In a qualified mea culpa, President Bush accepted blame Tuesday for any shortcomings in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.
“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. And to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility,” Bush said.
But he left room for pointing fingers at state and local officials. “I want to know what went right and what went wrong,” he said.
Bush’s statement on Tuesday was prompted by a question about whether a government that had trouble responding to a natural disaster can be prepared to handle another disaster or a terrorist attack.
Bush said he did not know.
“I want to know how better to coordinate with state and local government to be able to answer that very question that you asked,” he said, calling it “a very important question.”
“And it’s in our national interest that we find out exactly what went on so that we can better respond,” Bush said.
Bush plans to make a national address concerning the hurricane Thursday night from Louisiana. The speech will include an appeal for Americans to “come together to support people who have been affected by this massive catastrophe,” according to spokesman Scott McClellan.
Bush’s comments, made during a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, marked a new approach for an administration that has stopped defending its hurricane-response efforts. For more than a week, Bush has acknowledged that the response was inadequate.
Tuesday marked the first time Bush accepted personal responsibility.
During a trip to the battered Gulf Coast region on Monday, he told reporters he had responded in an “extraordinary” manner when he declared disaster areas in advance of the storm.
Several days after the storm, and while the Federal Emergency Management Agency was under fire for its slow response, Bush defended Michael Brown, the political appointee who led the agency and became a lightning rod for criticism.
“Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job,” Bush said at the time.
A week later, Brown was called back to Washington and stripped of his role of coordinating FEMA’s response. Brown quit the agency on Monday.
The president said his trips to the region showed him people hard at work, but “I’m not going to defend the process going in.”
Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Tuesday that Bush “has put the profits of his corporate cronies ahead of the needs of the American people.”
“With so many people unemployed and so many businesses destroyed by the storm, we should do everything we can to ensure that local people and businesses from the Gulf Coast have the opportunity to be a part of the rebuilding of their neighborhoods and towns, not Bush’s corporate cronies,” Dean said.
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What he said
“Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government. And to the extent that the federal government didn’t fully do its job right, I take responsibility.”
More bodies found across Louisiana
The death toll in Louisiana jumped by more than half Tuesday to 423 as recovery workers turned more of their attention to gathering and counting the corpses in a city all but emptied out of the living.
The number of dead is almost certain to rise because some flooded-out areas of the city have not been fully searched.
Mayor Ray Nagin said earlier this month that New Orleans could have 10,000 dead. But a street-by-street sweep of the city last week yielded far fewer bodies than feared, and authorities said the toll could be well below the dire projections.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco lashed out at the federal government, accusing it of moving too slowly in recovering the bodies. The dead “deserve more respect than they have received,” she said. “I am angry and outraged.”
FEMA spokesman David Passey said he did not understand what the governor was talking about because, he said, the state asked the agency to take over body recovery last week.
“The collection of bodies is not normally a FEMA responsibility,” Passey said.
NEW PHASE OF RELIEF: The new acting director of FEMA, R. David Paulison, promised to get thousands of evacuees out of shelters and into temporary housing.
“We’ve had a hurricane of unimaginable proportions, and we’re going to deal with it,” he said, avoiding, for now, discussion of the apparent missteps of the last two weeks. “We’re going to get those people out of shelters, and we’re going to move and get them the help that they need.”
Paulison said the immediate focus is finding “semi-permanent or permanent housing” for people in shelters.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the relief operation had entered a new phase.
Initially, he said, the most important priority was evacuating people, getting them to safety and providing food, water and medical care. “And then, ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to reconstitute the communities that have been devastated,” Chertoff said.
He said the federal government would look increasingly to state and local officials for guidance on rebuilding the devastated communities along the Gulf Coast.
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LOOKING BACK
Bush rarely utters the words “I take responsibility” in response to criticism about his actions as president, according to a database search of Nexis and the White House Web site. The search found three examples of Bush using that phrase over the last two years:
– accepting responsibility for sending troops into Iraq at a July 17, 2003, news conference;
– accepting responsibility at a news conference on
July 30, 2003, for mistakenly claiming Iraqi was trying to buy uranium in Niger in a State of the Union address;
– accepting responsibility for “tactical” decisions in war during a presidential debate with Democrat John Kerry in October 2004.–hearst newspapers
POLL POSITION
A majority of Americans do not approve of the way
President Bush handled the response to Hurricane Katrina, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.
Do you approve of Bush’s handling of the crisis?
54% disapprove
43% approve
Is Bush a strong, decisive leader?
52% agree
47% disagree
Do you have confidence in the government’s ability to deal with a future natural disaster?
22% had a great deal of confidence
38% had a moderate amount of confidence
40% had no confidence
Katrina death toll (through Tuesday)
Alabama 2
Georgia 2
Florida 14
Mississippi 218
Louisiana 423
TOTAL: 659
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REDEYE ON THE SPOT
Since Hurricane Katrina hit, the government has been accused of handling the situation slowly and ineffectively. On Tuesday, President Bush said he takes responsibility for the federal government’s response. RedEye asked: Who do you think is to blame for the extent of the disaster in the aftermath of the hurricane?
“Bush. He’s the president. He was on vacation and took a long time getting there.”
–Jazmine Bright, 26, South Side
“I think it’s Bush. He’s cut the budget to fund the Iraq war. If he hadn’t done that, the relief efforts would be more effective.”
–Kaushik Guha, 24, Park Ridge
“It started with the Louisiana state government. They weren’t prepared. The federal government wasn’t either. Ultimately, Bush’s name is at the head of everything. I was surprised that he took responsibility. It seemed like a lot of people dropped the ball.”
–Kyle Lambert, 25, Lakeview
“It’s easy to say that it’s one person’s fault. The FEMA director was definitely not qualified for the job, and it showed in a big crisis. But it falls on more than one person. It goes all around to all branches of the government, not just the president.”
–Stephanie Abell, 27, South Side
“I’m very upset by the way Bush handled things. … He responded quickly to the tsunami and that was across the world. It
took him a week to get to New Orleans and it’s in America.”
–Rocquel Crossley, 28, South Side
