Bush takes blame for flaws in Katrina response

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kellyahern

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9324891/

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and that the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

:up:


but then:

The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.


"Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush replied.

Um, that's great too I guess. Just one question . . .






















What the heck have you been doing for 4 years?!?
:mad: :mad:




Other than that, good.
 
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I am at work

so I just skimmed this;

it looks like the right tone
and aside from being long overdue

i find it's message on the mark

Bush Takes Responsibility for Blunders
Sep 13 12:46 PM US/Eastern


By LARA JAKES JORDAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON

President Bush said Tuesday that "I take responsibility" for failures in dealing with Hurricane Katrina and said the disaster raised broader questions about the government's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.

"Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government," Bush said at joint White House news conference with the president of Iraq.

"To the extent the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush said.

The president was asked whether people should be worried about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures in responding to Katrina.

"Are we capable of dealing with a severe attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush replied.

He said he wanted to know both what went wrong and what went right.

As for blunders in the federal response, "I'm not going to defend the process going in," Bush said. "I am going to defend the people saving lives."

He praised relief workers at all levels. "I want people in America to understand how hard people worked to save lives down there," he said.

Bush spoke after R. David Paulison, the new acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to intensify efforts to find more permanent housing for the tens of thousands of Hurricane Katrina survivors now in shelters.

It was the closest Bush has come to publicly finding fault with any federal officials involved in the hurricane response, which has been widely criticized as disjointed and slow. Some federal officials have sought to fault state and local officials for being unprepared to cope with the disaster.

Bush planned to address the nation Thursday evening from Louisiana, where he will be monitoring recovery efforts, the White House announced earlier Tuesday.

Paulison, in his first public comments since taking the job on Monday, told reporters: "We're going to get those people out of the shelters, and we're going to move and get them the help they need."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff introduced Paulison as the Bush administration tried to deflect criticism for the sluggish initial federal response to the hurricane and its disastrous aftermath.

Chertoff said that while cleanup, relief and reconstruction from Katrina is now the government's top priority, the administration would not let down its guard on other potential dangers.

"The world is not going to stop moving because we are very focused on Katrina," Chertoff said.

Paulison, named to the post on Monday, said he was busy "getting brought up to speed."

He replaced Michael Brown, who resigned on Monday, three days after being removed from being the top onsite federal official in charge of the government's response.

Paulison said Bush called him Monday night and "thanked me for coming on board."

Bush promised that he would have "the full support of the federal government," Paulison said.

Chertoff said the relief operation had entered a new phase.

Initially, he said, the most important priority was evacuating people, getting them to safety, providing food, water and medical care.

" And then ultimately at the end of the day, we have to reconstitute the communities that have been devastated," Chertoff added.

He said the federal government would look increasingly to state and local officials for guidance on rebuilding the devastated communities along the Gulf Coast.

"The federal government can't drive permanent solutions down the throats of state and local officials," Chertoff said. "I don't think anyone should envision a situation in which they're going to take a back seat. They're going to take a front seat," he said.

Chertoff said that teams of federal auditors were being dispatched to the stricken areas to make sure that billions of dollars worth of government contracts were being properly spent. "We want to get aid to people who need it quickly, but we also don't want to lose sight of the importance of preserving the integrity of the process and our responsibility as stewards of the public money," Chertoff said.

"We're going to cut through red tape," he said, "but we're not going to cut through laws and rules that govern ethics."

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that some military aircraft and other equipment may be able to move out of the Gulf Coast soon.

"We've got to the point where most if not all of the search and rescue is completed," said Rumsfeld, who is attending a NATO meeting in Berlin. "Some helicopters can undoubtedly be moved out over the period ahead."

He also said there is a very large surplus of hospital beds in the region, so those could also be decreased. The USS Comfort hospital ship arrived near the Mississippi coast late last week. Rumsfeld added that nothing will be moved out of the area without the authorization of the two states' governors, the military leaders there and the president.

Elsewhere, workers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren't finding many sick people, even though the specter of diseases has alarmed relief and rescue figures. Instead, between 40 and 50 percent of patients seeking emergency care have injuries. The CDC has counted 148 injuries in just the last two days, Carol Rubin, an agency hurricane relief specialist, said by telephone from the government's new public health headquarters in New Orleans' Kindred Hospital.

While she couldn't provide a breakdown, Rubin said chain saw injuries and carbon monoxide exposure from generators are among them. Those are particularly worrisome because they're likely to become more common as additional hurricane survivors re-enter the city in coming days, she said.

The message: Those injuries are preventable, if people take proper precautions, Rubin stressed.
 
i am glad he is taking responsibility for his (in)actions.

after 2 weeks, he finally sounds presidential.
 
Bush as President should take responsibility for problems within the executive branch, BUT the failure in this case falls on the weeping shoulders of the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans. I can back my argument up with facts. This is just the latest attempt by Liberals and the media to try and bring down a Republican president they hate. They are doing the same thing the Republicans did when Clinton was in office. Check the facts.
 
I don't like Bush, but i'm surprised and pleased that he's stepped forward like this to claim at least some responsibility.
That said, there are certainly some other people who need to swallow their pride and admit their parts in this mess, namely local authorities.
 
It took 4 years for him to take any responsibility at all.
I mean for something bad that is.
All the pretend "good" things that are happeneing sprouted of his ass of course.
9/11 disiater recovery was all him because it was heroic. This went bad so it can't possibly be all him.
It is the libs.
Oh and the media.
Its always the media.
Except for FOX they aren't the media when we say the media.
And we have to blame the celebs too!
We blame the celebs. We hate them.
Unless we are interviewing them, speaking to them, using them for fund raisers or trying to elect one as governor or president. Then they are ok.
 
Good to see him finally taking "responsibility" for "the extent" of his executive branch, like its some sort of unusual heroic act instead of the essence of his oath of office. Nice hedge, there! ;-)

Hopefully an independent commission will take care of the "accountability" part of things.
 
Speaking of ass, I'll take the issue of Iraq, 911, etc...and watch you pull your leftist diatribe out of YOUR ass when realize you have no foundation of facts. But for now I'll simply ask the people who want to find the truth, not the political bullshit, to go to Blanco's website to find Blanco's own website telling the facts as everyone who has bothered to look knows them.
 
hhbiedenharn said:
Speaking of ass, I'll take the issue of Iraq, 911, etc...and watch you pull your leftist diatribe out of YOUR ass when realize you have no foundation of facts. But for now I'll simply ask the people who want to find the truth, not the political bullshit, to go to Blanco's website to find Blanco's own website telling the facts as everyone who has bothered to look knows them.

hhbiedenharn,
You seem to be new to FYM so I don't want this to sound too harsh, but please avoid insulting other posters with comments like "pull your leftist diatribe out of YOUR ass when [you] realize you have no foundation of facts." If you wish to express disagreement with another poster's comments there are plenty of ways to do so without resorting to insults or unpleasant comments. Please try to keep this in mind in future. BTW, welcome to FYM and I hope you'll enjoy posting here. :)

*Fizz
 
hhbiedenharn said:
Bush as President should take responsibility for problems within the executive branch, BUT the failure in this case falls on the weeping shoulders of the governor of Louisiana and the mayor of New Orleans. I can back my argument up with facts. This is just the latest attempt by Liberals and the media to try and bring down a Republican president they hate. They are doing the same thing the Republicans did when Clinton was in office. Check the facts.



yes. the facts are that Bush appointed an inept man as head of FEMA and it was this man's inability to make decisions and coordiante, combined with Bush's total ignorance of the situation on the ground, as well as failures at the state and local level, that combined in another sort of perfect storm of government failure. there is blame to spread all around, but for anyone to think for even a moment that the problem lies solely with the governor and mayor is utterly delusional. there are more than enough facts to go around without resorting to the "liberals" and "the media" Coulterisms.

even Bush thinks so.

for him to admit error for the first time in over four years -- yes, this is the first time ever -- then you know things are bad, especially on the PR front.

i applaud the president for owning up to his myriad mistakes.

now, let's see him do the same for WMD's, Iraq, and especially the torture in Abu Ghraib and across the globe.
 
I am glad he is taking responsibility.

As for "those FYMers".....I still stand by my position.....that there be accountability at all levels.

Sadly, "some FYMers" only seem to want to hold one person responsibile.
 
He wouldn't have taken responsibility if he was able to run again in 2008...
 
And this is what I want an apology for....

I want an apology for him NOT having the intestinal fortitude to seize control of the National Guard and take over.

PERIOD.

He would have been cruicified for doing it because he would have been stepping on the toes of a female democratic governor.

But he should have. Period. PC and politics be damned.
 
finally he said something

I for one don't want to hold only one person responsible, but the buck stops in Washington DC not in Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama.

And I also want President Bush to give serious thought as to why African Americans feel the way they do about him. Introspection is healthy. And to think about what he as President and we as a country can do to make life for the poor and minorities better.
 
i also want us to have a serious discussion about poverty.

4.1 million more people have slipped below the poverty line since 2001.
 
Trust me, there are Democrats to blame as well.
Ultimately the buck stops with W.
You want to rul the country you have to take the blame too.
The difference between Dems and Republicans is we are willing to hold our own accountable when they screw up.
I don't stand around saying how nice the Emperor's new robe is just becuase he is my leader.
Heads should roll on all sides but the majority of the blame is SQUARELY on George's shoulders.
He put a guy with ZERO experience in charge of FEMA.
If you put a guy with no experience in charge of your business no matter what it is that you do whether it is working at a 7-11 or running a Fortune 500 business and he screwed up.
You'd be fired.
Mike Brown ran horse shows.
Thats straight out of a Saturday Night Live skit.
People died because of that.
Every second counted.
Hundereds maybe thousands of lives could have been saved.
Let that sink in before you start spouting Karl Rove talking points.
Think about the people in the hospital they found yesterday.
That could be your grandmother.
They could have been saved but instead they are dead because Mike Brown had a friend.
If that doesn't disgust you then you are too far gone for me to talk sense into you.
If Clinton did that, then
A: The Republicans would have eaten him alive
B: I would have joined them!
 
excellent post Iskra

the blame also rests w/ "people" like the couple who ran that St Rita's nursing home and left patients to die in their beds

there are no words :|
 
As for the female governor remark...you are just making up supposed issues now.
Not every liberal is going to jump up with their hippie flag and stop eating their bran flakes, call the ACLU and freak out in the middle of a storm.
But then you guys are good at stereotyping.
Just ask the Katrina victims.
 
I can't say I can blame people fleeing for their lives without hearing that in more detail.
My guess is they called for help-received none and had to make a horrible decision.
If I was a nurse and my kid was at home and help wasn't coming to my workplace...wow.
Thats tough.
 
Well I think the pro-Bush hyperbole is laughable at times too, that's only fair is it not?

I have tried numerous times to start threads that have absolutely zero to do w/ politics and/or Bush, only to have all that dragged into them anyway, or no one cares about the thread :shrug:
 
I'd agree that almost any thread can get turned into the usual slug fest, or jump to the one-way discussion topics.

You've slugged it out in FYM over quite a period of time, MrsSpringsteen, without losing your cool. :up:
 
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