Brown Blames Superiors For Response to Katrina

Spencer S. Hsu / Washington Post | February 11 2006

Michael D. Brown, the former Federal Emergency Management Agency director, accused the Bush administration yesterday of setting the nation's disaster preparedness on a "path to failure" before Hurricane Katrina by overemphasizing the threat of terrorism, and of discounting warnings on the day the storm hit that a worst-case flood was enveloping New Orleans.

Brown called "a little disingenuous" and "just baloney" assertions by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and other top Bush administration officials that they were unaware of the severity of the catastrophe for a day after Katrina struck on Aug. 29. Investigators say their inaction delayed the launch of federal emergency measures, rescue efforts and aid to tens of thousands of stranded New Orleans residents.

Brown's highly charged testimony before a Senate investigative panel was a striking about-face from his comments to its House counterpart in September, when he was still on the administration payroll. At that time, Brown leveled his harshest criticism for what President Bush has called an "inadequate" response at Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) and New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin (D), who Brown said failed to fully evacuate the city and to forge a unified command.

His sometimes combative exchanges with senators also offered a rare glimpse of a former Bush official publicly criticizing the administration. He sharpened his earlier criticism and named people whom he had previously described only in general terms.

After the White House declined to offer Brown a legal defense of executive privilege, which would have allowed him not to testify to lawmakers, Brown said yesterday that Chertoff and his predecessor, Tom Ridge, paved the way for FEMA's Katrina failures by fomenting a "cultural clash" between FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security. DHS absorbed FEMA in 2003, and the head of the emergency agency stopped reporting to the president.

Internal turf wars siphoned away FEMA's disaster response capability and funding, Brown said. If not repaired, he said, the Department of Homeland Security is "doomed to fail, and that will fail the country."

Brown also cited a "disconnect" with Bush officials in the hours before and after Katrina hit. He said they were distracted by the fight against terrorism from the general threat posed by recurring natural disasters and from specific warnings that a direct hit by a projected Category 5 hurricane would swamp New Orleans and strand as many as 100,000 people.

Brown said he called and spoke at least twice on Aug. 29 with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph Hagin or Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., telling them: "New Orleans is flooding; it's the worst-case scenario." But the message apparently did not get through to Homeland Security officials.

"They should have had awareness of it, because they were receiving the same information that we were," Brown said.

"Had there been a report coming out . . . that said, 'Yes, we've confirmed that a terrorist has blown up the 17th Street Canal levee,' then everybody would have jumped all over that and been trying to do everything they could," Brown said. "But because this was a natural disaster, that has become the stepchild within the Department of Homeland Security."

The Category 3 storm eventually killed 1,321 people, including 1,072 in Louisiana; displaced about 2 million people; and caused more than $150 billion in damage.

Speaking to reporters yesterday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan cited "conflicting reports" immediately after the storm hit. "Some were saying" the levee system "was overtopped," he said. "Some were saying it was breached. And, again, we knew of the flooding that was going on -- that's why our top priority was focused on saving lives."

Testifying after Brown, Matthew Broderick, the department's director of operations coordination, and Robert B. Stephan, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection, faulted Brown for failing to communicate with the chain of command.

"Mr. Brown should have picked up the phone and called the secretary right away," Broderick said.

Brown, who first received reports that city levees were failing at 10 a.m. on Aug. 29, said that he relayed them to headquarters for confirmation and alerted Hagin, who was with Bush at the president's Texas ranch as well as in Arizona and California that day.

Brown said he could not recall whether Bush was on the line, but he added: "I knew that in speaking to Joe, I was talking directly to the president." Brown later said that he did not ask Hagin for any particular help, and that he regretted not calling for military assistance the weekend before Katrina made landfall.

Brown, a Bush political loyalist who became the face of the government's failed response, said under questioning that he repeatedly asked the White House and other federal agencies for help, but that his authority was limited by FEMA's position within the Department of Homeland Security and that the agency's resources were overwhelmed.

He has been criticized for his lack of leadership after the storm, for his own lack of awareness of the developing crisis and for misstatements about conditions at New Orleans's convention center, where thousands were stranded without food and water. Leaked e-mails have portrayed Brown as more concerned with his public appearance and planned departure from FEMA than with disaster operations.

Brown's deputy at FEMA, Patrick Rhode, testified yesterday that he participated in a conference call on the afternoon of Aug. 29 detailing catastrophic levee failures and alerted the department's Homeland Security Operations Center, which was feeding reports to the White House.

Senators released a timeline showing that authorities received 16 reports from federal, state and local agencies and the American Red Cross that New Orleans's levees had been breached between 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Aug. 29, though the Homeland Security Operations Center reported the opposite at 6 p.m.

A perplexed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate investigation, asked why the official reaction of Washington and the military was that New Orleans had "dodged the bullet" despite reports from the ground that the city was 80 percent flooded, its levee system had failed and thousands faced death.

"All they had to do," Brown said, was listen to the Homeland Security teleconferences "and pay attention."

Collins singled out Chertoff and other department officials for a "lack of awareness" of fundamental emergency operations and a "slow, hesitant response." She said that though "DHS's playbook appears designed to distance" top officials from FEMA, they "must answer for decisions that they made or failed to make."

Under questioning, Brown said he did not directly brief Chertoff -- who was "gone or going to Atlanta" for an Aug. 30 event on the possible flu pandemic -- because "it would have wasted my time." He said he preferred to call Card or Hagin directly.

Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) called Brown's remarks "staggering." He said they demonstrated "a dysfunctional department to a degree far greater than any we've seen."

After Brown spoke to the Senate, he was subpoenaed to reappear before House investigators.

Next week, Chertoff and Frances Fragos Townsend, the White House's homeland security adviser, are scheduled to discuss internal changes. And the House investigative committee is scheduled to issue its Katrina report.

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