[Vision2020] RE: Homeland Security Dept. Failure!

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Phil et. al.

Phil clearly demonstrates he is bending statements of facts, or not bothering 
to check his facts, to suit his agenda in his comments on Louisiana Governor 
Blanco's conduct regarding the Louisiana National Guard and response to 
Katrina, and the possible impact of the absence of Louisiana National Guard 
resources in Iraq:

Consider Phil's comments on 9/03/05 subject headed "Of Deltas and CO2:"

"The response of the Louisiana Governor was not to have pre0positioned her 
Guard assets, except for a few and she also failed to call on additional 
assets by pre-declaring state of Emergency and disaster." 
-------------------------

The above comment by Phil was/is flat out false!  The fact it is false was/is 
easily determined by a simple Google search, which is where I found the 
following documentation proving that Blanco did pre-declare a State of Emergency 
before Katrina hit:

http://gov.louisiana.gov/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=973

Friday, August 26 declaration of State of Emergency by Louisiana Governor 
Blanco.  This declaration did activate some Louisiana National Guard.
-------------------------

And again from Phil's post on 9/03/2005 subject headed "Of Deltas and CO2:"

"The law is pretty plain, the Governor has to ask the Feds to step in.  She 
did not do so until Tuesday, by which time it was darn difficult to get into 
the area.'' 

------------------------- 

Really?  Blanco did not ask the Feds to step in till Tuesday?  Then consider 
this letter to President Bush, dated Saturday, August 27, before Katrina hit:

Governor Blanco sends letter to President Bush requesting that he declare a 
state of emergency Sat. August 27, 2005.  This letter makes it very clear that 
Governor Blanco wants federal help, that the pending disaster may be more than 
state and local resources can cope with, and it even contains details on 
sharing funding, granting right of way, and release from damages to do requested 
work!

http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976

And evidence that Blanco had already accepted National Guard troops from 
another state in direct contact with the governor of that state before Katrina hit 
further contradicts Phil's claim that Blanco was the bottleneck:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_national_guard

>From the news story above:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help 
from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina 
hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route 
didn't come from Washington until late Thursday
-------------------------

Again, as the info presented above demonstrates, Phil either did not check 
certain critical facts, or quoted them from unknown sources who were wrong.  
Several other comments made by Phil in this post regarding local response to 
Katrina were false, but the errors I demonstrated above are enough.

Mistakes were made at all levels of the Katrina disaster, from individuals 
who lived in the flood prone areas all the way to the top, President Bush. 

But why did Phil seem so focused in his post (on 9/03/05, subject headed "Of 
Deltas and CO2") on blaming state and local officials with false statements of 
fact, and not the federal government, for the slow federal response time to 
this huge disaster?  A federal response that would have required massive 
assistance, even if the New Orleans's flood protection system had not failed, even 
if local and state officials had pre-positioned more critical assets for 
survival, even if they had evacuated more of the poor and disadvantaged with limited 
means to escape?  Even skipping New Orleans, the devastation of Biloxi, Gulf 
Port and other coastal areas in Mississippi required a rapid extensive federal 
response that many agree was too slow to materialize.

And why is Phil so intent in that post on proving that the National Guard 
from Louisiana sent to Iraq, along with all the important equipment they took 
with them, could not have saved one single more life in this disaster, one single 
person who would have lived if the thousands of Louisiana National Guard, and 
all the critical equipment they took with them to foreign soil, had been at 
home in Louisiana?

Phil has no proof that these Louisiana National Guard resources in Iraq could 
not have saved extra lives in this disaster.  In fact, it is more reasonable 
to assume the absence of these resources led to more lives being lost, than to 
assume this absence made no difference whatsoever.

Is it not possible that the best and most capable Louisiana National Guard 
troops, along with the best equipment they likely took with them, were the 
troops missing from Louisiana when Katrina hit?  Or should we contemplate that we 
sent the worst of the worst of Louisiana's National Guard and their support 
equipment to Iraq?  
--------------------------
PM Thursday, September 1, 2005 

New Orleans Disaster: Where’s the National Guard? 

NANCY LESSIN, 

mfso at mfso.org 

http://www.mfso.org

Lessin is a founder of Military Families Speak Out. She said today: 

"The numbers we have are that there are 11,000 National Guard personnel 
from Louisiana, of whom about 3,000 are in Iraq with most of the heavy 
equipment. This included generators and high-water and other vehicles 
which could assist with the rescue effort." 
--------------------------
V2020 post by Ted Moffett
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