http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/29/AR2005082901445.html
Indeed, the advent of the Bush administration in January 2001 signaled the beginning of the end for FEMA. The newly appointed leadership of the agency showed little interest in its work or in the missions pursued by the departed Witt. Then came the Sept. 11 attacks and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Soon FEMA was being absorbed into the "homeland security borg."
This year it was announced that FEMA is to "officially" lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.
To be sure, America may well be hit by another major terrorist attack, and we must be prepared for such an event. But I can guarantee you that hurricanes like the one that ripped into Louisiana and Mississippi yesterday, along with tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, floods, windstorms, mudslides, power outages, fires and perhaps a pandemic flu will have to be dealt with on a weekly and daily basis throughout this country. They are coming for sure, sooner or later, even as we are, to an unconscionable degree, weakening our ability to respond to them.
According to George Haddow Deputy Chief of Staff under James Lee Witt who was head of FEMA during hte Clinton Administration, he told Rachel Maddow last night on teh Majority Report that (this is me paraphrasing) "FEMA was targeted because it was concerded an entitlement program". Here's a quote from May 15, 2001, appearance before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, Bush's FEMA Director Allbaugh signaled that the new, stripped-down approach would be applied at FEMA as well. "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective state and local risk management," he said.
this quote is from which includes the actions that should have been taken :
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_09/007020.phpWhat I understood from this is that $20 million given to FEMA is like giving money away to programs like Welfare and Medicaid. They are lumping in a preparedness and mitigation for emergencies agency with social programs... and all you have to do is say entitled and POOF! no more preparedness! So it really floors me that Chertoff wanted this very September to be Preparedness Month (second annual) when he is in fact dismantling a program of preparedness. I think that the dismantling of FEMA is key to our indictment of this criminals... I would like to learn more about it....
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