WASHINGTON, Sept 6: President George Bush, facing demands for an investigation into what went wrong in the initial response to Hurricane Katrina, resisted any immediate probe on Tuesday into what has become the worst US humanitarian crisis ever.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democrats have demanded formation of a commission similar to the one that investigated the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, to determine how federal, state and local authorities bungled the relief effort in the first days after the hurricane struck.
Much of the anger, some of it also from leading Republicans, has been directed at Mr Bush for a slow federal response to a catastrophe that may have killed thousands in New Orleans and along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast.
Mr Bush, after a cabinet meeting devoted to the myriad challenges posed in the wake of the crisis, said he wanted to save lives and solve problems before assessing blame.
“I think one of the things that people want us to do is to play a blame game,” Mr Bush told reporters. “We’ve got to solve problems. We’re problem solvers. There will be ample time for people to figure out what went right, and what went wrong. What I’m interested (in) is helping save lives.”
He said he would lead an investigation to find out what ‘went right and what went wrong’ in order to improve coordination between federal, state and local authorities because of the possibility of future crises.
“It’s very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastrophe,” Mr Bush said.
“And the reason it’s important is, is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there’s a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attack or another major storm. And so I’m going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong,” he added.
While calling some of the relief efforts unacceptable, the president has not publicly singled out anyone for criticism.
Michael Brown, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been the subject of particularly scathing attacks and there have been calls for him to resign.
‘JOB IN JEOPARDY’: Senator Trent Lott, a Republican from Mississippi who lost his coastal home in the storm, said Mr Brown’s job is in jeopardy.
“If he doesn’t solve a couple of problems that we’ve got right now he ain’t going to be able to hold the job, because what I’m going to do to him ain’t going to be pretty,” Senator Lott said on CBS.
Visiting the devastated Gulf Coast last week, Mr Bush expressed confidence in the FEMA head, saying: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.”
White House spokesman Scott McClellan did not go quite that far on Tuesday.
“The president is appreciative of the efforts of (Homeland Security) Secretary (Michael) Chertoff and our undersecretary and all of those at FEMA who have been working around the clock to save and sustain lives and we appreciate their efforts,” he said.—Reuters
WASHINGTON, Sept 6: President George Bush, facing demands for an investigation into what went wrong in the initial response to Hurricane Katrina, resisted any immediate probe on Tuesday into what has become the worst US humanitarian crisis ever.
