It seemed clear by last Wednesday that the long knives were out for FEMA’s Mike Brown. It wasn’t just the universal, bi-partisan criticism; it was the fact that top administration officials were leaking damaging documents to the AP, including evidence that Brown waited several hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before asking his boss to dispatch 1,000 Homeland Security employees to the region — and gave them two days to arrive.
Someone in a position of authority within the administration, obviously, wanted Brown to look bad. The AP story was a sign that Brown had lost the Bush gang’s confidence. Two days later, his authority was yanked.
What, then, are we to make of this Knight Ridder piece? Here’s a case in which leaked documents showed that it was Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff — not Brown — who was in a position to launch an aggressive federal response, but waited a day and a half before pulling the trigger.
The federal official with the power to mobilize a massive federal response to Hurricane Katrina was Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, not the former FEMA chief who was relieved of his duties and resigned earlier this week, federal documents reviewed by Knight Ridder show.
Even before the storm struck the Gulf Coast, Chertoff could have ordered federal agencies into action without any request from state or local officials. Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown had only limited authority to do so until about 36 hours after the storm hit, when Chertoff designated him as the “principal federal official” in charge of the storm.
As thousands of hurricane victims went without food, water and shelter in the days after Katrina’s early morning Aug. 29 landfall, critics assailed Brown for being responsible for delays that might have cost hundreds of lives.
But Chertoff – not Brown – was in charge of managing the national response to a catastrophic disaster, according to the National Response Plan, the federal government’s blueprint for how agencies will handle major natural disasters or terrorist incidents. An order issued by President Bush in 2003 also assigned that responsibility to the homeland security director.
But according to a memo obtained by Knight Ridder, Chertoff didn’t shift that power to Brown until late afternoon or evening on Aug. 30, about 36 hours after Katrina hit Louisiana and Mississippi. That same memo suggests that Chertoff may have been confused about his lead role in disaster response and that of his department.
Maybe Chertoff might want to update the ol’ resume, too.