Not on the Job

“I don’t want to play the blame game,” says BushCheney about the national failure created by Hurricaine Katrina. “Now’s the time to get help to the people who need it.” And for once, he is right. The job at hand is Rescue, Relief and Rebuilding. The “blame game” doesn’t do much for that. But accountability and performance have everything to do with the job at hand. And with building the capability to forestall such a calamity in the future. Asking what happened, who failed and why is a necessary rite of public administration. Government that is serious about protecting its citizens must find out why it did not respond effectively when the shit hit the fan and look for ways to see that it doesn’t fail the next time.

But Katrina’s damage is an all too present reality. Government failed to protect its most vulnerable citizens from a predictable disaster. The old, infirm, sick and poor were left to face the fury of one of the strongest storms to hit the US, a storm whose land fall was well known. Trapped by the storm, these same people where left to suffer and die government did little or nothing to rescue them or provide relief. Even when government acted, offering refuge in the Superdome, no support was provided to thousands of people in a crippled city. Katrina in New Orleans was a catastrophic failure exceeding the 9-11 attacks.

Katrina created calmitous bureaucratic dithering of the highest order. Agencies, administrators, military commanders hesitated, worked at cross purposes and argued about responsibility as floodwaters rose and conditions became more extreme. What happened? The city and state ordered an evacuation made nor provision for those who could not leave on their own. When the levees broke, a likely prospect based on pre-storm warnings, conditions became extreme, quickly spiraling beyond the capability of a stricken city and state to handle.

BushCheney’s failure was not seeing the catastrophe and marshaling the considerable resources and authority of the federal government to relieve the city. (The photograph of George W. eating cake and strumming a guitar while New Orleans drowned will be as inconic as his wide eyed interlude at the Florida elementary school after learning New York had been attacked on 9-11.) Asleep at the switch. Blaming the state and local government or the complications of federalism in no way absolves the federal government and its chief executive of responsibility to ensure domestic tranquility and provide for the general welfare, two of the six purposes established by the US Constitution. Whatever failures at the local and state levels, once the scope of the storm and its damage were known, Katrina became a national issue.

A vigorous, focused federal response should have begun when the Director of the National Hurricane Center briefed the Secretary of Homeland Security and the FEMA director two days prior to landfall that Katrina would strike the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 or 5 storm and warned that if it came ashore at or near New Orleans it could breech the city’s levees, creating the toxic flood that is now all too familiar. Why New Orlean’s poorest and weakest citizens were not evacuated along with the majority of citizens prior to the storm is a question that begins with the mayor and governor to start. Why those citizens were stranded is also a question for BushCheney and his emergency managers. The storm is not the issue. The issue is twofold: Why did government fail? How do we ensure that it does not fail again?

The specifics of emergency management in a federal system are mind-bendingly complex. Failures occurred at multiple levels and operational interfaces. But one key ingredient was missing: a President who Kicks Ass and Takes Names, a strong executive pushing his organizations into immediate action. BushCheney had all the authority he needed to make things happen but did nothing. He could suspend or waive regulations and normal procedures. He had federal troops and equipment at his disposal. More importantly, he had the Bully Pulpit. Can anyone doubt that a President shouting “Get those people out! Now!” would not have lit some fires in the bureaucracy. Presidential follow up calls would have fanned the flames. But BushCheney was absent. The ponderous engine of federal bureaucracy was left to sputter into life as people died. Simply put, Elvis was not in the building.

The absence of 40 percent of the Louisana’s National Guard and over half of its equipment aggravated the situation. As I write, 11 days after landfall, sufficient resources seem to be in place to rescue citizens willing to evacuate. But the lack of local forces–“boots on the ground”–to deal with the disaster immediately clearly did not help. Neither, too, did BushCheney’s unwillingness to fund public works necessary to avert the flooding.

But for the time being, the biggest failure was that the one person with the responsibility, authority and resources to deal with a crisis of this magnitude did nothing until shamed into action by the desperate plight of New Orleans.

Asleep at the Switch

Swopa at Needlenose documents BushCheney's catastrophic incompetence here.

Naming Names

The names of the American dead in the Iraq war are now the latest football in the political struggle for the hearts and minds of America. Cindy Sheehan was the first to stand up and ask publicly and loudly why her son died and why other sons and daughters will also die. Sheehan asks what America and the world get in return for these sacrifices. Her vigil and the questions she asked have tapped the frustration of all who question this war. At last, it seems that this country is beginning to realize the folly of our military adventure in Iraq. We remember the dead and ask “Why?” And no good answers come from the administration, only talking points and misinformation regurgitated over and over. That and slanderous ad-hominem attacks on anyone who dares question BushCheney.

The dead are a powerful presence. BushCheney knows this, which is why he prohibited photographs of the coffins returning from Iraq. Now the supporters of the war come out and demand that anti-war activists not use the names of “their” dead, whom they fully believe died to protect America. One even carries a picture of Sheehan’s son, claiming that her actions have dishonored and betrayed his sacrifice. Their answer to Cindy Sheehan is that more Americans (and Iraqis as well) must die in order validate the service of their dead loved ones. When pressed for some idea of what they expect from that service, given the nightmare that Iraq has become under American occupation, all they can do is offer platitudes about freedom, democracy and human rights, even in the face of events that offer virtually no hope of achieving those results.

BushCheney and his dangerously optimistic supporters have every reason to fear the dead. These are the soldiers and the families to whom he and his administration must ultimately answer. The lack of a good answer will forever haunt the perpetrators and supporters of the Iraq war. They are the testament this administration’s pride and arrogance. America has seen this before, in Vietnam. Whatever objectives this nation had for siding with French colonialisn in Indochina and supporting a the neo-colonialist regime in the south after the French defeat (and, in my opinion, those reasons were spurious from the get-go), they soon morphed into the nebulous justifications of national honor, saving face and honoring the dead. In 1968 Richard Nixon narrowly won election claiming to have a secret plan to end the war. Hubert Humphrey and the Democrats had so little credibility on Vietnam that America was willing to trust Richard Nixon!

Two years later I participated in my first combat assault in Vietnam. Nixon’s plan apparently involved sending me and many others to a war that supposed to end. Imagine how pissed off I was; in harm’s way for no good reason. My sacrifices and possible death were simply a cover for politicians who were more concerned with saving face than recognizing the unpleasant reality of Vietnamese nationalism and determination (sound familiar?). More than death (which prospect terrified me), I feared being one of the Vietnam dead whose sacrifice could only be honored by continuing the killing. I wanted to leave instructions for my funeral: no flag, no military, a letter screaming out my rage and betrayal. (I never did, though. I couldn’t look my death quite so explicitly). Fortunately I did not die. But I did serve, although neither my country or Vietnam benefitted from my sacrifice. I got a masters degree on the GI Bill and qualify for VA health care but I returned to face with 30 plus years of guilt, shame and anger at surrendering my humanity to such a spurious cause. I at least survived, to remember.

Understanding the motives and feelings of America’s dead in Iraq is difficult for anyone other than their closest relatives. Even then, the understanding may be clouded by sentiment or the soldiers’ unwillingness to share uncertainty and fear with their loved ones. Cindy Sheehan has every right to ask BushCheney for a real explanation for the sacrifice of her son. The counter protesters do not. They did not know her son or what he believed. At the same time, we in the anti-war movement cannot speak for any of the dead whom we do not know.

What I do know is that these men and women served their nation honorably, that we owe them the respect their sacrifice deserves. BushCheney wants the dead to be invisible; even more so now that his incompetence is becoming all too apparent. That is not the soldiers’ fault. They served when called. BushCheney wasted their sacrifice.

BushCheney is afraid of the dead. They silently testify to his folly. This administration can hide the photographs of returning coffins and offer platitudes and ever changing rationales for their actions but it cannot erase our memory. Simply invoking the names of the dead is to question why they were called. And BushCheney has no answer.