Video Footage Shows Bush, Chertoff Were Warned of Katrina’s Potential Impact
In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage of the briefings.
Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on Aug. 29 but assured state officials: “We are fully prepared.”
Six days of footage and transcripts obtained by The Associated Press show that federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast.
Show us the video.
UPDATE: The AP has some of the video here.
The human excrement at FreeRepublic does a pretty good job at summing up Bush’s position on this:
“Who cares, a flooded NO is a good thing.”
“It kept the crime down.”
It’s just that liberal Fox News again. Pay no attention to your lying eyes.
I hear Nagin’s a communist who can CONTROL THE WEATHER. Duh.
They didn’t have video in August 2005. It didn’t exist. Besides, the kerning and proportional fonts are all out of whack. Look, I can create the same footage using Windows MovieMaker.
Bush saved New Orleans–singlehandedly. At great personal risk to himself, he personally held the levees together.
This is all an invention of the liberal media.
But Mayor Nagin! And Governor Blanco! BLAAAAANNNNCCOOOOO!!!!!!
I wonder if “Brownie” had something to do with the release of this video?
Brownie is an ass who failed us during Katrina, but his performance during the congressional hearings told me he is DONE being the fall guy for the administration. He very well could have let the video out.
Next on Fox News: Was Katrina Made Up by the Media?
Only the Bush-haters criticize now. Only in the fullness of time we will know whether Bush was a heroic leader or simply a visionary one.
Next, maybe the AP can get its hands on transcripts of New Orleans City Council meetings held during the past few years,where the mayor and city officials discussed their evacuation and disaster preparedness plans.
On second thought, I’ll bet that all such records have been tragically “lost” due to flood damage.
Mike:
You sad, pathetic clown. I hate to break it to, but attacking the New Orleans City Council doesn’t change the fact that Bush is a filthy liar who lies about stuff that causes people to DIE. By the THOUSANDS.
You WANT that in a President?
Why the hell would you want that in a President?
Mike translation: Look over there!
Mike, are you for real? Local officials don’t have access to military hardware or evac equipment or interstate logistics. That’s FEMA’s purview. I am no fan of Brownie, but at least he understands the gravity of the situation. You can still be a Republican and realize that George W. Bush is an unqualified disaster.
People like Mike don’t care what Bush does as long as he cuts taxes and pops a few ay-rabs every once in a while.
Ah, yes…the ol’ “people who support Bush must be racists” comment. Where would we be without that wisdom in every thread?
Good one Jadegold.
What is funny to me about Freepers…Why is no one complaining about paying taxes into this incompetent administration. What is anyone below the oligarchy getting in return these days?
Unlike Freepers, I used to not mind paying taxes…fair enough to live in this wonderful country…but when my tax dollars are just being used to line wealthy pockets, maim and kill more folks than OBL, and then just let a major American city rot away, well…I’m gonna be a Libertarian until the liberals get back in office and return us to a representative, functional government.
Ah, yes& the ol people who support Bush must be racists comment. Where would we be without that wisdom in every thread?
I don’t think it’s necessarily racist. I think they mostly just like the idea that we’re popping people and blowing shit up. Doesn’t matter much how swarthy they are.
Bush would rather cut taxes on one millionaire than cut taxes on 10,000 working people. Needs to raise capital gains tax on all oil related stocks that have gone up as much as 10 times in 3 years. People are getting very rich because of this war in Iraq and need to pay a higher tax rate.
I’m not going to even bother arguing this point. Why would I even give your and analog’s arguments credibility?
I just think you should take a long hard look at yourself and ask yourself why you defend everything this administration does, as if they can do no wrong. Geez, we never approved of everything Clinton did.
What is lacking in your life to make it imperative that you spin everything the pResident does? Real people are dying and all you people can think of is Shrub’s legacy, and that people don’t think of him as a boob.
It is like a cult for some of you. If and when you wake up, it is not going to be pretty for you, I can guarantee you that.
Too bad for the AP that they don’t employ anyone with an actual grasp of the english language.
And who was that about 20 seconds into the footage…why it just may have been Nagin, coving his face after realizing that he waited too long to issue the evac orders.
Max Mayfield, the man in, presumably, the most incriminating piece of footage the AP could find, only speaks of the question as to whether the levies will be “topped”.
Did anyone here even watch the damn footage?
“Topped” or “Topping” is completely different than “Breaching” and the terms are not interchangable, at least not to anyone who respects the english language.
Which leads me to my next question: Does anyone here have a halfway decent knowledge of the english language?
But it must be that Right-Wing Media Conspiracy (or are we spelling it ‘Neo-Conspiracy’ now, Oliver?) that would misinterpret the words used, right?
Oh wait, no, it would be the Neo-Conspriacy that blew up the levies and fed America the false reports of cannibalism.
So the plausible denialists pipe in, guess the blast fax from Rove finally got through.
Sad, truly sad. It will be a hard fall for these cultists when they can’t spin Bush’s foibles anymore. Just look at yourselves. Have you no shame?
I would ask the same of you, fc. AKid makes some pretty important points and you’re riffing on marching orders.
Okay, I’ll type this slowly so that everyone here can understand.
Read the actual news story again.
Federal officials were worried about the fact that hospitals, nursing homes, and prisons had not been evacuated. They were also worried about adequate food and sanitation in the Superdome, and whether the Superdome could withstand Category 5 hurricane winds. Who is responsible for local-level evacuations or implementing local-level disaster preparedness plans and ensuring the adequacy of storm shelters? Tell me where the Constitition gives the President of the United States this responsibility. Bush’s fault? I don’t think so.
You are probably as tired of reading this as I am of saying it. The government of the City of New Orleans had hundreds of school buses and metro transit buses at its disposal. Most of them were with a few miles of the Superdome and Morial Center, and most of them survived the storm without damage. And city officials knew that tens of thousands had decided to stay behind. Yet there was no plan to evacuate those people? Bush’s fault? I don’t think so.
Another thing - go look at as many photos of flooded New Orleans as you like. Notice how many flooded automobiles there are — in parking lots, in driveways, in streets. Forget the lies you were told that “everyone who was left behind had no way out.” Many did not have transportation, but there were enough cars in New Orleans to have evacuated thousands, but those people chose to stay put. Bush’s fault? I don’t think so.
The only way that Bush could have personally done something to lessen the loss of life in New Orleans was to issue an executive decree ordering the US military into New Orleans to forcibly remove civilians from their homes. Think the ACLU would have let that happen? What if Bush had issued such an order, which would had to have been done probably a week in advance of the storm, and then the storm turned and hit somewhere else?
Even after an unprecedented effort to rush National Guard and US military personnel into the area and rescue tens of thousands, there was Idiotarian of the Year Cindy Sheehan braying on Michael Moore’s website: “Get our troops out of occupied New Orleans.” Sorry folks, you can’t have it both ways. Do you want old Chimpy McBushHitlerBurton to have the power to send US troops into any American city and forcibly remove civilians on his executive order? Then let’s amend the Constitution.
Finally, read the actual news story again and tell me who the AP makes into the hero of the effort? Everyone here, including Oliver, totally missed this. Could it be that ol’ Brownie really was “doing a heckuva job?” If that’s the case, you guys have a lot of apologizing to do. Or maybe the AP was rewarding the person who leaked all the video and transcripts to them, and who directed them on how to turn those things into a hit piece on the Bush administration.
FEMA suffered from the traditional problems that plague bureaucracies: poor communications, fear of failure, and a CYA mentality. They made a lot of mistakes and, as recent reports have shown, did a less-than-stellar job of managing post-disaster efforts. But to blame everything on Bush is lunacy. Talk about a cult mentality.
(I’ll also second what AnalogKid said. Maybe we should buy the AP some dictionaries and have them look up the difference between “topped” and “breached.”)
How many times have you made a clenis comment? You can’t count that high? Oh, ok.
Besides, you’ll notice that when an opponent of ours sane or rational, we don’t just attack all the time. We analyze. Think how we react to McCain, for instance. I very often don’t agree with the man, but I can give him some respect.
If you want intelligent dialogue, you have to pony up with some people who aren’t Crusading Zealots for Mindlessness Chief Executive Officer Christ(tm). If, however, you refuse to give any ground, based on principle, and refuse to even slightly disagree with Your Fearless Leader, then what are we left with? The man is incompetent, secretive, totalitarian, fanatical, and distracted. He is so far out in right-field that he can’t even see the crowd.
Bush doesn’t leave us any room to be anything other than disgusted, at any point. How are we supposed to react?
And as for 2008, Bush is just the poster child. Theres a whole bunch of other people from his group, corrupted and, as far as I can tell, unassailable in your book.
And besides, we’re just doing what you trained us to do: repetition repetition repetition.
You’ve got it so very, very wrong. Take a gander at any righty blog for more than 5 minutes and you’ll see disgreements with Bush all the time. On the flip side, I see very few lefty blogs that are not in Attack Bush mode 24/7. I’d be hard pressed to find anything on this blog that wasn’t virulenty anti-Bush, unless it was either Redskin, Alba, or Krypton related.
You need to wake from the cult of “hate Bush”. Guess what? He’s not running in 2008!
That makes absolutely no economic sense whatsoever. When people make more money, the amount they pay to the government in taxes already increases. Additionally, the “rich” already pay a higher rate than anyone else. What do you expect to gain by raising their taxes even more? Never mind…I already know: punishment and redistribution.
Piling On. Part Two
I didn’t realize how widespread the coverage of the AP tapes of the Pre-Katrina meetings at the White House was. Until I started to work through my regular blogs tonight. It’s EVERYWHERE. Both conservative and liberal blogs have it. And nobody is…
As Keith Olberman pointed out last night, these tapes were made available to the MSM the night they were shot by FEMA and HSA. The AP just now got around to looking at them. More fools them, and I have seen many post-ers today expressing regret at castigating Mr. Brown after the hurricane.
That’s not what we’re upset about, Mike. We are upset and outraged that the President (and I capitalize out of respect for the Office, not the man) went on national television, just in the last couple of days, and said he had no idea how bad it was or how bad it was going to be. Now we have evidence that he did know how bad it was going to be beforehand.
So that was a lie!
And that is what we are talking about here today. Bush’s total disregard for the truth. I don’t care who was at fault for not getting people out. They all were at fault. Period.