We Are Fully Prepared - Gwb

[Antoninov]

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/03/02/fema….s.ap/index.html

  Citation

In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President George W. Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans' Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn't ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on August 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: "We are fully prepared."

  Citation

# Homeland Security officials have said the "fog of war" blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. "I'm sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done," National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

"I don't buy the 'fog of war' defense," Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. "It was a fog of bureaucracy."

# Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm -- and Bush was worried too.

[Invité jabial]

Si je me déclarais étonné, je mentirais.

Ceci dit, l'attitude du maire local qui remet toute la responsabilité sur le dos de l'Etat fédéral ne manque pas d'air non plus.