Posted on 09/03/2005 12:24:37 AM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2 - As thousands of National Guard soldiers entered New Orleans on Friday to help restore order and deliver emergency supplies, Pentagon and Guard officials said the military's response had been slowed by a combination of physical obstacles created by the storm compounded by a cumbersome bureaucratic process for sending federal forces to assist in natural disasters.
State officials in Louisiana and Mississippi said they had overcome the absence of some 8,000 of their National Guard troops who are deployed to Iraq by drawing on Guard members from other states, but not until after the storm had passed and the magnitude of the emergency had become clear. Lt. Gen. Russel L. Honoré, commander of the joint task force coordinating military efforts in hurricane relief, defended the prestorm preparations by the National Guard and Pentagon, including the positioning of 10,000 National Guard troops in five Gulf Coast states.
But he acknowledged that the storm damage had caught military planners off guard. Floodwaters, debris-clogged streets and crippled communications hampered initial rescue efforts. States outside the most heavily damaged area held off sending more Guard members until the storm had passed. Even after the Guard reinforcements began arriving, he said it took a long time to load and dispatch relief trucks with supplies.
"If you ever have 20,000 people come to supper, you know what I'm talking about," General Honoré told CNN in New Orleans on Friday.
By Friday, about 19,500 National Guard troops had arrived in Louisiana and Mississippi, and 6,500 in New Orleans itself, mostly military police officers.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Jim Wilson/The New York TimesCan anyone post the picture of a Blackhawk helicopter delivering bottled water at least 24 hours before this story?
People complaining about the slowness of the NG to respond don't realize that the NG has to pack its own food, water and supplies, along with all they're bringing for survivors.
And forces were helping long before yesterday/today. The Coast Guard was plucking survivors off of roofs days ago.
Oh but how the propaganda machine of the MSM has done the best to bury it.....
The media had better get on top of this FAST because those people who were rescued are going to be going all across the country and telling their stories to the local press. In most cases, the local press is pretty good, especially the independents. Same with the local TV stations who will be interviewing these people. The MSM is going to have egg all over their faces once again.
The head Honcho for the Coast Guard said tonight they have saved 10,000 people so far. And we have all seen it on TV, they save them one at a time. They were saved at the rate of 100 per hour, 24 hours a day.
Absolutely amazing. They must have had at least 30 helicopters constantly running. This is beginning to have correlations to Operation Dynamo in the shear numbers that have been rescued. Dynamo was the Dunkirk Evacuation where the British rescued 400,000 British and French troops using every boat the British government had available and a 'convoy of little ships' mainly composed of volunteer pleasure craft.
Right:
The old established/liberal/socialist media is America's most ruthless, relentless, and destructive enemy.
The Times failed to do much more than quote this comment, yet it is really the crux of the matter. The entire process of laying on federal resources (beside the post facto nature of it all) is dependent upon "local" (read city/state) requests.
1) All requested federal resources are "costed" before acted upon. The state rep has to sign off on the request saying the state agrees to pay its share. 2) States typically await the "federal emergency" declaration to take advantage of a reduced share (for them) that kicks in after said declaration. 3) Almost all states have interlocking agreements with neighboring states for just situations. While no state is going to "eat" the costs of mobilizing their troops early in case a neighbor might need them, smart state planning takes this into account and should mobilize more of their folks before the event. They should then "pre-position" their folks in close, and plan to have other states' personnel fill in behind them. 4) The lack of control in NO was entirely the fault of the mayor/governor.
The feds (Bush) could have invoked an "insurgency/anarchy" clause of standing law/exec orders and moved in federal troops at the drop of a hat. The lack of same denotes a standing military/federal distaste to do so without local support. The most recent example of this being done were the LA riots, I believe. I do not recall feds ever having done this without local requests. Civil war maybe? Naw, probably Eisenhower's intercession for integrated schooling.
A day or two is all it should take the local chain of command to make their request. All it takes is for their control to slip, the mayor calling for state aid, the state realizing they can't handle it, and their request for fed troops. As I understand things, Washington is still waiting for the mayor or the governor to call. (Wringing hands publicly and pitching a bit..fit don't count.)
Naturally, the media doesn't want to highlight the failure of the Democrats involved, beginning with the Black mayor. Consider the field day they would be having now, if Bush had ordered troops in without a local request and the first looter/gangbanger killed was black.
Never pet a burning dog. If Bush had taken change of that mess, he’d have taken responsibility for it.
say over and over ABLE DANGER ABLE DANGER- it is about military and civilian control. The end of the Times sotry tells how afraid the Pentagon was to step on CIVILIAN CONTROL. On one hand we have civilians running the pentagon and on the other we have military wary of what to do until the civilians give the orders - "Lets Roll". Is it any wonder we have all these problems?
If you've noticed on the aerial TV footage, there are many sections of the city that were not that heavily wind damaged. Had it not been for the levee breaking, there wouldn't have been such a wide-spread disaster, so I can understand that the Guard wouldn't have thought they'd need to put so many people into the area on Mon. Also, they didn't know that the criminal class was really in charge of the city and that 60% of NO cops would quit their jobs and flee the city with their families. It bugs me to think of how many of those dirtbags we are feeding in Texas.
Guess what?
The taxpayers have been feeding them for years in New Orleans. This is nothing different, except the location.
To anyone not brainwashed by moonbat politics, the physical obstacles were obviously a huge problem. I'm sure there was red tape as well, but that can be overcome quickly in a genuine emergency. But cutting red tape will not remove floodwaters and debris, or repair roads and bridges that had the storm had destroyed.
You'll find out soon enough, I'm afraid. Thugs are thugs, wherever they are, and very soon they'll be doing the only thing they know how to do, preying on the people in Texas who have opened their communities to them.
Looks like the Slimes is starting to go into CYA mode - any coincidence that this story appears in the Saturday edition, the least-read edition of the week? And where was it, page A-38 near the bottom?
IMHO, I believe someone made a decision not to deploy National Guard units to New Orleans simply because they realized that it is below sea level and the levees could fail resulting in the loss of land based National Guard units, which are not amphibious, as well.
David J. Phillip
A section of the I-10 bridge that was badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. No one knows how much it will cost to rebuild the streets, highways and bridges devastated by the storm, but the price tag is expected to be higher than any other post-disaster reconstruction effort in U.S. history.
From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
Thanks for the ping!
Funny how no one seems to remember this.
News from the New York Times can be excellent, but the reader needs to be aware that they may be pushing an agenda, especially by errors of omission. Thankfully, it didn't happen here! When they slant their coverage, it's usually obvious to all but the 
Thanks for the ping.
Two thoughts.
First, I can remember the fuss and bother about the military exercises in cities during that man, Mr. Clinton's, administration. It's proper to allow local and State authorities to fail before the Feds move in with force and enforcement. (Unfortunately, the former failed spectacularly.)
Second, it looks to me as though I 10 is two separate bridges, and half looks fine - is the portion not seen as bad as the affected side that we can see?
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