White House Strongly Defends Katrina Role

By LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration on Monday pushed back hard against Katrina-response criticism leveled by ex-disaster agency chief Michael Brown and congressional investigators.

"I reject outright the suggestion that President Bush was anything less than fully involved," said White House homeland security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff "unequivocally and strongly" rejected suggestions that his agency was preoccupied with terror threats at the expense of preparing for natural disasters.

Both spoke at a conference of state emergency management directors in suburban Alexandria, Va.

Their rebuttal came as a Republican-written House report blamed government-wide ineptitude for mishandling Hurricane Katrina relief. A report by Congress’ investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, reached similar conclusions and singled out Chertoff for delays.

Both Townsend and Chertoff took swipes at Brown, who resigned under pressure in September as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"There is no place for a lone ranger in emergency management," said Chertoff, whose Department of Homeland Security is FEMA’s parent agency.

Brown testified before a Senate committee last week that he issued repeated warnings to the White House and DHS the day the hurricane struck, Aug. 29, that levees had failed and New Orleans was seriously flooding.

He suggested that the White House and DHS had dragged their feet. Bush and other federal officials have said they did not know until the next day, Aug. 30, that levees had been breached.

On Monday, Brown defended his performance.

"For Secretary Chertoff to claim that I failed to keep him informed belies the numerous telephone calls and e-mails between me and him prior to, during and after landfall" of the storm, Brown said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Brown also applauded congressional investigations into the government’s response.

Townsend, without naming names, criticized those at FEMA she said had "become bitter" and lashed out "trying to find someone else, anyone else, to blame."

"We cannot attempt to rewrite history by pointing fingers or laying blame," Townsend said.

Townsend, who at Bush’s request is conducting her own "lessons learned" inquiry, said her report would be released later this month.

A Senate panel is conducting a separate review due in March.

While both Chertoff and Townsend acknowledged that the federal response left much to be desired, both suggested federal officials up to Bush had been unfairly criticized.

Bush, who was traveling in Arizona and California the day the storm roared ashore, was "highly engaged" in monitoring its advance, Townsend said.

And she said it was Bush himself who first conceded several days after the storm – one of the nation’s worst natural disasters – that "the response to the hurricane was insufficient."

The White House welcomes congressional inquiries into Katrina and the aftermath, and will cooperate with them, Townsend said.

"But let’s be clear about the facts," she said. "As you know, President Bush was highly engaged in the preparation and response effort, beginning when Katrina was a tropical storm off the coast of Florida."

Chertoff announced wide-ranging changes to FEMA.

The changes range from creating a full-time response force of 1,500 new employees to establishing a more reliable system to report on disasters as they unfold.

He said he hoped to put the changes into effect before the 2006 hurricane season begins June 1. The changes include:

-Tracking trucks carrying food, water, ice, blankets and other emergency supplies by satellite to ensure they arrive at disaster sites quickly and with enough equipment.

-Sending FEMA employees to emergency shelters and other temporary housing venues to register victims for aid, instead of relying on victims to register by phone or the Internet.

-Creating a database of already-approved private contracting firms from disaster regions to remove debris and provide services faster.

-Establishing "reconnaissance teams" to report disaster conditions to Homeland Security and FEMA operation centers within hours, and improving communication channels to ensure the information quickly gets to the president and Cabinet-level officials.

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On the Net:

Department of Homeland Security: http://www.dhs.gov

Federal Emergency Management Agency: http://www.fema.gov

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov