Hello Poppet :thumbsup

51 snoggins for Sunshine.

LMFAO.. sorry that was funny

So agencies like the national guard aren't dispatched short of martial law in national emergencies? :1orglaugh

I suppose you're going to say diverting 80% of the funds from the levies for the war efforts wasn't their fault either.

Honestly there's a lot of people at fault here but to excuse this administration of responsibility completly is just being silly.

A presidency full of Bush lies

Ray Nagin is rolling over Governor Blanco

NAGIN: The president looked at me. I think he was a little surprised. He said, "No, you guys stay here. We're going to another section of the plane, and we're going to make a decision."

He called me in that office after that. And he said, "Mr. Mayor, I offered two options to the governor." I said -- and I don't remember exactly what. There were two options. I was ready to move today. The governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision.

S. O'BRIEN: You're telling me the president told you the governor said she needed 24 hours to make a decision?

NAGIN: Yes.

S. O'BRIEN: Regarding what? Bringing troops in?

NAGIN: Whatever they had discussed. As far as what the -- I was abdicating a clear chain of command, so that we could get resources flowing in the right places.

S. O'BRIEN: And the governor said no.

NAGIN: She said that she needed 24 hours to make a decision. It would have been great if we could of left Air Force One, walked outside, and told the world that we had this all worked out. It didn't happen, and more people died.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

The first most logical comment made yet. You guys call all try to blame Bush and Brown for the problems, but when does the mayor and the governer have to take blame? They should be the first to blame. Where was their proactivenes with the hurricane coming? Why didn't they initiate the national guard or do whatever they could do when they had advanced warning .Why is it other states are able to cope and Louisiana is not? I think this is entirely the fault of the local politicians and their state support.

impechmant of BUSH is whats called for right now

In defense of Brown and FEMA, there really is no longer a FEMA. Instead, FEMA was absorbed last year into the Homeland Security.

That said, FEMA was completely unprepared and Brown ultimately should be held responsible for that.

There were not enough troops available to send into the city to quell looting because of the ongoing war in the middle east. Reserves stationed in Louisiana were not sent in right away because the commanders there were more concerned about their upcoming Afghan and Iraq deployments.

Yep that is exactly right. This is not a centrailized planned nation, but a federation of states. If the state government knew that a crummy 2 million dollars was needed to shore up the system and didn't fix it just because they couldn't get the US taxpayer to foot the bill, those guys need to be fired first.

White House Rejects Calls To Replace Top Emergency Officials


2 catastrophes under the watch of G.W. Bush and both end up as fuck-ups !

Let me tell you that the whole world is watching, and that includes your ennemies, the " terrorists " ... They just have been witness of the lack of preparation of the USA and of the effect of a lawless city ...

I wonder if they are at their drawing board for the next attack ( strike 3 ) .

BTW, it's obvious that they do not need nuclear WMD to accomplish their goals. :2 cents:

Sorry dude, that is just stupid. It is not his fault or is Mother Nature a fucking republican now?

The local officials want everyone to help them, yet they did NOTHING to help themselves. They had warning of this shit DAYS in advance and they could have started their emergency services processing well ahead of time, instead they sat back. They knew they were at risk with any big storms coming through for YEARS and they didn't do anything about it. This is not the governments fault, but at the same time this is not the time for the people to suffer. I think the government is doing all they can do to help the victims, I know because I have many friends who are firefighters like I am down there helping out, most of whom are not getting paid.

The local officials need to stop pissing and moaning and start taking responsibility for their fuckup, this is not a GW issue.

Bill Clinton LIED UNDER OATH to a federal grand jury. That's what got him impeached. It wasn't the fact that he lied about a blow job that got him in trouble, it was WHO he lied to that got his ass impeached. The difference is that GWB made decisions based on bad information. Not the same as lying to a federal grand jury.

It had nothing at all to do with the war in the middle east, nor the supposed upcoming Afghan and Iraq deployments. The "commanders" in Louisiana do not have the power to just up and tell their soldiers to go here and there.

Some of you - actually many of you - posting in this thread should really educate yourselves on the duties of the States and their Governors.

The duty to activate and deploy Guardsmen goes first and foremost to Blanco. She is the leader of the State. The local Guard commanders cannot act without her permission. The President cannot override her, the head of FEMA cannot override her. The military cannot override her. They can do NOTHING until she requests or accepts their help.

Saturday morning, nearly 48 hours before the storm hit, President Bush declared Louisiana (and Mississippi and Alabama) states of emergency.
This declaration gave Governor Blanco full authority to call up her active-duty Guardsmen and deploy them, as well as requesting and accepting Guardsmen from other States.
(Mississippi took full advantage of this, as did Alabama.)

Sunday night before the storm hit, she had activated just 3,500 of her active-duty Guardsmen. Another 6,500 sat on their hands waiting for her call. This doesn't even take into account the non-active-duty Guardsmen that she could have called up due to the emergency situation. There's a major Cat 4/5 hurricane headed straight for New Orleans, and she doesn't even bother deploying half of the Guard at her disposal. Of the 3,500 that she DID deploy, how many did she send to New Orleans? There certainly weren't 3,500 soldiers there after the storm. Judging from the news reports, live cam feeds, and on-the-ground reports, there MAY have been 500 - and that number is being generous.

Sunday she also wrote a letter asking the President for $130 million in funds for anticipated rebuilding. A Cat 4/5 hurricane coming for her state and all she thinks it will take to fix it is $130 million. The woman had no clue.

New Mexico's Governor offered ALL of its active-duty troops to assist Louisiana on Sunday before the storm hit, and the NM Governor faxed over the paper with his signature on it giving Blanco full command of his Guardsmen. All she had to do was sign it and fax it back. She sat on it, saying she needed to wait for a paper from the Feds, which would take 4 days to get there. Bush had already given her the authority to use these troops with his declaration on Saturday. That declaration overrides normal procedure and gives Governors extra powers and the ability to skip certain paperwork. She also held off the Texas Governor's offer of Guardsmen until (as far as I can tell tracking down paperwork and timelines online) Friday after the President came and talked to her.

FEMA had trucks with supplies and emergency vehicles on the ground on a highway outside of New Orleans (I saw at least 30 vehicles but the helicopter camera was moving quickly so it was probably more) but could not get into the city because the Governor had not deployed enough Guardsmen there to protect their unarmed personnel. They had to sit and wait for Blanco to get off of her ass. Actually, they had to sit and wait for Bush to fly down on Friday and TELL HER to get off of her ass and deploy troops to the area so their people could go in safely.

The Feds have requested to be given control of the situation so that they can deploy troops and relief workers where necessary - Blanco has refused. No troops can be deployed without her permission. No relief workers can get in without her permission. In the lower Parishes right now, there are Guardsmen having to turn away tractor trailers full of supplies sent by private groups and corporations because Blanco has not given them permission to accept these supplies. The only authority she has given them is to perform search and rescue and provide protection against criminals. They would love to accept this help but they cannot, because Blanco wants to personally review and approve/disapprove every movement in/out of the state.

A huge Navy ship left here (Norfolk) Monday night/early Tuesday (right after the storm) morning to go to the Gulf. It's been there for days upon days. It's now sitting there with hundreds of doctors and nurses, hundreds of soldiers who could be providing help, 600 beds that are going unused, and it can make 100,000 gallons of drinking water per DAY. (It converts it from seawater.) This is the big ship that went to help in the tsunami effort and provided most of the drinking water. It is sitting there unused and the sailors on board are going crazy wanting to help. They CANNOT leave the ship to help until Governor Blanco requests their help (otherwise it would be considered an invasion). They keep offering their help, she keeps ignoring them.

She even told the President, when he offered aid to her directly, that she needed 24 hours to think about it. When people are dying in her state and especially in New Orleans with every passing hour.

She is trying to micro-manage a situation that is far too big for her limited brain capacity, and people are dying because of it. Because she wants full power and is unwilling to step aside so that shit can get done. Meanwhile, people are dying because of her pride, power-hungry ego, and brainlessness.

Good info, thanks for the education.

I was referring to the Army reserves and not the National Guard, but on that point it would seem to be the National Guard that would be called in first.

Score I know that the Pentagon sent down active duty troops early but not sure on what day - haven't been able to track that down. They did "increase" the number of active duty troops to 30,000 on Thursday (so whatever they sent initially was below 30k) and Bush sent more than 7,000 additional active duty troops on Saturday.

There's going to be investigations left and right, probably for the next two or three years, over this. Every involved player could have done something more, or something different... I just hope there's a massive inspection and overhauling of disaster relief plans in all States and on all levels to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again.

For example, having to wait for Congress to be back into session to approve aid funds and further untie the President's hands to be able to take action - perhaps in the future, if the President declares an area to be a "disaster area", Congress should be required to immediately go back into session that day or the next? That would be an improvement and avoid some of the waiting we had last week.

If his government would have acted swiftly to a disaster that was not even unexpected, thousands of lives would have been saved. Instead Bush and his mates preferred to stay their looooong holiday course...