Scathing Katrina Report
WASHINGTON — A House select committee examining the federal response to Hurricane Katrina is preparing to issue a report Wednesday that blames the federal government for "an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare" -- but the legislators who participated in the study are divided about how to address the lapse.
Assailing Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as being detached from events -- when New Orleans residents were clinging to rooftops, he traveled to Atlanta for a conference on bird flu -- a draft of the report says he switched on federal response systems "late, ineffectively or not at all."
Specifically, the draft report, which runs about 600 pages, faults Chertoff for his failure to designate a principal federal official to coordinate relief efforts on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina made landfall, and to convene an interagency group to manage the crisis. It also describes his coordination with the Pentagon as "not effective."
If Chertoff had designated Katrina "an incident of national significance," the report said, federal agencies would not have had to wait for individual requests from overwhelmed state and local officials in order to provide help.
The committee that prepared the report was composed of 11 Republicans, led by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia. Democrats refused to be involved officially in the deliberations, saying that the extent of the disaster mandated an independent commission similar to the one that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
However, two Democrats from Louisiana did participate informally in the committee's activities and called Sunday for Chertoff's removal from office. They said although they agreed with many of the draft report's 90 findings, they took issue with the committee's failure to assess accountability.
"Our judgment, based on a careful review of the record, is that the Department of Homeland Security needs new and more experienced leadership," Reps. Charlie Melancon and William J. Jefferson said in a 57-page response to the committee's draft report.
They said they agreed with the committee's puzzlement over "the range of clumsiness and ineptitude that characterized government behavior right before and after this storm" and reiterated their party's call for an independent panel "that will put politics aside and follow the facts wherever they lead."
