannot stop using any tragedy for political gain. It's sad but that is apparently all some people know how to do--Simply complain. They will never be a part of any solution, just a continuing part of the problem.
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RE: A Colossal Failure of Leadership
Rick your summary just made me start to feel bad all over again. I feel youreplicated it exactly. NBC journalists said they were deployed to the zone 1 day before the hurricane. They had security, food, water and gas for their generators brought in constantly. Why couldn't the local, state and federal government do the same?
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1) Despite creation of H.S., all the first responder upgrades, etc., almost five years after 9/11, we are STILL underprepared in case of a national emergency. Sure, this was a natural disaster, but response is response. We did not have adequate National Guard ready to deploy to maintian order (this would be needed in a terrorists attack) and our evacuation plan was inadequate.
There's a report with an AP byline, on the "This is New Orleans" website (www.nola.com), that President Bush pleaded with Governor Blanco of LA Saturday, before the storm, to order a mandatory evacuation, and the President's staff had a memorandum drawn up for the Governor to sign, that would put the Federal government in charge of the relief effort. Blanco refused; supposedly she didn't want the area to come under Federal martial law.
Also, after Ivan, the government of Louisiana knew they had a problem with evacuation of New Orleans--yet they did nothing about it. Everybody seen the pciture of the dozens upon dozens of school buses, flooded, that could have been used to evacuate the city, taken Tuesday?
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2) Maybe putting paving up and track housing on every available strip of land is not so smart. Wetlands are there for a purpose,and if they had not been overbuilt, some of this might have been prevented. Maybe it is time we woke up to global warming and habitat destruction. This would be a bonus for us hunters.
An FYI for the global warming crowd--I'm not saying that you're part of that bunch, AM, but justFYI--if global warming were partially to blame for the storm, there would be an increase in the number and ferocity oftropical systems in both the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
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3) Is is not obvious? The time has come for alternative fuels. I don't know if it is biodiesel or something else, but depending on foreign oil weakens us. Many Americans will suffer due to fuel prices and heating oil prices as we creep into winter. If this is not a wake up call to the President and Congress that drilling ANWAR and democracy in Iraq is just a bandaid, I do not know what it will take.
It may be a bandaid, but it's a necessary one. Do you expect the economy to grind to a halt in the interim, before alternate fuel vehicles are ready for mass use?
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4) If we are going to continue fighting two wars, we cannot continue to expect tax cuts. Cutting money to your infrastructure to fight in Iraq is a huge gamble, and this time we lost. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. War in Iraq and low taxes don't work without something going out the window.
As CalHunter pointed out, those tax cuts actually raised revenues to the IRS--to the tune of very near $260 billion. Also, the citizens of New Orleans have had a measure come before them for each of the last 20 years--raise taxes and strengthen the levee system. They've defeated it for 20 years running. Also, the 17th Street Canal levee, one of the twothat broke, was recently upgraded out of the funds from the Federal government.
Good post Muddy,but it's no fun if they can't blame Bush.After all the Mayor and Governer are all Dems.We can't blame them now can we.
As for the oil,why not drill and find it here?!?Build a few more refineries?OH NOOOOOOOOOOO!Might upset the wildlife.
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A Colossal Failure of Leadership
