News Intelligence Analysis
Video Shows Bush Was Warned Before Katrina
[A note from MoveOn.org plus the AP story and the Washington Post story]:
This evening, the Associated Press released secret transcripts and video footage showing President Bush being personally briefed the day before Hurricane Katrina hit land. The predictions he heard were shockingly precise and accurate—including the failure of the levees. He knew exactly what was coming.
The article is a smoking gun on Bush's unpardonable failure to keep us safe. In just a few hours, the White House will be filling the airwaves with spin, so it's important to reach out right now to pass on the straight story to family and friends. If each of us acts, we can directly reach millions of people before morning.
At the August 28th briefing, the president was told exactly what to expect:
The chief scientist of the National Hurricane Center warned
that a major levee breach was "obviously a very, very grave
concern." Bush lied to the entire nation about this point
just 5 days later.
Michael Brown told the president that if New Orleans flooded
the Superdome emergency shelter would likely be under water and
short on supplies, creating a "catastrophe within a catastrophe."
Experts and officials implored the President to prepare for,
as the AP described it, "devastation of historic proportions."
President Bush didn't ask a single question during the briefing.
In the next two days he campaigned, attended birthday parties
and played guitar while the worst natural disaster in American
history killed over 1,300 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.
There can now be no mistake: President Bush had a chance to lead, and he failed to keep us safe.
In the next few days, we'll be tracking this story carefully and coordinating our response with partners in New Orleans and around the nation.
The survivors of Katrina deserve to know why the president left them to suffer the storm. And the people of the United States deserve leadership we can trust to keep our families safe. We'll work hard together until we have both.
Here's the full article from the Associated Press.
March 1, 2006
Video Shows Bush Was Warned Before Katrina
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP)—In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.
Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."
The footage—along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press—show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.
Linked by secure video, Bush's confidence on Aug. 28 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.
A top hurricane expert voiced "grave concerns" about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren't enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.
"I'm concerned about ... their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe," Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.
Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings Aug. 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:
—Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.
"I don't buy the `fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."
—Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility—and Bush was worried too.
White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.
"I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One," Brown said. "He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches."
—Louisiana officials angrily blamed the federal government for not being prepared but the transcripts shows they were still praising FEMA as the storm roared toward the Gulf Coast and even two days afterward. "I think a lot of the planning FEMA has done with us the past year has really paid off," Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana's emergency preparedness deputy director, said during the Aug. 28 briefing.
It wasn't long before Smith and other state officials sounded overwhelmed.
"We appreciate everything that you all are doing for us, and all I would ask is that you realize that what's going on and the sense of urgency needs to be ratcheted up," Smith said Aug. 30.
Mississippi begged for more attention in that same briefing.
"We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we'll have people dying—not because of water coming up, but because we can't get them medical treatment in our affected counties," said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape.
Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government's disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.
"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Brown warned. He called the storm "a bad one, a big one" and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary.
"Go ahead and do it," Brown said. "I'll figure out some way to justify it. ... Just let them yell at me."
Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him. Neither asked questions in the Aug. 28 briefing.
"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," the president said.
A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt, weighed in from Washington at Homeland Security's operations center. He would later fly to Atlanta, outside of Katrina's reach, for a bird flu event.
One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.
Chertoff: "Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?"
Brown: "We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now."
Chertoff: "Good job."
In fact, active duty troops weren't dispatched until days after the storm. And many states' National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.
The National Hurricane Center's Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.
"I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield told the briefing.
Other officials expressed concerns about the large number of New Orleans residents who had not evacuated.
"They're not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they're leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I'm very concerned about that," Brown said.
Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes.
Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome—which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response—would be safe and have adequate medical care.
"The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level.... I don't know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane," he said.
Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome.
"Not to be (missing) kind of gross here," Brown interjected, "but I'm concerned" about the medical and mortuary resources "and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe."
Video Shows Bush Being Warned
on Katrina
Officials Detailed a Dire Threat to New Orleans
By Spencer S. Hsu and Linton Weeks
Washington
Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 2, 2006; A01
A newly leaked video recording of high-level government deliberations
the day before Hurricane Katrina hit shows disaster officials
emphatically warning President Bush that the storm posed a catastrophic
threat to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, and a grim-faced Bush
personally assuring state leaders that his administration was
"fully prepared" to help.
The footage, taken of a videoconference of federal and state officials on Aug. 28, offered an unusually vivid glimpse of real-time decision making by an administration that has vigorously guarded its internal deliberations.
Reactions to the tape, which was obtained by the Associated Press, varied widely -- reflecting the intense debate that has brewed for six months about who should be held accountable for an initially flaccid government response to the catastrophe.
Democrats said the tape shows Bush being warned in urgent terms of the potential magnitude of the storm, making it less defensible that the administration did not act with more dispatch to be ready.
White House officials said the footage reinforces what they have said previously to critics: that the president, at his Texas vacation home, was fully engaged from the opening hours of the emergency, while leaving operational decisions to the agencies in charge.
Bush was dialed into the conference Sunday at noon Eastern time from a meeting room at his ranch in Crawford, with Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph Hagin at his side.
"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," Bush said, gesturing with both hands for emphasis on the digital recording. Neither Bush nor Hagin asked questions, however.
Then-Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael D. Brown, who joined the call from Washington, and Max Mayfield, head of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, briefed participating federal and state officials in explicit terms.
"This is, to put it mildly, the big one," Brown said. "Everyone within FEMA is now virtually on call."
Brown warned that thousands of New Orleans residents were gathering in a shelter of last resort at the Louisiana Superdome, which he said was about 12 feet below sea level.
"I don't know what the heck we're going to do for that, and I also am concerned about that roof," Brown said. "Not to be kind of gross here, but I'm concerned about [medical and mortuary disaster team] assets and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe."
Mayfield cited the 1992 storm that inflicted $20 billion of damage on South Florida.
"This hurricane is much larger than Hurricane Andrew ever was," Mayfield said. "I also want to make absolutely clear to everyone that the greatest potential for large loss of life is still in the coastal areas from the storm surge."
Congressional investigators previously released transcripts of the daily meetings, and their substance and other warnings of the danger to New Orleans have been widely reported.
The fresh footage, however, was prominently aired by evening television news broadcasts and threatened to renew public scrutiny of the Bush administration, which issued a report last week containing 125 recommendations to improve U.S. disaster readiness but little focus on the action of senior presidential aides.
White House spokesman Trent Duffy said yesterday that the footage showed that Bush was heavily engaged while leaving "battlefield" decisions to his commanders.
"The president had multiple conversations, phone calls and briefings both big and small throughout this process, and his whole priority was making sure that the federal assets were brought to bear to help the people of New Orleans," Duffy said.
He added: "That's not to say the president was satisfied with the federal response. He wasn't. He said as much, and we just had a 200-page-plus federal report discussing the things the president needs to do to make our emergency response better."
Duffy noted that a transcript of the Aug. 29 conference showed Hagin asking about the status of the Superdome and New Orleans levees. In the same conference, Brown said he spoke twice that morning with Bush, who he said was "very engaged" and asking those same questions and others about city hospitals.
Duffy also said that Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) personally discounted a report of a catastrophic levee break as "unconfirmed" in a noon call. "I think we have not breached the levees at this point in time," Blanco said, but she added that city flooding was severe.
Brown, in an interview yesterday, agreed that Bush was engaged in the emergency but said the president was overconfident of FEMA's capabilities. He dismissed as "baloney" claims by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that "a fog of war" impaired decision making in Washington.
"There was this fog of bureaucracy," Brown said, repeating his call to restore FEMA to independent, Cabinet-level status outside the department. "People either didn't want to know about it, or didn't want to deal with it."
Brown said the video showed "I was doing everything I could," whatever his mistakes. "My entreaties to the White House about the problems that FEMA was having were falling on deaf ears," he said. "They thought I could always pull a rabbit out of the hat."
In New Orleans, Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D) was visibly shocked when shown the recording by reporters.
It "seems they were aware of everything . . . that we would need lots of help," Nagin said after a post-Mardi Gras news conference. "Why was the response so slow?"
When the video ended, Nagin turned away and said, "Oh, God."
Democrats in Washington issued statements newly critical of the government response.
Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) expressed alarm at "what the president actually knew and when he knew it."
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), ranking Democrat on a Senate panel investigating the storm response, said the video underscored the committee's findings that "government at all levels was forewarned of the catastrophic nature of the approaching storm and did painfully little to be ready."
The Department of Homeland Security has provided transcripts but not recordings of the videoconferences to Congress, and the AP did not report how it obtained the footage. A congressional source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because investigators were seeking the tape, said state officials may have recorded the meetings.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
Weeks reported from New Orleans.
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