Michael "No Clue" Chertoff discusses US aid effort being criticized in New Orleans

HEADLINE: Michael Chertoff discusses US aid effort being criticized in New Orleans

Conditions and public order continue to deteriorate in New Orleans today. Looting and violence spread. Evacuation efforts moved slowly. Four days after Hurricane Katrina people were still being plucked from rooftops. Officials reported little progress in plugging the damaged levees and flood walls. President Bush has proposed $10 billion for the flooded city and parts of the Gulf Coast hit by the storm. Congress will return to Washington from summer break to approve it.

Heavily armed National Guard were evacuating people out of the squalid conditions of the Superdome. They were boarding buses for the Astrodome in Houston. But it emerged that people stranded at the New Orleans Convention Center about eight blocks away were in more than dire straits. We'll have more on that in a moment.

Earlier we spoke with Michael Chertoff, Homeland Secretary secretary, who's overseeing the recovery operation. I asked him what a Louisiana official told one of our reporters that there are just not enough National Guard on the scene and that this is a federal disaster, not a local one.

Secretary MICHAEL CHERTOFF (Department of Homeland Security): In fact, there is a significant National Guard presence not only in Louisiana but in New Orleans, and it's getting bigger every day. Let me tell that, as we speak, there are approximately 7,400 National Guard working on this in Louisiana; of those, there are 2,800 in New Orleans itself. Today, tomorrow and the next day we're going to be adding 1,400 additional Guard every single day. In addition, we are bringing federal and local law enforcement authorities from Louisiana and other parts of the country to supplement. There is, I think, going to be more than adequate--and there is a more than adequate--law enforcement presence in New Orleans.

SIEGEL: Let me ask you about images that many Americans are seeing today and hearing about. They are from the convention center in New Orleans. A CNN reporter has described thousands of people, he says, many of them--you see them in the pictures, mothers with babies--in the streets, no food, corpses and human waste. Our reporter John Burnett has seen the same things. How many days before your operation finds these people, brings them at least food, water, medical supplies, if not gets them out of there?

Sec. CHERTOFF: Well, first let me tell you there have been deliveries of food, water and medical supplies to the Superdome, and that's happened almost from the very beginning.

SIEGEL: But this is the convention center. These are people who are not allowed inside the Superdome.

Sec. CHERTOFF: Well, but, you know, there have been--we have brought this to the Superdome. There are stations in which we have put water and food and medical supplies. The limiting factor here has not been that we don't have enough supplies. The factor is that we really had a double catastrophe. We not only had a hurricane; we had a second catastrophe, which was a flood. That flood made parts of the city very difficult to get through. If you can't get through the city, you can't deliver supplies. So we have, in fact, using heroic efforts, been getting food and water to distribution centers, to places where people can get them.

SIEGEL: But if those people who haven't gotten them--if they ask our reporter, `When am I going to see those supplies? When does it get to me?'--what's the answer? How many days until it reaches them?

Sec. CHERTOFF: I think the answer is that we are as much as humanly possible--given the fact that we still have feet of water that have not drained out of the city yet, we are moving those foods and supplies as quickly as possible. People need to get to areas that are designated for them to stage for purposes of evacuation. We're contending with the force of Mother Nature and...

SIEGEL: But--and what is your sense? I'm trying--I mean, by the weekend do you expect that everybody in New Orleans will have some kind of food and water delivered by this operation?

Sec. CHERTOFF: I would expect that--unless people are trapped in isolated places that we can't get to, I would expect that everybody's going to have access to food and water and medical care. The key is to get people to staging areas. There are some people who are stranded but who are not in imminent danger. They are not people that we're going to necessarily rescue immediately. We're going to try to them, you know, food and water, so they can sustain themselves until we can pick them up.

SIEGEL: We are hearing from our reporter--and he's on another line right now--thousands of people at the convention center in New Orleans with no food, zero.

Sec. CHERTOFF: As I say, I'm telling you that we are getting food and water to areas where people are staging. And, you know, the one thing about an episode like this is if you talk to someone and you get a rumor or you get someone's anecdotal version of something, I think it's dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place. The limitation here on getting food and water to people is the condition on the ground. And as soon as we can physically move through the ground with these assets, we're going to do that. So...

SIEGEL: But, Mr. Secretary, when you say that there is--we shouldn't listen to rumors, these are things coming from reporters who have not only covered many, many other hurricanes; they've covered wars and refugee camps. These aren't rumors. They're seeing thousands of people there.

Sec. CHERTOFF: Well, I would be--actually I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water. I can tell you that I know specifically the Superdome, which was the designated staging area for a large number of evacuees, does have food and water. I know we have teams putting food and water out at other designated evacuation areas. So, you know, this isn't--and we've got plenty of food and water if we can get it out to people. And that is the effort we're undertaking.

SIEGEL: Just like to ask you, there is said to have been a report in, I think, 2001 which listed a catastrophic hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three worst potential disasters the country could face. As someone who inherited FEMA and who came to this obviously with 9/11 being the preoccupation that faced us all, have you had a plan somewhere in an office near yours that says, `Huge hurricane hits New Orleans. Here's what we do in case of that catastrophe'?

Sec. CHERTOFF: FEMA has plans for all foreseeable catastrophes. They've had plans for this kind of catastrophe, and they've exercised and worked on these plans. Recognizing this was a possibility over the weekend, we prepositioned an unprecedented amount of food and water and ice. This mandatory evacuation was ordered and begun. But at the end of the day, as with any titanic struggle with nature, a plan only gets you so far in the face of the reality of struggling with miles of cities that are under water.

SIEGEL: And our reporter said 2,000 people at the convention center without anything.

Sec. CHERTOFF: You know, Mr. Siegel, I can't argue with you about what your reporter tells you. I can only tell you that we are getting water and food and other supplies to people where we have them staged, where we can find them, where we can get it to them. And, you know, if you're suggesting to me your--that somehow the National Guard missed a group of people, I will certainly call up and make sure they don't miss them. But I'm not in a position to argue with you about what your reporter is telling us.

SIEGEL: That's Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, who spoke with us this afternoon.

Again, even if FEMA was monitoring the MSM, they would have to have been very lucky to catch those reports.

Very lucky to catch it? How do you come to that conclusion? The logic escapes me. I recall hearing it on CNN repeatedly Aug 31 to September 1. I have been following events fairly closely and those reports got my attention. It was the first time I had heard that people were going to the convention center in addition to the Superdome.

I have been involved in some evacuations overseas. It was not unusual to have the people back in Washington tell us what was going on from watching CNN before we reported it back to them.

FYI: We now know that the Red Cross attempted to position supplies in both places prior to the Hurricane and immediately afterwards. The LA Office of Homeland Security prevented it because they didn't want them to become "magnets" to attract people. Obviously, the Red Cross was aware of the convention center as a place of refuge.

Don't let me stand in the way of your FEMA bashing. If you have more 'mainstream' reports from August 31, 2005, then by all mean post them.

You missed my point, but why should I be surprised. First, I never mentioned FEMA or bashed them. I blame it on the Feds, including the WH. Once conditions at the Convention Center and the Superdome were known, they should have gone in regardless of what the Governor and the Mayor wanted. You save lives and then fight the bureaucratic battle. Having life saving supplies held up at the very doorstep of the city because of a bureaucratic turf battle is unacceptable.

You are right. If I was running FEMA I would have sent in 300 helicopters to help rescue those in danger of drowning. Wait a minute . . . that is what FEMA did. Sometimes there just aren't enough helicopters.

They didn't have to send in helicopters, they had vehicles that could reach both places, the same way the MSM went in there. When you have tens of thousands of people congregated in a couple of locations, it is far easier to meet their needs than plucking them off of roofs one at a time. We had the resources to do both.

Overall, the federal response has been magnificent. No other country in the world could have done what we did. The biggest mistake we made was not recognizing the significance, humanitarian and PR wise, of what was happening at the Superdome and Convention Center. The MSM blew it up out of proportion and the feds made it worse by letting it fester.

I blame it on Chertoff and Brown, two lawyers who were neither leaders or managers. They had the President negotiating with Blanco using some legal agreement and asking her to sign it. They failed to understand the need to take action immediately and had a tin ear when it came to understanding the political aspect of it.

The President understood immediately and expressed his dissatisfaction with the slowness of the response. He immediately visited the area two times in a several day span and is going back again shortly. Cabinet members soon followed. Gen Honore filled the leadership vacuum with his 8 mile long convoy and finally, we had the image of someone taking charge.

If Bush had broken the law and moved federal forces in to take control, and one person got a fingernail scratch as a result today they would be calling him the worst power grabber and attempted dictator in history. They would have impeachment proceedings started by next Monday.

How many times have wee seen governors ASK the President for Federal help in a natural disaster. Why do governors do that? They do it because they have to do it to get federal help. The Louisiana Governor asked for too little to late.

For those who don't understand how our government is set up ... let me first say.. as Jim Rob is won't to say.. Our Government was designed as a Free Republic... It is not Democracy or even a NATIONAL Government.

In a national government all power resides in the national government and the national government then decides what powers if any local and regional governments will be delegated. That is not our system.

We have a federal government not a national government. A federal government gets its right to exist from the states. The UNITED STATES Government is a federation of STATE Governments. Our Constitution says, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect UNION." The word UNION does not refer to the Auto Workers Union, it refers to a UNION of STATES from which power trickles up .. not down. We are the UNITED STATES Of AMERICA.. NOT the UNITED PEOPLE of AMERICA.

Therefore, in our Federal system of government, only the things that can't be handled at the local level are handled at the state level. Only those things that can't be handled at the state level are handled at the federal level. It is up to the local and state governments to ask for federal government help. The federal goverment can not just step in and take control. It has not been granted that power. And if a president did it, it would be a high crime.

Our founders were very concerned that a powerful federal President could just create a crisis, then step in and name himself temporary dictator. Then, once in absolute control turn that temporary power into a permanent dictatorship. They wanted to prevent that and did so by having most government powers reside at the local level.

Thus we have no National Police force. Police are organized at the local level reporting to mayors. We have no naitonal fire department. Fire departments are local organiations locally controlled. We have no national Water Department. We have local water departments. Running water service is provided at the local level.. And the supreme law enforcement agency is the local sheriff and he is elected by the local people he serves. They can fire him at the polls. We don't have a national garbage pick up, or a national school system.

Crimes like murder, robbery, rape. etc are state crimes.. not federal. People are tried in local courts by local judges and juries for state crimes. Those charged with crime are charged by local prosecutors. Everything is done to keep actual control of human beings at the lowest level of government.

We don't have a national Flood Control Department either.

Our government was set up to work like this. If the local safety organizations such as the fire, police and sheriffs departments can't handle a situation, they are to call on the state government for help. The state gets involved when the locals call for help. And if the state government can't handle it the state is to call the federal government for help. When the state calls for help the Feds are to provide it.

But never is the Federal government in charge. All the federal government can legally do is support the local officials. Only if the state officials are all killed or incapacitated can the feds step in and take control.

The State has the National Guard which for all in-state matters is under the control of the State Governor. The commander in Chief of the Louisiana National Guard is the Governor of the State of Louisiana. Their commander is not the President of the United States.

The president can call the Guard up to serve with the regular army.. But the regular army is not to be used to control or police individual citizens. Our founders were quite afraid of a military dicatorship. They did not want generals to ever be in charge of civilians.

On Saturday before the Hurricane hit... George Bush called the Governor of Louisiana urging her to call for federal help. She did ask for help.. but only minor help. She did not ask for Bush to take control of anything.

On top of that the mayor of New Orleans was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. The mayor was a criminal screwup. According to Constitutional Lawyer John Armor (Congressman Billy Bob) he should be tried for 10,000 cases of manslaughter.

Click here to read what BillyBob has to say about the crimes of the Mayor of New Orleans

FEMA is just a coordinating agency. It does not have resources. Its job is to coordinate private organizations like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army and federal agencies with local and state governments. It is the federal emergency management agency. It provides management. It does not provide services.

WE NOW KNOW THAT the Governor of Louisiana refused to let the RED CROSS go into the Super Dome to provide food, water and medicine. The RED CROSS was there.. ready with food water and medicine.. and the Governor would not let them come in to help the thousands in the Super Dome.. She said she was afraid citizens would stay there and refuse to leave if they had food, water and medicine. Apparently the Governor thought it was better to let them die.

After the levy broke there was little way for anyone to get in to help them. The Governor did not want them helped. It is worth noting that the Red Cross was available with help 24 hours before the levy broke. The Governor did not cooperate with the presienth.. she even fights with the Mayor and she stiff armed the Red Cross. Of course that is all the Bush Administrations fault.

The City of New Orleans had a plan drawn up in 2000, that called for the city to use school buses and city buses to take the people who did not have cars out of the city. The Mayor did not order that plan put into action.

Infact in July of 2005 .. just weeks ago.. the mayor of New Orleans had the paper publish a report that said in case of a hurricane evacuation people without transportation were on their own. It was aired at that time on New Orleans Radio and TV stations as well. That is pretty good proof that the local government of New Orleans had no intention of asking the federal government for help in an evacuation.

It is interesting to note that one school bus did make it out. A teenager took the bus and got a load of family and friends out of the city. Perhaps that kid should be the next mayor. He will more likely get busted for vehicle theft.

But back to my main point. Our nation had only managed to maintain a free society because nearly all criminal law enforcement and all local citizen safety is in the hands of city and county governments.

For a dictator to take over our government, he would have to find a way to control thousands of Police Departments and Sheriff departments. In our Federal system that would be next to impossible. Local safety organizations are what has kept this nation free for well over 200 years.

But if we were stupid enough to give presidents the power to command local police and fire departments or worse yet declare military law, and send in the regular army to take control, this nation would not be a free nation for long.

I am not sure our voters know enough to preserve our freedom.

The media obviously wants a national government not a federal government and sad to say there are some freepers prepared to help them get it.

>>I recall hearing it on CNN repeatedly Aug 31 to September 1<<

Now I know why I didn't hear about it until Thursday. I never watch CNN.

>> They failed to understand the need to take action immediately and had a tin ear when it came to understanding the political aspect of it. <<

I am not sure if that is true or not (I know the MSM would like us to believe that). What I do know is that FEMA is not a first responder, nor does it have the authority to just "move in and take over". I personally do not want them to have that authority. Just think what a FEMA-like organization with unlimited authority in a "disaster" could do in the hands of a tyrant like Clinton.

Besides, FEMA's response was good for a disaster of this magnitude. The real 'disaster' occurred at the state and local level, during the initial evacuation and the first response to the disaster.

The following link explains the DOD Joint Task Force(Honore's) response and its relationship to FEMA:

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/2005/tr20050831-3842.html

Note in particular this statement from Asst Sec of Defense McHale:

"Obviously, the first point we emphasize is that law enforcement and local security is, first and foremost, a matter of civilian law enforcement capabilities. We in the military provide certain backup capabilities, but the first line of defense against criminal conduct is provided by our law enforcement agencies at all levels of government -- state, local and federal.

If, for some reason it does appear the level of criminal threat exceeds the immediate capability of civilian law enforcement, the National Guard in state status, under command and control of the Governor -- not under command and control of the Secretary of Defense -- can work side by side, lawfully, with civilian law enforcement agencies, police officers, to maintain public order."

I get it. So did the real Philip Freneau.

In his 1792 editorial satire in the National Gazette newspaper, Rules for changing a limited republican government into an unlimited hereditary one, Philip Freneau outlined a series of methods the tyrant could use to circumvent the limitations placed on government by the Constitution, and, thus, create Unconstitutional law. One method could be characterized as a form of "crisis" management, outlined by Freneau as follows:

First, "As the novelty and bustle of inaugurating the government will for some time keep the public mind in a heedless and unsettled state, let the press during this period be busy in propagating the doctrines of monarchy and aristocracy. For this purpose it will be particularly useful to confound a mobbish democracy with a representative republic, that by exhibiting all the turbulent examples and enormities of the former, an odium may be thrown on the character of the latter."

Next, to promote a crisis, "... review all the civil contests, convulsions, factions, broils, squabbles, bickerings, black eyes, and bloody noses of ancient, middle and modern ages; caricature them into the most frightful forms and colors that can be imagined; and unfold one scene of the horrible tragedy after another till the people be made, if possible, to tremble at their own shadows."

Next, give the crisis a name, but, "... in order to render success the more certain, it will be of special moment to give the most plausible and popular name that can be found to the power that is to be usurped. It may be called, for example, a power for the common safety or the public good, or, "the general welfare.""

Finally, "If the people should not be too much enlightened, the name will have a most imposing effect. It will escape attention that it means, in fact, the same thing with a power to do anything the government pleases "in all cases whatsoever." To oppose the power may consequently seem to be ignorant, and be called by the artful, opposing the "general welfare," and may be cried down under that deception."

What part of "FEMA is not a first responder" don't you understand? How may times to people have to say it before it starts to sink in?

I understand that quite well thank you.

The local government had sole resposibility for the convention center for the first 4 days as per pre-established division of responsiblity.

I understand the division of responsibillities quite well also. There is no doubt that that the mayor and governor bear the lion's share of the blame. They were incompetent to a criminal degree. They dropped the ball.

If you want to change the role of FEMA in the future and turn in into a first responder then debate that, but I am sick of the FEMA bashers setting up a fake standard by pretending it is a first responder and then being shocked, shocked it did not act as a first responder.

This is where we part company. First, I am not bashing FEMA, I am blaming the entire federal government for not stepping in sooner at a critical juncture of the relief effort in NO. Just as you are frustrated by "FEMA bashers," I am upset by those who completely exonorate the feds using legalisms and bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.

The feds and NGOs had the resources available to lance the boils at the Convention Center and Superdome days before. They were assembled at the doorstep of the city waiting to go in while the MSM were reporting and televising the scenes at the overpass and the Superdome. The reports of violence, disorder, and suffering fed the fire of "Blame Bush" with the Black Caucus leading the way to introduce race into the equation.

The question is should the federal government stand by and allow American citizens to suffer and die because incompetent state and local governments prevent first responders from doing their job. The Red Cross and Salvation Army were prevented by the LA Office of Homeland Security from bringing their personnel and supplies to these locations prior to the hurricane and afterwards. First responders were being shot at hampering their ability to minister to the needs of the victims. Looters were running rampant.

I am a retired federal government bureaucrat with over 36 years of service. I know the corporate culture. I understand the need for rules and regulations. I understand the concept of federalism and states' rights and responsibilities. I understand that state and local governments are primarily responsible for disaster relief and the federal government provides the requested resources to assist them. That said, there are times when extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary actions.

The American public doesn't care about the division of responsibilties. They want results. Politicians understand that, bureaucrats don't.

Your explanation fails to address the fact that the Feds cannot legally just take over the state. It is easy to sit back and say he should have broken the law including court precident reguarding states rights. When the state governemnt was purposefully blocking Bush and the Feds, how were they supposed to know ahead of time that the state, who was saying "No way, stay out, we will handle it" was in fact getting ready to not do the job?

Spoken like a true bureaucrat. As I noted previously, when someone is drowning, you throw them a life preserver even if the lifeguard says you can't. You have to be poltically tone-deaf to ignore the public response to the images on their TV screens.

I just saw an interview on our local Wash DC station. A local person with relatives in the Superdome saw what was happening on TV. She rented a minivan and drove down to the Superdome and took out her relatives out. They are now staying with her.

The only fault I see in the fed reaction was they did not have carbon copies of Rumsfield in each position, and they did not just tell the press to go to h-ll in strong terms from the beginning. Even then, what seems like bad media performance is 95% due to out of context quotes and spin by the media. If a democrat would have been in power the offical's best lines would have been quoted.

Agree that the MSM blew it out of proportion, but perception is more important than reality, at least in the short term. The public will not follow the investigations and what really happened. The Dems are still pushing the Gore beat Bush in Florida myth despite facutal evidence to the contrary.

Bush asked Pelosi "What do you think went wrong [at the federal level]?" and even according to her story she had no answer to the question and just called him names instead of answering.

Pelosi is a Dem hack and hag. She is just mouthing the Dem playbook--Blame Bush.

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