Posted on 03/01/2006 5:50:39 PM PST by wjersey
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said on Wednesday he was shocked by video showing U.S. President George W. Bush being told the day before Hurricane Katrina hit that the city's protective levees could fail.
The tape contradicts the president's statement four days after the hurricane struck: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
"It surprises me that if there was that kind of awareness, why was the response so slow?" said Nagin, whose city was devastated when the storm struck on August 29 and sparked massive flooding.
"I have kind of a sinking feeling right now in my gut. I mean, I was listening to what people were saying and I was believing them that they didn't know. So therefore it was an issue of a learning curve.
"From this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware."
Nagin listened with headphones and watched an excerpt from the video for the first time as reporters, who had just heard from city officials how successful the first post-Katrina Mardi Gras was, stood around him.
The tape shows Bush and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff being told on August 28 that the hurricane could trigger breaches of levees that protect the city as well as threaten the Superdome, which became a last-ditch shelter for storm victims. The tapes were obtained by the Associated Press, which played Nagin the excerpt.
"I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property," Bush says in one part of the video. "We pray there's no loss of life, of course."
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said the tape was misleading.
"It seems to me to suggest that the president not fully engaged in the response to Hurricane Katrina. The president was fully engaged and involved in meetings on the response," he said.
Duffy said Bush's involvement included making disaster declarations, and pushing publicly for evacuations and also urging state officials to get people to move to safer ground.
The Bush administration has been heavily criticized for its plodding initial response to Katrina, which killed about 1,300 people along the Gulf Coast and sparked crime-plagued anarchy in New Orleans.
In the historic city, the storm surge triggered breaches in some levees and deluged entire neighborhoods, some of which remain in a state of ruin six months on.
After watching the tape, Nagin said it looked as if top officials, including then-Federal Emergency Management Agency boss Michael Brown, knew the storm could be devastating, that the Superdome roof was "a question mark" and the military would likely have to be brought in to help.
"I'm just shocked," he said.
Last month, a congressional report written by Republicans said federal agencies were unprepared for the Katrina catastrophe and quicker involvement by Bush might have improved their response.
At the time, Chertoff acknowledged that his department was overwhelmed by the magnitude of the storm but said it was wrong to suggest he and Bush were unresponsive.
HERE SHE BLOWS!
I can't say what I think about Mayor Chocolate. That he is "shocked, I tell you"(anyone have a picutre of Claude Rains from Casablanca?)reeks of lying and dissembling never before seen.
This mushbrain didn't do a damn thing to help NO prepare for the storm. I'm tired of him getting a free ride.And his little dog, Blanco, too.
Mayor Noggin is shocked that he was the Mayor, when responsible action was required. Like some people in the Armed Services, he didn't realize that sometimes crisis like wars and natural disasters arise on your watch.
That's a keeper
No bias there!
This is really funny! A vast majority of Americans know Nagin was inept in this whole affair. And all Americans are aware that there were plenty of warnings before the hurricane hit. I remember lots of discussion about whether or not the Superdome roof could take the wind and whether or not the levees would hold. And now the MSM and idiots like Nagin think they can resurrect all this old news like it is some shocking revelation? Can you say Wellstone funeral.
Nagin is "shocked"????? Well I'm still SHOCKED that Nagin and Blankhead, and generations of mainly DemocRAT politicos in Lousiana, have been so mendaciously incompetent that NOLA was so completely unprepared for Katrina in 2005. They had DECADES to get ready and now they want to quibble about what the WH was or wasn't told in a matter of days when all the serious preparations had to be made over many months and years.
The Reuters and AP stories on this tape are so biased and incompetent they should be shut down and put out of business. Once again, they are NOT objective news organizations but propaganda hacks for the DNC and the EU-leftist blowhards who want world socialism.
The thing that really finally makes me lose my faith in the GOP is this congressional report. The GOP just set themselves up as the other official big government party in the country. They no longer can pretend to be the party of limited government with their attitude that government failed during Katrina. Katrina was the responsibility of the individual, the local, state and then federal government. Now, the GOP has set things up so every time the planet farts, there should be some huge federal response. We have all been lied to about our GOP. They have been moving us towards a European model with semi conservative socialists and liberal socialists on the other side. Either way, you get a socialist, it just depends on how fast you want your gay marriage and whether or not the feds will subsidize the event.
Come on folks. When will we all learn. Truth doesn't matter. It is all perception. In politics and in war.
www.latimes.com
WASHINGTON — Senior officials in Louisiana's emergency planning agency already were awaiting trial over allegations stemming from a federal investigation into waste, mismanagement and missing funds when Hurricane Katrina struck. And federal auditors are still trying to track as much as $60 million in unaccounted for funds that were funneled to the state from the Federal Emergency Management Agency dating back to 1998.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1486400/posts
60 Million wouldnt have helped would it?
Rove timed this perfectly.
I was wondering what he would use to knock Portgate off the front pages!
Oh, I dont know Ray, think it could be because you didnt call them? Didnt call them because you knew they would be relying on ALL the police officers you claimed you had, Ray? The same cops, Ray, that garner federal funds for NOLA. Where's the $, Ray?
The media never mentions the fact that Bush told Nagin and the other twit to evacuate before hand.
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