by hilzoy
President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are forever lecturing people who disagree with them about their pre-9/11 way of thinking. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what on earth they could be talking about. A post 9/11 mentality would, I would have thought, involve a relentless focus on attacking both terrorist organizations and the causes of their appeal, not haring off on unrelated and ill-thought-out adventures like Iraq. It would involve concentrating our resources on actually catching Osama bin Laden, not letting him slip away at Tora Bora in part because our military was already distracted by planning for Iraq. It would involve trying to secure loose nukes in places like Russia, and keeping non-nuclear countries from developing nuclear weapons, not ignoring North Korea’s extremely dangerous nuclear program — from which terrorists are far more likely to get nukes than they ever would have been from Saddam — while trying to convince the country that a country with no nuclear weapons threatened us with a “mushroom cloud”. It would have involved deft, quiet, and forceful efforts to resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, not the sort of wishful thinking that led people to say that ‘the road to Jerusalem leads through Baghdad’, and to bring about reform in states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It would, in short, have been diametrically opposed to everything this administration has done.
At home, it would have involved moving heaven and earth to ensure that our ports, bridges, railways, and chemical plants were secure. This administration has barely scratched the surface of those tasks. And it would have involved making a major effort to ensure that if some natural or man-made catastrophe struck again, we would be as well-eqipped to deal with it as a rich and powerful country can be. But as Katrina made painfully clear, we are not.
On Constitutional issues, I agree with Russ Feingold: the Bush administration has a pre-1776 mentality. But even on preventing and preparing for terrorism, I can’t imagine how they could possibly be more pre-9/11 than they are.
This rant was prompted by a story in the Washington Post, about a House report on the response to Katrina. As I read it, I kept thinking: this is the sort of response we could expect to a terrorist incident. It happened four years after 9/11, but as far as the Bush administration’s disaster planning and preparedness are concerned, 9/11 might as well never have happened. Either this administration just has not been trying to prepare for the next catastrophe, or it is completely incompetent, or both. In either case, it is living in a pre-9/11 world — a world in which, apparently, we don’t need to bother with boring things like disaster preparedness, we can afford to place incompetent people in charge of them, and we don’t have to bother to exercise actual leadership in times of crisis.
The report in question is by the House Republicans, who have not been known for their combative and confrontational attitude to this administration. Excerpts from the story, and more comments, below the fold.
From the Post story:
“Hurricane Katrina exposed the U.S. government’s failure to learn the lessons of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, as leaders from President Bush down disregarded ample warnings of the threat to New Orleans and did not execute emergency plans or share information that would have saved lives, according to a blistering report by House investigators. (…)
The 600-plus-page report lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center and the White House Homeland Security Council, according to a 60-page summary of the document obtained by The Washington Post. Regarding Bush, the report found that “earlier presidential involvement could have speeded the response” because he alone could have cut through all bureaucratic resistance.
The report, produced by an 11-member House select committee of Republicans chaired by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), proposes few specific changes. But it is an unusual compendium of criticism by the House GOP, which generally has not been aggressive in its oversight of the administration.
The report portrays Chertoff, who took the helm of the department six months before the storm, as detached from events. It contends he switched on the government’s emergency response systems “late, ineffectively or not at all,” delaying the flow of federal troops and materiel by as much as three days.
The White House did not fully engage the president or “substantiate, analyze and act on the information at its disposal,” failing to confirm the collapse of New Orleans’s levee system on Aug. 29, the day of Katrina’s landfall, which led to catastrophic flooding of the city of 500,000 people.
On the ground, Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael D. Brown, who has since resigned, FEMA field commanders and the U.S. military’s commanding general set up rival chains of command. The Coast Guard, which alone rescued nearly half of 75,000 people stranded in New Orleans, flew nine helicopters and two airplanes over the city that first day, but eyewitness reconnaissance did not reach official Washington before midnight.
At the same time, weaknesses identified by Sept. 11 investigators — poor communications among first responders, a shortage of qualified emergency personnel and lack of training and funding — doomed a response confronted by overwhelming demands for help.
“If 9/11 was a failure of imagination then Katrina was a failure of initiative. It was a failure of leadership,” the report’s preface states. “In this instance, blinding lack of situational awareness and disjointed decision making needlessly compounded and prolonged Katrina’s horror.” (…)
The [president’s Homeland Security Council]’s “failure to resolve conflicts in information and the ‘fog of war,’ not a lack of information, caused confusion,” the House panel wrote. It added that the crisis showed the government remains “woefully incapable” of managing information, much as it was before the 2001 attacks.”
I like the bit about the White House’s failure to “fully engage the president.” The sort of strong leader Bush’s supporters imagine him to be does not need to be “engaged” by his staff in the face of a national catastrophe. He engages all by himself, as soon as the Director of the National Weather Service tells him what’s coming. And once engaged, he uses all the power he has to make sure that things are done right. If things aren’t moving fast enough, he makes them move. If lines of command are confused, he clarifies them. If people are not getting results, he rides herd on them until they do.
And a strong leader does not need his staff to tell him to do these things. Being a grown-up, he knows them already. Likewise, if he fails, he does not blame his staff.
Instead of a strong leader, we get this:
And instead of a President who can learn from 9/11 and make the safety of our country his top priority, we get someone like the proverbial drunk who only looks for his keys under the streetlight. Bush looks for ways to secure America only when they involve invading Iraq. Preparing for disasters, trying to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, even catching Osama bin Laden: all that has to take a back seat to working out old grudges against Saddam Hussein and passing tax cuts for those who need them least.
How much more pre-9/11 could he possibly be?
great post…and yeah Katrina is still getting short shrift- it is criminal…I have reposted on this this week as well…( I also use the same kitty as you- except we call her the pragmatic pussy…) come by Enigma Cafe- http://watergatesummer.blogspot.com/ , you might find some like souls…sipping and thinking on the same issues…thanks for writing on this…
I think you are still giving Bush too much credit as usual.
The US is not just not more ready since 9-11 to deal with disasters, it is much less ready.
Bush started reducing America’s ability to deal with disaster as soon as he came into office by replacing Clinton appointees at the top with worthless Republican cronys.
But even then FEMA was far more capable than it is now. Over time, Bush introduced changes in policy and the budget which led to an exodus of most of the professionals at FEMA, heck you even referred to a Brad deLong piece on this months ago.
Of course as with all the things the Bush administration does it got much worse after 9-11 because then Bush had the power to wreck more thoroughly, in this instance by putting FEMA under Homeland Security.
The disinterest and indifference that Bush, Chertoff, and Brown feel and show toward the drowning of New Orleans after Katrina hit was really just the cherry on top.
I edited to change from past tense to present in that last sentence because I remembered that it is again apparent that Bush just doesn’t care about disaster preparedness or recovery. Witness the fact that he was reluctant to even do the minimal window dressing of firing Brown, and that the idea of billions of aid, promised for the rebuilding of New Orleans was dropped by this White House as soon as Bush got on the plane after his N.o. speech.
Frank: it is again apparent that Bush just doesn’t care about disaster preparedness or recovery. Witness the fact that he was reluctant to even do the minimal window dressing of firing Brown, and that the idea of billions of aid, promised for the rebuilding of New Orleans was dropped by this White House as soon as Bush got on the plane after his N.o. speech.
Why should Bush care about rebuilding New Orleans, or indeed about any bad reactions to it? He knows his base will vehemently attack anyone who criticizes him.
It would appear that France is more likely to help rebuild than the US government. Historically appropriate, perhaps… if you roll back a couple of centuries and fifteen million dollars.
All this criticism of the President (crosses-self) is giving aid in comfort to our enemies and helping the terrorists win. hilzoy (if that is your real name), please turn yourself in to the nearest Homeland Security Detention Facility for re-eduction.
Of course, look on the bright side. Soon, almost everyone (and certainly everyone you can respect) is going to be a liberal
Greenwald’s been listening to Sean Hannity too much, apparently. Which, who would’ve thought we had anything at all in common?
Besides, he’s just a big liberal; who cares what he thinks.
Ok, swear to GOD I’m going to erase that station from my presets, now.
I don’t think Bush is playing a chord in that picture.
Doesn’t it look like he’s trying to play a G chord on the wrong fret?
“Doesn’t it look like he’s trying to play a G chord on the wrong fret?”
Looks to me that Bush is sending one of his famous subtle signals to his audience.
G chord: check
Wrong fret: check
subtle signal? his middle finger probably just goes that way automatically…
Slarti,
That whole ‘Anyone who disagrees with me is a liberal, and a liberal is someone who disagrees with me’ circle is impossibly frustrating to penetrate. I have a few acquaintances who follow that script every time I express concern or frustratio nwith Administration policies. I have to remind them that I was the one hoofing it door to door for the Bush I campaign a decade ago, donating to the Family Research Council, and subscribing tothe American Spectator in the 90’s. That, though, just means that I’ve tragically fallen from grace…
I’m shocked at all this distrust of the president on display here. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the A and both E strings were flat by a half step?
It looks like the other guy in the picture is trying to grab the guitar from him with a “Good lord, no!” look on his face. Like he’s about to play the brown tone or something.
Eric Muller at IsThatLegal has a wav file of the chord. Ouch.
That, though, just means that I’ve tragically fallen from grace
Or that you were just a Big Liberal all along. You never know where liberals are hiding themselves, these days.
What’s great about the Greenwald post that lj links to is that it’s superfluous; the “All Things Beautiful” post that Greenwald links and responds to does all the heavy lifting to make Greenwald’s point for him, by unironically leading with, and offering no further explication for, the painting The Betrayal of Christ. Bush=Christ, and anyone who fails to support Bush 100%=Judas. QED.
Hey, where’s Charles? Hilzoy’s post has been up all morning and we haven’t seen any sputtering rebuttals to her citations of Hurricane Katrina responses as criticisms of President Bush/his Adminstration.
After all, we need to be reminded again that the NO Mayor and LA Governor were/are Democrats!
(Not sure, and never have been, why that should let the Feds and FEMA off the hook, but I’m sure BD can fill us in).
Ah, that chord! It sings so eloquently of the Bush administration.
I think it was symbolic of how well Governor Blanco had orchestrated the mobilization of the LA National Guard with various other agencies, myself. The chord is so brown it’s almost…chocolate.
So, it could be prescience.
Just thought I’d add my half-assed analogy to all the rest, here.
Slarti, that picture was taken on Tuesday, Aug. 30. Prescience is perhaps the wrong word to use given the latest news.
Um…I think you misunderstood, ral.
Oops, sorry, I missed that one.
‘t’sallright, I was being more oblique than usual, with more than a dollop of smartass thrown in.
from the “you can’t make this stuff up” deparment:
Cheney Accidentally Shoots Fellow Hunter
Oh, yes, I feel so much safer now. 😉
This from Wyoming makes it funnier.
Just don’t sneak up on Cheney and you’ll be all right. Maybe there IS a downside to “walk softly”.
Just too funny.
“And a strong leader does not need his staff to tell him to do these things. Being a grown-up, he knows them already. Likewise, if he fails, he does not blame his staff.”
Exactly. Since Bush is none of these things, we can count on him to ignore obvious priorities, pander to his base, and use the Republican Congress to hide all the bodies.
Given their preference for a monarchy, is it any wonder they have done so little to protect the homefront? Martial law will be about a half-second behind the next big attack.
Leonidas also displays expert gun knowledge:
Anyone who knows the faintest thing about guns, shotguns, or silencers, try to pick yourself up off the floor now; wipe the dust off from all that rolling about.
Silenced shotguns: teehee. (Leonidas epeats same comment as mentioned before yet again.)
It would involve concentrating our resources on actually catching Osama bin Laden, not letting him slip away at Tora Bora in part because our military was already distracted by planning for Iraq.
That’s amazing! The military was distracted by planning for Iraq in November/December 2001, and this was the reason that they didn’t capture bin Laden? How do you know this? What form did the “distraction” take? And how did it affect anything that would have otherwise happened at Tora Bora?
Uh, Gary, you do realize that I don’t write all the comments for my posts. That was left by a commenter who isn’t me. I could explain how blogs work to you if you like.
Niels: I was working off Woodward’s Plan of Attack, which puts the request to start planning for Iraq on Nov. 21, 2001 — before Tora Bora. See also here:
Though, as I said, Nov. 21 was before Tora Bora, not ‘as it was beginning’.
“That’s amazing! The military was distracted by planning for Iraq in November/December 2001, and this was the reason that they didn’t capture bin Laden? How do you know this?”
By reading the military news of units shifting at the time. This was also covered in the mainstream media, and in many blogs.
See herefrom November, 2002, regarding elite Australian troops.
From Knight-Ridder, November 26, 2003:
Elements of the 101st Airborne were removed from Afghanistan to prepare for Iraq.
Strategypage.com, September 4, 2002:
From Stratfor, 6 September 2002:
USA Today:
More on the 5th Special Forces Group.
Background on 5th Special Forces Group: interview with Col. John Mulholland, the commander of the 5th Special Forces Group, in command of them when they were in Afghanistan.
The uniqueness in 2003 of 5th SOF.
This is without even getting into the CIA forces pulled from Afghanistan and into Iraq in 2003, or the few Dari-speakers we had, or those troops and capabilities otherwise diverted from the Osama hunt to the Saddam hunt, but there are endless cites, and endless information you might have been reading at the time, and that you can still look into today, Niels Jackson, next time you have queries about military movements.
HTH.
Leonidas: “Uh, Gary, you do realize that I don’t write all the comments for my posts. That was left by a commenter who isn’t me. I could explain how blogs work to you if you like.”
By all means. The funny thing about links is that they go directly to what was written.
You’re denying that you wrote the following, which is almost identical to the same comment you left on various blogs, including here, and you’re claiming that someone else signed your name to this comment, on your own blog, and you let it stand?
Do, by all means, explain how it works that this comment on your own blog isn’t by you, but you let it stand with your own name. Then you can explain how it came about that it’s almost word-for-word what you wrote here and on Balloon Juice, if you like. Keep in mind that your IP address was recorded when the comments were posted on both blogs.
This suggests that the army of trolls is on the verge of breaking.
Gary — did I miss something, or do the vast majority of your links talk about shifting troop deployments in 2002 rather than in late 2001 (the time-frame in question)?
“Gary — did I miss something, or do the vast majority of your links talk about shifting troop deployments in 2002 rather than in late 2001 (the time-frame in question)?”
What happened at Tora Bora wasn’t because of U.S. troops having been shifted out of Afghanistan. It was because the decision was made not to use them, but to use hired Afghan troops, whose two leaders, Haji Zaman Ghamsharik, and Hazret Ali, who were feuding with each other. Ali was happy to take money from Al Qaeda folks to let them walk to Pakistan, where we also had no troops, but relied on Pakistanis to not do the job. That’s the nutshell version.
We had all the troops, and appropriate forces, we needed at the time. But we were in the habit of hiring out for large-scale fights. That was the key mistake.
There are many excellent, detailed, documented, accounts of this, and have been for years. Here’s just one excellent one from March 04, 2002, which I recommend.
After Tora Bora was when our withdrawal of key assets and uniquely skilled troops and CIA personel began, to infiltrate and prepare for Iraq, and the Saddam-hunt. Thus, yes, 2002, not 2001.
Gary: nonetheless, the planning for Iraq had been started by the time Tora Bora happened, and Tommy Franks had to spend time saying “{expletive}! a lot to people wanting him and his staff to produce a revised Iraq plan.
“Gary: nonetheless, the planning for Iraq had been started by the time Tora Bora happened, and Tommy Franks had to spend time saying “{expletive}! a lot to people wanting him and his staff to produce a revised Iraq plan.”
Sure.
After Tora Bora was when our withdrawal of key assets and uniquely skilled troops and CIA personel began, to infiltrate and prepare for Iraq, and the Saddam-hunt. Thus, yes, 2002, not 2001.
Which sort of speaks against the point you were apparently trying to make — assuming you were in fact responding Niels Jackson — which is why I was curious as to the relevance of your citations.
“…which is why I was curious as to the relevance of your citations.”
It’s what happened.
Hilzoy’s post has been up all morning and we haven’t seen any sputtering rebuttals to her citations of Hurricane Katrina responses as criticisms of President Bush/his Adminstration.
After all, we need to be reminded again that the NO Mayor and LA Governor were/are Democrats!
Yes, I would argue that the response from the Coast Guard did actually come very quickly, moreso than the National Guard and FEMA response, which had to be coordinated with the governor of Louisiana.
Yow.
Oh, sweet. FEMA’s screwing up on an even larger scale than they did in Florida last year. This is much juicier than them giving money to people just for dying in the same time frame as a hurricane.
Admin spent $1.6 billion on p.r. and media contracts in 2.5 years. Guess the trailers aren’t such a big deal after all.
Interesting…is there a place we can look to verify? Looking in the usual places, I can see that the budget item for “Executive Office of the President” went sky-high during 2004 and 2005. Up by a factor of ten over the previous years. This seems as if it ought to shed light, but doesn’t.
My link says the info comes from a GAO report.
That doesn’t sound so bad – if it’s mostly “Uncle Sam Wants You In Iraq” posters and so forth, that’s reasonably non-partisan.
Hilzoy — this is a non sequitur:
Gary: nonetheless, the planning for Iraq had been started by the time Tora Bora happened, and Tommy Franks had to spend time saying “{expletive}! a lot to people wanting him and his staff to produce a revised Iraq plan.
What you’re missing is the causal connection here. I said, what form did the distraction take? Your response: Franks cursed (and then evidently spent some of his time planning an eventual attack on Iraq). OK. But I also asked, how did this distraction supposedly affect anything that would otherwise have happened at Tora Bora?
Do you have any answer to that question? (Farber’s answer that troops were moved a year later is obviously irrelevant to the Tora Bora question.)
Farber’s other answer — that we allied ourselves with Afghan warlords — doesn’t have any connection to any supposed distraction from the Iraq situation. Were mistakes made? Probably so, although I’d like to know what the current naysayers would have done at the time (without the benefit of hindsight).
But the claim that our mistakes were due to Iraq — quite astonishing. Back it up with some harder evidence than “Franks cursed.”