Report: Katrina response a 'failure of leadership'
Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff described as 'detached'
Monday, February 13, 2006; Posted: 11:39 a.m. EST (16:39 GMT)
An upcoming congressional report on Katrina takes Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to task.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A congressional report to be released this week slams the government's response to Hurricane Katrina, calling it a "failure of leadership" that left people stranded when they were most in need.
"Our investigation revealed that Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare," the report says. "At every level -- individual, corporate, philanthropic and governmental -- we failed to meet the challenge that was Katrina. In this cautionary tale, all the little pigs built houses of straw."
CNN obtained advanced excerpts from a draft of the lengthy report titled "Failure of Initiative," which gives 90 recommendations for changes in the wake of the Katrina disaster.
The report is the result of a Republican 11-member House select panel that investigated the response to Katrina at all levels -- local, state and federal.
A staff member of the committee provided the excerpts, insisting on anonymity because the report will not be released until Wednesday.
U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Connecticut, a committee member, said Monday that the report is "very tough on the president, it's very tough on the Department of Homeland Security. It's a blistering report. But I think it's fair."
The panel found that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was "detached" and that then-Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown was "clueless," Shays said.
Chertoff planned to announce structural changes to the department Monday. Brown testified Friday before a Senate panel, saying he felt he had been made a scapegoat and blaming the government's slow response to Katrina largely on bureaucratic hassles. (Full story)
The House select panel conducted a separate investigation from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The Democratic leadership refused to participate in the House panel, arguing it would be a whitewash for the White House -- an allegation Shays and other Republicans denied.
But Democratic Reps. Charlie Melancon and William Jefferson of Louisiana took part in the committee's hearings, writing in a separate report released over the weekend that the need for an independent investigation remains.
The House committee "worked diligently" to meet its mandate of conducting "a full and complete investigation," the two congressmen wrote. "But due to the committee's short deadline and the refusal of the White House to provide access to essential documents, key questions remain unanswered. We therefore renew our call for an independent commission to examine the disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina."
The two lawmakers said the report "largely eschews direct responsibility."
The Democrats' report calls for Chertoff to be fired. Melancon and Jefferson wrote that the majority report fails to "draw the logical conclusion to its own findings and recommend Secretary Chertoff's removal from office. Our judgment, based on a careful review of the record, is that the Department of Homeland Security needs new and more experienced leadership."
A spokesman for Chertoff said that while there were problems with the Katrina response, it is "outrageous" to suggest he should lose his job. |
