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When the Federal Emergency Management Agency prevented the Red Cross from going into New Orleans after the Hurricane Katrina, the desperate conditions at the Superdome, the convention center and elsewhere became inevitable. When it repeatedly promised and failed to deliver aid to desperate people throughout the Gulf coast, FEMA embodied the worst in bureaucratic incompetence. Uncounted numbers of men, women, and children died while an unqualified administrator of FEMA prevented food, water, and medical assistance from getting to them. I've crossed swords with Brendan Loy in the past. I rarely agree with Michelle Malkin, Jeff Jarvis or Judith Klinghoffer. But, on this one, Jarvis, Klinghoffer, Loy, and Malkin are on the money. Andrew Sullivan, the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and the President of Louisiana's Jefferson Parish make a powerful case that in scrambling to recover credibility on disaster relief, President Bush should fire FEMA's director, Michael Brown, now.
Mr. Lederer, I appreciate all the research that you do. I regret that, given your determination that the Arabian horseman ought to continue to direct relief efforts on the Gulf coast, you ignored all the linked citations that I provided to back up the call for Michael Brown's ouster. Read more widely ...
John H. Lederer -
9/8/2005
According to Major Garrett (Fox News) the Red Cross was blocked by state officials from providing supplies to the Superdome or Convention Center soon after the hurricane, in part because state officials wanted to encourage people to leave rather than stay.
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"MG (garrett): Well, the Red Cross, Hugh, had pre-positioned a literal vanguard of trucks with water, food, blankets and hygiene items. They're not really big into medical response items, but those are the three biggies that we saw people at the New Orleans Superdom, and the convention center, needing most accutely. And all of us in America, I think, reasonably asked ourselves, geez. You know, I watch hurricanes all the time. And I see correspondents standing among rubble and refugees and evacuaees. But I always either see that Red Cross or Salvation Army truck nearby. Why don't I see that?
HH: And the answer is?
MG: The answer is the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security, that is the state agency responsible for that state's homeland security, told the Red Cross explicitly, you cannot come.
***
HH: Any doubt in the Red Cross' mind that they were ready to go, but they were blocked?
MG: No. Absolutely none. They are absolutely unequivocal on that point.
***
HH: Of course they are. Now Major Garrett, what about the Louisiana governor's office of Homeland Security. Have they responded to this charge by the Red Cross, which is a blockbuster charge?
MG: I have not been able to reach them yet. But, what they have said consistently is, and what they told the Red Cross, we don't want you to come in there, because we have evacuees that we want to get out. And if you come in, they're more likely to stay. So I want your listeners to follow me here. At the very moment that Ray Nagin, the Mayor of New Orleans was screaming where's the food, where's the water, it was over the overpass, and state officials were saying you can't come in." http://www.radioblogger.com/
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Garrett's story is supported by the Red Cross site which takes an atypical swipe at the state officials:
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"Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders.
The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city."
Look I am not saying Brown is a good FEMA administrator. He may be a horrible one or a great one. We just don't have enough facts to know.
In the absence of facts, demanding his firing is really a demand for a symbolic or political action. A minor side effect will be to crucify Brown, and a major side effect will be to make it difficult to hire good people in the future who are good at anything other than CYA'ing.
If it turns out that Brown is bad, I'll lead the charge to fire him. But at this point it is premature.
Ralph E. Luker -
9/7/2005
Chris, Since when did international law own a word? It has a particular meaning in international law and for good reason. International law doesn't apply in this case, but you just keep asserting its claims.
chris l pettit -
9/7/2005
the proper legal term, Greg, is Internally Displaced Persons...the legal ramifications are significantly different than refugees. Refugees are afforded more protections by governments, and terming a group of people refugees invokes legal obligations on those states and state agents utilizing the term. IDPs receive significantly less protection, and states are not required to provide shelter, services, etc to IDPs. Indeed, most states will not admit economic refugees, instead preferring to term them IDPs and return them to their home states. The US does this often with individuals from Haiti, El Salvador, Colombia, and other states where our foreign policy has contributed to massive inequality and violations of rights. As I stated above, I prefer the term refugees because of the legal ramifications of the term. I just want people to be consistent with their usage of the term and understand the ramifications since I refuse to let them get away with emotive ideological usage (even if they mistakenly think it is "common parlance").
The sad thing about all this is that Dr. Dresner, Dr. Luker and I all probably agree upon the fact that the victims of the flood deserve protection, aid, and help rebuilding their lives from the government. We even agree on the rights that they deserve. The problem comes when one moves away from the narrow spectrum in which the term refugee is being utilized and critically analyzes the ramifications of the term in the big picture. It is there that the contradictions and obvious misunderstanding of the term begins. Dr Luker and Dr Dresner, while fantastic historians, are rather weak on legal theory, rights, and knowledge of the ramifications of their problematic usage of terminology. They refuse to admit they use it for ideological reasons, and maintain that their usage of the term is somehow objective. I do not understand why Dr Dresner seems to think that I am looking for an argument...I am simply trying to offer input on a topic and way of looking at things where I have considerably more knowledge and authority than they do. I do not come out and question their authority on the HISTORY of the civil rights movement and Asian history, respectively...I would expect that they would respect the authority of those actually trained in law and knowledgeable in the terminology of the topic, and would admit their lack of scholarship in that area.
CP
John H. Lederer -
9/7/2005
Brown has been the head of FEMA through over 100 "incidents" including hurricane Charley and the California wild fires. By report those were well handled.
Assuming no former head of FEMA is willing to resume the post, do you have someone in mind with greater or more pertinent experience?
I do agree that Brown's pre-FEMA resume sucks.
Of course, so did George Washington's resume suck ("...precipitated French Indian Wars by losing control of his command which comitted notorious war atrocity, second in command of horribly bungled Braddock expedition, misdesigned fort due to faulty survey which forced its surrender...)
Jonathan Dresner -
9/7/2005
Your charge of hypocrisy requires evidence of inconsistency, otherwise it is simply a phantasm of your assumptions.
When the federal government, or a relief agency, asks for international aid or accomodation for displaced Gulf Coasters that would not be afforded Haitians or Sudanese, then we can talk about hypocrisy. Until then, you've made your point about legal definitions and are the one using emotive and ideological language to create a dispute where none exists: that's trolling.
Greg James Robinson -
9/7/2005
If these people are not refugees, then what are they, evacuees? Like the Japanese Americans? Perhaps we should not associate the current group with the West Coast Japanese Americans, since the case of the latter is so different--their mass removal was carried out by the federal government with efficiency and sufficient resources, wartime shortages notwithstanding, and without loss of life!
Ralph E. Luker -
9/7/2005
Mr. Lederer, We _do_ know that Mr. Brown's prior experience suggests his incompetence to direct even an Arabian Horse Show. You and George Bush want to give him a chance to demonstrate his preparedness to direct national emergency operations. That is gracious of you both. My judgment is that your graciousness is ill-placed and puts American citizens at risk.
John H. Lederer -
9/7/2005
Mr. Luker one of your reasons for firing Brown is the incident of the the turned back Walmart trucks bearing water described by the President Broussard of Jefferson Parish.
It seems outrageous and a picture of true bungling incompetence as described by the President Of Jefferson Parish.
It may be accurate from his viewpoint, but the story is possibly wrong.
A blogger called Walmart. Here is his report:
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"So I called Wal-Mart's public relations office (479-273-4314) to ask them for comment. Wal-Mart's Sharon Weber returned my call. She told me that they had not heard of the incident - which supposedly took place last week - until they "read about it in the newspaper." When I asked if she could confirm or deny that the story was true, she told me she would have to check and call me back later today.
Weber was able to tell me that any relief efforts in the field would have been subject to any orders given by FEMA. Other media sources have been quite clear that many shipments of aid from Wal-Mart have made it to relief distribution centers, and this reporter thinks that Wal-Mart's efforts are commendable.
More as this story develops.
UPDATE: Sharon Weber of Wal-Mart called back. She said that last week, FEMA diverted those water trucks to "another location, which [FEMA] felt was in greater need than where they were headed." Weber emphasized that Wal-Mart would not override any FEMA decisions made in emergency situations. So Broussard, who claimed that Wal-Mart's aid was ourtight(sic) rejected, was wrong. Based on Wal-Mart's information, their trucks were taken where FEMA thought they were needed most. It would appear that the same story occurred with the Coast Guard fuel issue. Broussard said that FEMA wouldn't release the fuel to Jefferson Parish - but surely that fuel went somewhere else it was needed. Thanks to Wal-Mart's Sharon Weber for tracking down this information."
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What is the truth of the matter? I don't know. But that is pecisely my point. Right now we don't know enough, and cries of "Off with his head" are premature.
(Note: I normally would not post this quote because I bungled keeping the url of the blog and have not yet been able to refind it through Google. However, because the quote gives within it the phone number of the source with whom it can be verified, I went ahead)
Ralph E. Luker -
9/7/2005
For what it's worth, Chris, I agree with Jonathan. The word "refugee" is not owned by international law. Because that is your field, I understand your preoccupation with its use or, as you insist, its occasional abuse. I don't think the abuse, if that's what it is, has misled anyone. Everyone but Chris seems to understand its reference.
chris l pettit -
9/7/2005
just tired of the ignorance (Buddhist definition) and insistance on inconsistency.
If you (collective) want to continue using the word refugee, then I should not see any commentary on illegal immigrants, and should see total support for all economic refugees from other nations. CONSISTENCY!! Personally, I am in favor of this interpretation, but doubt that many of the "scholars" on HNN would be in favor of granting refugee status (and therefore protection and aid) to Haitians escaping their hell, Palestinians devastated economically by Israel, Iraqis decimated by US policies, Chechnyans made to starve by Russian policies, half of the African population, etc. To use the word refugee without applying it universally simply equals hypocrisy. All I want is some consistency...the hardest thing to get when dealing with people who are unable to critically examine the ramifications of the terminology they are employing...which unfortunately seems to include you in this case, Dr. Dresner.
Legally, they are internally displaced persons. In the land of ideology, inconsistency and "common parlance," refugee might have a different meaning, but it is not an impartial one. When speaking about required aid, what do do with these victims, government obligations, etc, one must utilize a technical term with actual meaning. To call someone a refugee in a legal sense (which, by last check, is what we govern our society using) carries ramifications and obligations. The US government are not meeting these obligations in any way shape or form, which is partially the fault of FEMA but also denotes a larger institutional failure of the entirety of the governmental framework and ideology. If the US government (or you scholars) want to invoke the term refugee, you must then apply it universally in coherence with international definitions and obligations...meaning favoring a change in the atrocious US refugee policy.
Terminology utilization has big picture ramifications outside of the blinkered and short sighted microcosms of existence that many want to reduce the world to. If you want to claim that you are using an objective term, you must be ready to deal with the ramifications of that usage and then not be inconsistent in the application of the term. if you are inconsistent, you then lose credibility and any clout outside of a narrow set of like ideological followers/colleagues.
I am totally in favor of legally calling them refugees...it is a rather radical interpretation of the legal term, but I favor the ramifications of its usage. However, in the current legal climate, they are internally displaced persons. If you want to continue using an emotive and ideological term, so be it. Just know that any inconsistency will be pointed out, not in trying to "troll for a fight," but to try and point out mistakes that you are making in the hope of maybe help educate you guys a bit at some point.
CP
Jonathan Dresner -
9/7/2005
Thanks for the clarification, but I'm going to continue using "refugees" in the "garbage...common usage" fashion because the word fits.
Not ideologically (though I'd be happy to see the definitions consistently applied, as you suggest), but logically.
Also linguistically: my dictionary -- English, not legal -- defines refugee as "a person who flees for refuge or safety, esp. to a foreign country , as in a time of political upheaval, war, etc." [emphasis added]
You are trolling for a fight, again.
chris l pettit -
9/7/2005
Still waiting for someone to get it right...
refugees cross legally defined national borders...to get really technical, they cannot be fleeing economic or "political" persecution (although political can be ideologically qualified...see US hypocrisy on Cuba)...read the UN Convention on Refugees or go to the high commission on refugees for clarification
internally displaced persons are displaced within ones own nation...due to a variety of factors, including natural disasters
to use refugees is to engage in the same hypocrisy that our government and many others engage in when utilizing terms outside of their legal (read: impartial and non-ideological) definition to make a political and emotional point. If you are going to use the term, than you should be willing to admit that those being displaced in haiti due to the nasty policies of US intervention (which most won't) and millions of other IDPs from places such as the Sudan, DRC, etc should be admitted to the US and given protection. Now granted, they should all be considered refugess and the nonsensical immigration laws should be abolished, but what I am really looking for is consistency. Define your terms...if you are going to use an emotive and ideologically loaded term such as refugee, say that you are using it for ideology's sake...if you are going to use the legal definition, use it correctly...if you dont know, look it up. And no garbage about "common usage"...that means what you ideologically perceive to be common usage that usually has nothing to do with anything.
It is a common mistake, and I have seen many scholars making the same mistake...ironically, I have not seen IDP used at all...and that is what these people are...legally and objectively speaking.
As for FEMA, what a surprise that Mr. Lederer as usual chooses to make paritsan ideological arguments without understanding anything about law, the workings of FEMA and the government, etc...do we really need to justify anything he says anymore?
CP
Ralph E. Luker -
9/6/2005
No, Mr. Lederer, I didn't say that. I said that Mr. Brown should have gotten on the telephone with the governor and the mayor -- cut through the red tape and delivered food, water, medical supplies, and security to the people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast. I don't know how you came up with what you did. It must come from not reading what I say -- merely wanting to put up some argument that will defend unqualified and bumbling national bureaucrats. Why you have this compulsion, I do not know.
John H. Lederer -
9/6/2005
So the problem is that the National Guard did it, presumably under the direction of General Landreneau or Governor Blanco.
Your belief, for which you wish to fire Brown is that he should have requested the DOD to do it rather than the state?
Ralph E. Luker -
9/6/2005
Your defense of Brown appeals to the same red tape that he should have been cutting through in order to save lives. In a crisis, competent administrators will, you know, get on a telephone with local authorities and reach agreement on a plan of action. They'll also document their initiatives, in order to be able to give evidence of them. We've had evidence of Mr. Brown's ignorance of major centers of the crisis.
John H. Lederer -
9/6/2005
In regard to the convention center, n your opinion what should Brown have done, when should he have done it, and with what?
My impression is that the national Guard was tasked by the state with rescuing the convention center. the National guard, unless federalized, is a state force.
Ralph E. Luker -
9/6/2005
As a matter of fact, Mr. Lederer, I don't watch CNN, but I knew about the crisis at the convention center well before Michael Brown says that he did. Mr. Brown is unqualified for the position he inherited as a political plum. If he's not well informed by his staff, that's a problem and one that can be solved by putting someone in leadership who will make sure that he has a staff that keeps him well informed. Tens of thousands of lives, billions of dollars in property value, are at stake.
John H. Lederer -
9/6/2005
It finally occurred to me what the calls for Michael Brown's firing reminded me of.
Curtis LeMay, the general caricatured in Dr. Strangelove, was appointed head of the B29 effort against Japan. The effort was stalling, largely because the superchargers on the B29 were defective. They both caught fire and increased the strain on the engines to such a degree that the time between major depot engine overhauls was under 25 hours.
On the way to take command, LeMay decided that he could not do anything about the superchargers, but he could fly the B29's at low altitude where no superchargers were needed. While the Japanese still had some air defense this was needless to say, risky for the crews. Moreover, because precision would not be possible he decided to switch to incendiaries.
LeMay called the pilots together, told them that they would be doing low altitude incendiary bombing attacks. He asked for questions. The first officer who asked a question about some of the problems with this, was interrupted by LeMay stating "You're relieved". A squad of MP's, set up before hand, escorted the officer away. LeMay then asked if there were any other questions. There weren't.
LeMay later described his managment technique "Fire some poor son of a bitch right off. Fire anyone. Then they know who is in charge."
I think Brown may be in the same position. Things didn't go well. Ergo, fire someone. Fire anyone.
Don't wait to find out what happened. That might embarrass the wrong people. Fire the poor son of a bitch to cement the political lesson.
John H. Lederer -
9/6/2005
The fact that he is badly informed seems to suggest problems in the command and control structure, not necessarily problems with Michael Brown.
I do not expect Michael Brown to watch CNN in a crisis. I do expect someone to do so, or to have even better sources of information, and to have it flow to Brown (or to someone at a lower level that can act on it).
I'll also just one other thing. CNN was setting our priorities. We saw their reports and immediately thought -- they should do X or they should do Y. But their reports were only a very small fraction of the whole picture. There were many competing priorities.
One instance of this ws the widely reported instance of Mayor Nagin blowing his top because helicopters were not available as promised to start closing the canal breech. "Too many chiefs" he claimed. Later news reports said the copters were called off to do rescues. In retrospect, that was the right decision, and Nagin's priorities were wrong--fixing the breach would take many days, rescueing needed to be done then. Moreover the copters would have to permanently drop the load slings beyond recovery while putting in sand and load slings were needed for fuel, food, and water until more could be sent in.
But from the TV reports it was an example of a screwup.
Because TV puts a strong emotional light on a very small part of the picture we tend to see that as "what is happening".
A hypothetical example. A trucker described moving a load of generators to south of Baton Rouge. Because of obstacles his short (26') truck with high clearance made it -- in 42 hours, whereas the other trucks with him had to turn back. Do you best use your transportation resources:
a. To clear obstacles so more trucks can move in supplies quicker?
b. To move vitally needed supplies knowing that you will need a lot of vehicles because of the obstacles?
c. To "rescue" people at the convention center?
i suspect that Brown's knowledge of the convention center was immaterial. At least according to the interview with a general, the principal delay was because he decided that they first had to get troops into the center to provide security before any supply/evacuation trucks, because he otehrwise feared for a loss of life:
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(Gen Blum speaking)
The most contentious issues were lawlessness in the streets, and particularly a potentially very dangerous volatile situation in the convention center where tens of thousands of people literally occupied that on their own. We had people that were evacuated from hotels, and tourists that were lumped together with some street thugs and some gang members that -- it was a potentially very dangerous situation.
We waited until we had enough force in place to do an overwhelming force. Went in with police powers, 1,000 National Guard military policemen under the command and control of the adjutant general of the State of Louisiana, Major General Landreneau, yesterday shortly after noon stormed the convention center, for lack of a better term, and there was absolutely no opposition, complete cooperation, and we attribute that to an excellent plan, superbly executed with great military precision. It was rather complex. It was executed absolutely flawlessly in that there was no violent resistance, no one injured, no one shot, even though there were stabbed, even though there were weapons in the area. There were no soldiers injured and we did not have to fire a shot.
Some people asked why didn't we go in sooner. Had we gone in with less force it may have been challenged, innocents may have been caught in a fight between the Guard military police and those who did not want to be processed or apprehended, and we would put innocents' lives at risk. As soon as we could mass the appropriate force, which we flew in from all over the states at the rate of 1,400 a day, they were immediately moved off the tail gates of C-130 aircraft flown by the Air National Guard, moved right to the scene, briefed, rehearsed, and then they went in and took this convention center down.
Those that were undesirable to re-enter the convention center were segregated from the people that we wanted to provide water, shelter and food. Those people were processed to make sure they had no weapons, no illicit dugs, no alcohol, no contraband, and then they were escorted back into the building. Now there's a controlled safe and secure environment and a shelter and a haven as they await movement out of that center for onward integration to their normal lives.
On of the things that obviously took the military by surprise was the dissolution of the New Orleans Police (Gen. Blum, when forced by a reporter, said the NOPD had fewer than 500 officers still available for duty --far fewer than the Mayor was publicly asserting). The result was a sudden ripple up the personnel chain. Whereas they had expected first need to be for Search and Rescue, engineers, medical and supply, suddenly the very first need was for MP and other security units.
I think one of the saddest things I saw was that one the helicopters evacuating a hospital was escorted by two gunships.
If I had been in the military the last thing I would have thought needed for domestic hurricane relief was machine gun ammunition.
Did Brown screw up? Maybe. Maybe not. However a political lynching is not the way to answer the question.
Ralph E. Luker -
9/6/2005
Quite the contrary, John and Michael: we know that three days after refugees were gathered at the convention center -- three days when they had no food, no water, no sanitary facilities -- that Michael Brown said on national television that he'd only learned of that site that day. It had been featured on national television already for days. If he's that badly informed, he shouldn't be directing relief operations. He had no qualifications for the job in the first place. Yes, I do know and Michael Davidson and John Lederer are in denial.
Michael R. Davidson -
9/6/2005
I am with you on the general point John, if not all the detail. The main point against offering up Brown's head on a platter is that it would be an easy way for everyone whose actions must be examined closely - Blancho, Bush, Chertoff and Nagin for starters - to abscond from responsibility.
Obviously, heads DO need to roll. Lets make sure they are the right ones.
Cheers,
Mike Davidson
John H. Lederer -
9/6/2005
Was Michael Brown a horrible screwup?
Was Michael Brown a capable administrator who overcame terrible obstacles to do a better job than could be expected of anyone in the circumstances?
I don't know. Neither do you. I don't know the circumstances of why FEMA stopped the Red cross trucks, if it did. Neither do you. I don't know if Brown was responsible for that. Neither do you.
I suspect that FEMA bungled, but I don't have reasonable assurance of that. I don't have enough info at this point to make a judgment as to their overall performance.
So calling for heads is premature.
To the argument of "regardless of whether he was good or bad he should be fired to restore credibility", my response is contempt.
What does it do to credibility for employees to know that whether one does a good job or a bad job, one might be fired to help the boss' political image? What does it do for your opinion of the boss?
The oether justification would be as an offering to propitiate the gods -- though I think the gods might be more pleased with the traditional bullock, or comely virgins, rather than bureaucrats.
Adam Kotsko -
9/6/2005
I forget where I read it now, but someone mentioned that Michael Brown was the college roommate of the previous (unqualified) head of FEMA. Cronyism than which no greater can be thought.
