Many Evacuated, but Thousands Still Waiting 

    Tens of thousands of people spent a fifth day awaiting 
    evacuation from this ruined city, as Bush administration 
    officials blamed state and local authorities for what 
    leaders at all levels have called a failure of the 
    country's emergency management......

    Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal 
    officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. 
    Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight 
    Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal 
    memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of 
    the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the 
    state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.

    The administration sought unified control over all local 
    police and state National Guard units reporting to the 
    governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after 
    talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move 
    would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial 
    law. Some officials in the state suspected a political 
    motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been 
    able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they 
    then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said 
    the source, who does not have the authority to speak 
    publicly.

    A senior administration official said that Bush has clear 
    legal authority to federalize National Guard units to 
    quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and 
    will continue to try to unify the chains of command that 
    are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and 
    the New Orleans mayor.

    Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid 
    compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and 
    federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had 
    not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush 
    official said.

    “The federal government stands ready to work with state 
    and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state 
    of Louisiana,” White House spokesman Dan Bartlett 
    said. “The president will not let any form of bureaucracy 
    get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana.”

    Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her 
    independence from the federal government: She created a 
    philanthropic fund for the state’s victims and hired 
    James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency 
    director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on 
    the relief effort.

    Bush, who has been criticized, even by supporters, for 
    the delayed response to the disaster, used his weekly 
    radio address to put responsibility for the failure on 
    lower levels of government. The magnitude of the 
    crisis "has created tremendous problems that have 
    strained state and local capabilities," he said. "The 
    result is that many of our citizens simply are not 
    getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans. 
    And that is unacceptable."

    In a Washington briefing, Homeland Security Secretary 
    Michael Chertoff said one reason federal assets were not 
    used more quickly was "because our constitutional system 
    really places the primary authority in each state with 
    the governor."

    Chertoff planned to fly overnight to the New Orleans area 
    to take charge of deploying the expanded federal and 
    military assets for several days, he said. He said he 
    has "full confidence" in FEMA Director Michael D. Brown, 
    the DHS undersecretary and federal officer in charge of 
    the Katrina response.

    Brown, a frequent target of New Orleans Mayor C. Ray 
    Nagin's wrath, said Saturday that "the mayor can order an 
    evacuation and try to evacuate the city, but if the mayor 
    does not have the resources to get the poor, elderly, the 
    disabled, those who cannot, out, or if he does not even 
    have police capacity to enforce the mandatory evacuation, 
    to make people leave, then you end up with the kind of 
    situation we have right now in New Orleans."....