Notes allege "FEMA is not a response agency for disasters"

[MissMarple]

I found this at Mother Jones in the MoJoBLOG. This may be pure speculation, it came from The Guardian, but I just don't put it past Chertoff and this misadministration. It fits too closely with how things are in the reality based world.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2005/12/notes_allege_fe.html

"Notes from a meeting, released yesterday by a union representative for federal emergency workers, say that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told employees that changes planned after Katrina were "partially a perception ploy to make outsiders feel like we've actually made changes for the better."

Lee Bosner, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents FEMA workers, says he obtained the typed notes from an unnamed FEMA official. A spokesman for Chertoff denied that the Homeland Security secretary had made any such remarks. According to Bosner's source, the remarks were made in the past week. Chertoff is also alleged to have said that FEMA is not a response agency for disasters; "we essentially should be only doing recovery."

The plan, according to the notes, is for a Coast Guard admiral to be placed in a number of major cities, and that person would handle disaster response.

Bearing in mind that we do not have proof of the veracity of the notes, it is nevertheless becoming increasingly difficult to trust Chertoff with regard to FEMA, let alone other matters. It was Chertoff, who, during the midst of the New Orleans crisis, said he was unaware that people were dying in the Superdome. It was Chertoff who saw fit to allow former FEMA director Michael Brown to do nothing while people on the Gulf Coast drowned, went hungry and thirsty, and had no medical care.

There is no doubt that one of the this administration's objectives has been to weaken FEMA, and there is no reason to believe it is now sincere about strengthening it again."

[louis-t]

1. Chertoff has said this publicly also.

[aquart]

5. Why does this man still have a job?

Anywhere?

[PDJane]

2. That's interesting.

Then why is it called the Federal Emergency Management Agency and why would one waste money on a separate agency?

Sigh. I think I'm confused.

[MessiahRp]

3. Maybe if they can keep creating new expanded government departments

they can find a way to trickle the blame so far down that Americans will stop looking for answers or stop being angry out of pure frustration.

Rp

[justgamma]

4. It seem that in NO, FEMA's job

was to keep out would be rescuers and emergency supplies. " Brownie, you did a heck of a job"

[peanutbrittle]

6. All they want to do

is write checks to cover the under insured and set up trailers..that is IT.

When the F-5 came through OKC (I wasn't here then) but my Repub friend said that is all they did.

This is the argument from him re: New Orleans is "it's not FEMA'S job!" to rescue these people! Or do any more than write the checks and provide temp housing.

I personally have no idea what they are supposed to do or not do.

[applegrove]

7. Emergency Management implies quickness. Is this like the debates

when they made Bush seem so stupid in the run up - that he would only exceed expectations?

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

8. Heck, who'd think that the FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY

would be "a response agency for disasters?"

Silly us.


That would be like claiming that an August 6 2001 PDB named "Bin Laden determined to strike in the US" was not historical but in fact a warning that should have been heeded. Who'd ever think THAT????

:sarcasm: :sarcasm: