The effort to blame local officials in LA...

[carpe diem]

...Don't know if this has been posted on DU but the document linked below from tpmcafe seems to say explicitly that in the event of a catastrophic disaster the federal government need not wait for any explicit request from the local authorities in the affected regions.

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE AND KATRINA?

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/4/171811/1974

The provocative title is intentional.  Why did the Bush Administration fail to act according to the National Response Plan they created in December of 2004 to deal with an incident like Katrina?

What do you do when the words on the paper don't match the action in the field?  People are dying today in New Orleans because of the failure to provide immediate aid are dead in part because of the negligence of Michael Chertoff.  That is a harsh judgment, but if you will take time to read the National Response Plan that was signed into effect in December of 2004 there is no other reasonable conclusion.  

The current effort by the Bush Administration to blame the victims in Louisiana and Mississippi is bad enough, but they are in big trouble once Americans take the time to understand that they the Administration ignored it's own plan for dealing with a threat like Katrina.  Why did they fail to implement the plan until it was too late to save lives along the Gulf Coast?

Don't take my word for it, read the plan yourself.  You can download it at http://www.dhs.gov/interweb/assetlibrary/NRPbaseplan.pdf