[lit-ideas] Re: The Bush Button
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 2 Mar 2006 00:41:47 EST
Speaking of poor dopes ....
_http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4765058.stm_
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4765058.stm)
Video shows Bush Katrina warning
Video has been obtained by a US news agency showing President George W Bush
being briefed by officials on the eve of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
The confidential video obtained by the Associated Press shows very strong
warnings being given to Mr Bush about the potential strength of the storm.
It appears to contradict subsequent suggestions by the Bush administration
that the threat had been unclear.
Critics say more could have been done sooner to evacuate the city.
Speaking by video link from a room in his Texan holiday ranch on 28 August
last year, Mr Bush is shown telling officials: "We are fully prepared".
He does not ask any questions as the situation is outlined to him.
Along with the video, AP obtained transcripts of seven days of briefings
relating to Katrina.
Clear warning
The footage does the president no favours, the BBC's Justin Webb reports
from Washington.
It shows plainly worried officials telling Mr Bush very clearly before the
storm hit that it could breach New Orleans flood barriers.
In the past, the president has said nobody anticipated a breach but the
video shows Michael Brown, the top emergency response official who has since
resigned, saying the storm would be "a bad one, a big one".
"We're going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in
this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event," Mr
Brown says.
He also gives a strong, clear warning that evacuees in the Super Dome in New
Orleans could not be given proper assistance.
'Very, very grave'
Another official, Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center, tells the
final briefing that storm models predict minimal flooding inside New Orleans
during the hurricane.
But he adds that the possibility of anticlockwise winds and storm surges
could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun afterwards is
"obviously a very, very grave concern".
His concern was borne out by events when levees collapsed, letting in the
floodwater disastrously.
The president, however, said four days after the storm: "I don't think
anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
Mr Bush later accepted he shared some of the responsibility for the flawed
response to Katrina and the White House talked of the "fog of war" rendering
decision-making difficult.
Michael Brown told AP this week that he did not "buy the 'fog of war'
defence".
"It was a fog of bureaucracy," he said.
========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: The Bush Button
Date: 3/1/06 11:19:50 P.M. Central Standard Time From:
_eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:eyost1132@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) To:
_lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent on:
Yeah, but who wants a poor dope in charge of their
country?
Freedonia, in the Groucho Marx movie.
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