W. House accused of foot-dragging in Katrina probe

By Donna Smith

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the top
Democrat on the Senate panel investigating the government’s
botched response to Hurricane Katrina, on Tuesday accused
administration officials of failing to cooperate and trying to
run out the clock on the congressional probe.

“The problems begin at the White House, where there has
been a near total lack of cooperation that has made it
impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough
investigation we have a responsibility to do,” Lieberman said
in a hearing held by the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

The Connecticut Democrat said the administration has
delivered few of the documents requested by the committee and
hindered it’s ability to obtain information from agencies
involved in preparing and responding to the hurricane.

“There’s been no assertion of executive privilege; just a
refusal to answer,” Lieberman said.

“My staff believes that (the Department of Homeland
Security) has engaged in a conscious strategy of slow walking
our investigation in the hope that we would run out of time to
follow the investigation’s natural progression to where it
leads.”

The committee has held several hearings on Katrina and
chairman Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said it is entering
the final phase of the probe. The next few hearings will focus
on the “most troubling aspects” of the response to the
hurricane, which devastated Gulf coast states and flooded New
Orleans.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan insisted the
administration was cooperating with the probe. “There are
thousands of documents that have been provided to the
committee, there are numerous administration officials who have
gone before the committee and testified,” he said.

But Lieberman said key documents were missing that could
explain why a Department of Homeland Security warning about the
potential dangers of the storm went unheeded.

A Federal Emergency Management Agency document dated August
27 — two days before the storm hit — warned of the potential
for heavy damage, widespread power outages and possible
flooding in New Orleans.

Lieberman said the White House received the report several
hours before the storm made landfall.

“What happened to that report?” he asked. “Why was the
President left so uninformed that he said four days later: ‘I
don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”‘