- the reorganization of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery functions within the Department of Homeland Security (and especially the changes in FEMA's assigned roles), and
- the military's support, being organized by NORTHCOM, to DHS' disaster response and recovery efforts, especially in light of the strains on the National Guard due to deployment in Iraq.
A full-throated condemnation of Bush Administration policies in these two areas, especially focusing on the effects of restructuring/reprioritization of FEMA in the specific case of New Orleans well before Katrina arrived, is offered by Lorelei Kelly at Democracy Arsenal. She, like the AG, sees these issues as ones of national security. And she thinks the wrong priorities have been set.
A broken levee wall is what caused the city to drown. For years the walls have been sinking. Starting in the 1960's, the federal government began working with regional state and local officials on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA in 1995. Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. As blogger Attytood notes, the Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remained about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River. In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain.
FEMA enfeebled: FEMA's Project Impact, a model mitigation program created by the Clinton administration, was canceled outright under Bush and conservative congressional leadership. Federal funding of post-disaster mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property from the next disaster was cut in half. In Louisiana, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected by FEMA this summer.
The FEMA story is receiving a great deal of attention because the alarm bells have been ringing for several years. Kevin Drum has a good collection of links on the history of the agency, which was a disaster (pardon the pun) during Hurricane Andrew under Bush41, was turned into a model of what a government agency can be under Clinton's director James Lee Witt, and has been steadily back-tracking to its old politicized, poorly managed personality under Bush43. See also Kevin's new follow-up post on what's been happening with FEMA, which includes quotes from Witt (Knight-Ridder story) and other disaster management experts on the differences between the sorts of responses planned during Witt's tenure and what's happening now.
It's tempting to frame the debate as "Iraq versus New Orleans." Or even tax cuts versus spending on critical infrastructure, prevention and preparedness. Personally, if I were dictating US policy, I'd start by hacking some of the outlandish pork out of the new Transportation Bill and send it to vulnerable areas. But just staying within the confines of the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense, Katrina is raising a series of big questions.
- Do we have the right assessments of where and the degree to which homeland security is vulnerable; does DHS have the right priorities among its duties to "prepare, prevent, respond, recover;" are we allocating resources wisely (well that's an easy one to answer); and do we have the right organization and management structure at the various levels of government to deliver when needed?
- Do we have enough (and the right mix of) people in our armed forces to handle the demands of our national security strategy, and if not, do we ramp up the forces or adjust the strategy? If the latter, where does responding to disasters that affect the US economy and the lives and property of US residents fit within that strategy?
Katrina should force a re-examination of some of the undeclared tradeoffs that underlie many of the policies of the Bush Administration and the GOP Congress.
UPDATE:Belle Waring goes straight to the heart of the matter in her inimitable style:
Say what you like about casting blame for the unfolding tragedy in NO, the bare facts of the matter are these: America suffered a serious attack on Sept. 11, 2001. That was four years ago. I think we had all assumed that in the meantime a lot of wargaming and disaster-mitigation planning and homeland security gearup had been going on. If this is what the Federal and State governments are going to come up with when the suitcase nuke goes off in D.C., then we are well and truly f**d. [edited for family filters]As a resident of DC, I sincerely appreciate her concern.
cross-posted at Liberals Against Terrorism
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