Save yourself the time. The main points are:
1. The Bush administration wanted to take control from the governor because,
2. There was a "critical flaw" in the national disaster response plans: (unnamed "adminisration's homeland security officials" say) the hurricane showed "the failure of their plan to recognize that local police, fire and medical personel might be incapaciated and unable to act quickly until reinforcements arrive on the scene." (Bush's fault.)
FACT: the police and fire transmitters ran on natural gas. They had no backup. Technicians sent to assist were turned away by state police. Owners of the site would not allow propane tank gas to be used as backup. Most cities have plans for a backup in some other or portable location.
3. It was wrangling over questions of federal/state authority.
4. They were talking past each other in the crisis. (whatever the hell that means)
5. Another anonymous senior administration official supposedly on the talks that were confidential: they (Bush) didn't want to wrest control and they worried about how it would look. (Bush's fault.)
6. Make sense, if you can of this.
Officials in Louisiana agree that the governor would not have given up control over National Guard troops in her state as would have been required to send large numbers of active-duty soldiers into the area. But they also say they were desperate and would have welcomed assistance by active-duty soldiers.On the face of it, it translates to the Governor would not cede to Federalizing the situation because she didn't want to give up control of the Louisiana National Guard. The Guard she didn't use inside the city until, it appears, Wednesday. But she would have welcome assistance of active duty soldiers. Just don't let them be commanded by a General.
7. And this meaningless quote: [ed -emphasis mine] "I need everything you have got," Governor Blanco said she told Mr. Bush last Tuesday, when New Orleans flooded. In an interview, she acknowledged that she did not specify what sorts of soldiers. "Nobody told me that I had to request that. I thought that I had requested everything they had," she said. "We were living in a war zone by then." (No wonder she hired the former head of FEMA. Even now, they are probably crafting excuses. She didn't know. Isn't that special?)
8. A compromise offered by the Bush administration was rejected: The governor "rejected a more modest proposal for a hybrid command structure in which both the Guard and active-duty troops would be under the command of an active-duty, three-star general - but only after he had been sworn into the Louisiana Guard." (It is important at this point to remember that A category 5 storm is approaching and the levees are not supposed to have survived such an eventuality. It was expected that the storm would be catastrophic. This is Friday night. And we have the EXACT formula for the worst case scenario.)
9. Besides, the NYT argues, the Louisiana National Guard could get there faster than the 82nd Airborne. (TRUE, but they were stuck outside the city and were rebuffing Red Cross efforts to take food and water to those stuck in the Convention Center and the Superdome.)
10. The 82nd wasn't called, the New York Times alleges, "in part because military officials believed National Guard troops would get there faster and because administration civilians were worried that there could be political fallout if federal troops were forced to shoot looters, administration officials said." (More UNNAMED officials.)
The New York Times then skips the lack of effort on the part of the Louisiana National Guard before or after Katrina. Now the levee breaks. AND THIS IS WHERE THEIR EXCUSES FALL APART.
11. OOPS - it's Tuesday and levee breaks. (See Timeline at rightwingnuthous)
After the hurricane passed New Orleans and the levees broke, flooding the city, it became increasingly evident that disaster response efforts were badly bogged down.(Ed - If the storm was expected to be category 5 and it was expected to hit New Orleans directly, why should this surprise anyone?? See 10 Also this timeline:)
WEDNESDAY:
A. The timeline shows the governor increasingly panicked. She orders a total evacuation of the city.
B. Governor Blanco asks the President to send federal troops.
C. Mark Smith (Louisiana Homeland Security) says 3,000 Louisiana National Guard members are helping. BUT
D. Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu "confirmed that the state is "seriously considering'' busing people from the Superdome to the Houston Astrodome. (Ed: this is Wednesday. They are still considering what to do with the people in the Superdome.)
E. The governor asks Bush to send more people to help with the evacuations so the LA National Guard can halt looting.
F. The governor announces they will start evacuating the Superdome.
12. Bush is to blame because of the war in Iraq. Louisiana National Guardsmen are there.
13. Friday (five days after the hurricane that hit on Monday, after dithering Tuesday, Wednesay, Thursday) National Guard reinforcements had arrived, and a truck convoy of 1,000 Guard soldiers brought relief supplies - and order - to the convention center area. (DELIBERATELY OBFUSCATING the question of which National Guard??? NOT the Louisiana National Guard.)
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