To: tonto who wrote (42611 ) 9/2/2005 9:40:02 AM From: bentway Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 93284 You're just attempting blameshifting in service of your chimp, tonto. We know how the chimp HATES it when a buck gets near his desk. The FACT is that the chimp gutted the funding to raise the levees in 2003 to his misguided war in Iraq. The FACT is that the chimp has neutered FEMA and appointed a Bush pioneer ex-lawyer as head of that agency, so now there isn't any effective relief effort in place for the disaster his dumb ass policies helped to cause. Why does the relief effort seem like a giant clusterf*ck?:nola.com "A case in point, they say, is the decision to take away from FEMA its historic responsibility for disaster preparedness. Now the agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, will focus on post-disaster search and rescue. The Homeland Security agency plans to create a new directorate of preparedness, covering planning for both terrorism and natural disasters. But it is still on the drawing board. Russ Knocke, a Homeland Security spokesman, said the reorganization will lead to better disaster preparation. "It will let the experts on planning and preparation focus on that and the experts on search and rescue focus on that," Knocke said. But experts in disaster planning say that it has already sown confusion among those on the front lines of preparing for disasters like Hurricane Katrina. "It's very confusing to the state and local governments," said James Lee Witt, the FEMA director in the Clinton administration. "Who do they go to and how is it going to be coordinated now? It's really going to be fragmented. I've talked to a lot of the states, and I don't think they're very happy about this."