OpEdNews - Page 3 of Article: Timeline shows the depths of callousness Bush & Co. displayed after Katrina hit

EVENING - SCARED OF VICTIMS REMAINING IN TEXAS, BARBARA BUSH SAYS SITUATION FOR LOUISIANA VICTIMS IS 'WORKING VERY WELL FOR THEM': The mother of George W. told a television program, "What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is [the hurricane victims] all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this - this [she
chuckles slightly] is working very well for them [Editor & Publisher]."

Tuesday, September 6

MID-DAY - BUSH APPOINTS SELF TO INVESTIGATE SELF ON WHY THERE WAS SUCH A SLOW FEDERAL RESPONSE: "'I'm going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong,' [Bush] said....The Senate's homeland security committee and governmental affairs committee are holding their own inquiries, with the latter pointing to 'the lack of preparedness and the ineffective initial response to a disaster that had been predicted for years [BBC].'"

Thursday, September 8

1 p.m. - CROWD PROTESTS SLOW FEDERAL RESPONSE BEFORE WHITE HOUSE: "About 300 protesters organized by the liberal group MoveOn.org marched outside the White House carrying signs saying 'Help Hurricane Victims' and chanting 'Shame on Bush [Reuters].'"

MID-DAY - CHENEY FINALLY TOURS GULF, GETS HOSTILE RECEPTION, BUT AT LEAST PHYSICIAN WHO TOLD OFF CHENEY WAS POLITE ENOUGH TO REFER TO HIM AS 'MR': As Cheney spoke to reporters, Ben Marble, a physician and musician who lost his Mississippi home in Katrina, took a cue from Cheney's outburst towards U.S. Sen. Pat Leahy on the Senate floor in 2004. As Cheney spoke to reporters in his neighborhood, Marble shouted, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney! Go fuck yourself, you asshole!" He then left, and a reporter asked Cheney if that happened a lot. "First time I've heard it. Must be a friend of John...er, ah - never mind," Cheney replied. CNN's Jack Cafferty questioned how it could be the first time Cheney heard it when he said the words himself last year. After being told it was the first time Cheney heard it "in this area," Cafferty replied, "I'm sure it won't be the last." After the media left, military police, carrying M-16s, handcuffed Marble in front of his destroyed home and detained him for 20 minutes before letting him go. Marble, who considers himself a political independent, then sold a video of his confrontation on eBay [CNN, OpedNews.com].

ELEVEN 'COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE' REPUBLICANS VOTE AGAINST KATRINA AID: Eleven Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against a $51.8 billion aid bill for Katrina relief. Those even included Southerners in affected states such as Westmoreland of Georgia. Other no votes came from Barton and Paul of Texas, Foxx of North Carolina, Flake of Arizona, Tancredo of Colorado, Otter of Idaho, Hostettler of Indiana, King of Iowa, Garrett of New Jersey and Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin.

EVENING - FEMA UNION HEAD SAYS HE TOLD CONGRESS A YEAR AGO ABOUT SORRY STATE OF AGENCY: "Inside FEMA, longtime emergency managers were convinced the agency was not ready for Katrina. 'All of us were just shaking our heads and saying, 'This isn't going to be enough, and the director has to know this isn't going to be enough.' But nothing more seemed to be happening,' said Leo Bosner, president of the FEMA Headquarters Employees Union. Bosner has been with FEMA since it began 26 years ago. He says the agency has been systematically dismantled since it became part of the massive Department of Homeland Security. 'One of the big differences I see,' said Bosner, 'besides taking away our staff and our budget and our training, is that Homeland Security now, in my view, slows down the process.' The union warned Congress in a detailed letter about FEMA's decline a year ago. State emergency managers also warned Capitol Hill and Homeland Security just weeks ago that DHS was too focused on one thing - terrorism [ABC News]."

Friday, September 9

MORNING - FIVE TOP FEMA OFFICIALS HAVE ALMOST NO EXPERIENCE IN HANDLING DISASTERS, MEDIA REPORTS: "Director Michael D. Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation, according to the agency. Two other senior operational jobs are filled by a former Republican lieutenant governor of Nebraska and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce official who was once a political operative." Brown, who reportedly lied on his resume, was hired at FEMA for the $149,000 post "after a rocky tenure as commissioner of a horse sporting group by former FEMA director Joe M. Allbaugh, the 2000 Bush campaign manager and a college friend of Brown's." Allbaugh, now a private consultant, was in the Gulf Coast "looking for contracts for his private clients [Washington Post, Newsweek]."

EVENING BROWN REMOVED FROM HURRICANE EFFORTS: "Brown, whose agency has been criticized for imposing bureaucratic obstacles to relief efforts even before the winds and rain died down, was being sent back to Washington from Louisiana, where he had been the top on-scene commander of the federal operation.....The secretary said Brown was needed at the helm of the agency to prepare for future hurricanes [Los Angeles Times]."

Monday, September 12

MORNING - RESCUE OPERATION ENDS AS IT BEGINS, IN CHAOS: "The relief operation was ending almost as shockingly and incompetently as it had begun two weeks ago.... [Soldiers] left the corpses on the streets, and yesterday the death toll remained hopelessly confused. It could be in the hundreds - the latest official figure is 347 dead in five states - or it may reach the thousands. On Thursday and Friday alone, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received 500 new cases of parents looking for their children or vice versa, bringing the total on its database to 1500. Of these only 258 have been resolved. With 400,000 refugees from the area now scattered across 13 US states, it will be weeks, perhaps months, before the final death toll is known. At first it was as if nobody dared to count the dead, and then that nobody seemed to care. Bodies were left rotting in the sun for days as troops and rescue workers waited for orders, ate sandwiches and landed helicopters around them. The bodies were sprinkled with chemicals to keep down the stench, covered with blue tarpaulin, marked and abandoned. Here and there, a discolored hand or foot protruded. The explanation from a soldier idling alongside dozens of troops, was: 'We're too busy to pick them up.' The dead were not only being neglected, they were being insulted.... A national guardsman from Arkansas gave a tour of the dead. 'That's a kid,' he said, shining a torch on a small figure under a white sheet. 'There's another in the freezer, a seven-year-old [The Australian Sunday Times].'"

AFTERNOON - BROWN RESIGNS IN 'BEST INTEREST OF THE PRESIDENT,' BUSH CLAIMS TO NOT KNOW BEFOREHAND: Brown said he resigned as FEMA head "in the best interest of the agency and best interest of the president," signifying a political decision. But Bush claimed to not know anything about it beforehand. "Maybe you know something I don't know. I've been working," Bush said in Gulfport, Miss. "There will be plenty of time to figure out what went right and what went wrong," Bush added [AP].

This is a greatly expanded version of the American Progress Action Fund's Katrina timeline at thinkprogress.org/katrina-timeline .

1 | 2 | 3