FEMA ex-chief offers defense, regret

[Algorem]

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1158413658136710.xml&coll=2

Disaster response took back seat to terror, he says

Saturday, September 16, 2006
Robert L. Smith
Plain Dealer Reporter

...But the president was uninterested, the White House obsessed with terrorism, he said. When the Big Easy submerged, Brownie became the scapegoat. And how...

He said he regrets not speaking the truth to the American public and telling them the government's response to Katrina was a mess, and so is the Department of Homeland Security, which is too big and unwieldy to react to natural disasters.

He said he needed to shake Bush from a vacation reverie, a disengagement illustrated by the president's decision to view the hurricane zone from a passing plane.

Had he gone public with concerns he was screaming in conference calls, Brown said, Air Force One might have landed and given FEMA the resources a president commands...

[iconoclastic cat]

1. Iconoclastic cat offers finger, jail cell. n/t

[merh]

2. It's about time he is honest

not like it will help Katrina survivors or victims, but it might help future survivors if it helps to get the weed-that-thinks-he's-king out of office.