From: "Rich Gauszka" 

 Wonder how long  Chertoff  will remain.
 http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1614461&page=1


A Republican-led congressional investigation will brand the Bush
administration's response to Hurricane Katrina "a national
failure," according to portions of the report obtained by ABC News.
The document also warns that the nation is not prepared for another major
catastrophe. The report is only in draft form, but it's hard to imagine the
final version could get any worse - especially considering that it was
written by Republicans.

The draft report calls the government's Katrina response "an
abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common
welfare."

The committee does not stop there:

"If this is what happens when we have advance warning," says the
report, "we shudder to imagine the consequences when we do not. Four
and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime
time."

"The federal government failed to move in a more proactive mode
quickly enough," said Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va. "The fog of war
prevailed. The information didn't reach the right people until it was too
late, and as a result there were preventable deaths and preventable
suffering."

Most disturbing, says the report, was that "this crisis was not only
predictable, it was predicted."


Chertoff in the Cross Hairs

The committee points a finger directly at the head of the Department of
Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. As the president's principal disaster
adviser, they said, Chertoff executed his responsibilities "late,
ineffectively, or not at all."

As an example, the report cites comments President Bush made to ABC News
days after the levees broke.

"We could not have predicted the levees breaking," he told
"Good Morning America" on September 1, 2005.

The report says those comments "do not appear to be consistent with
the advice and counsel one would expect to have been provided by a senior
disaster professional."

Taken altogether, the report concludes the government's response to Katrina
was a "litany of mistakes, misjudgments, lapses and absurdities all
cascading together, hobbling any collective effort to respond."

Today Chertoff accepted responsibility for the government response, but he
did not address specifics in the report.

"I will certainly listen to all the advice and even all the criticism
that is leveled in order to make sure that we get ourselves in as good
shape as possible," Chertoff said.



He did, however, announce a major reorganization of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency today, which calls for the following:



 The addition of a "substantial" number permanent employees to serve as a
core disaster work force



 New communications equipment that will still work when power fails



 Special teams to coordinate information sharing between agencies



The White House said today it is focusing on the future, not the past. But
one of the points this report makes is "the government failed because
it did not learn from past experiences."


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