Benoit noted, caustically, that there was little discussion at the Baton Rouge meetings about human rescue. The focus was on protecting critical oil and defense infrastructure.
“And what they didn’t say was anything about people. And I was like, man, New Orleans is in deep trouble. The [Hurricane] Pam scenario was about a hurricane that would hit port directly and it would push the river over the banks of the levies there and the river would flood New Orleans. But to me they just seemed more concerned with the oil stuff and the oil port than about the city of New Orleans.”
Benoit was onto more than he realized. Was FEMA really an occult agency for the implementation of martial law?
Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN) had been opposed to FEMA’s absorption into Homeland Security from he beginning. While on the 2006 mid-term election campaign trail in support of FBI whistle-blower Coleen Rowley’s ill-fated campaign for Congress, Oberstar would often take the opportunity on the stump to lash out at Homeland Security. Rowley’s campaign was based upon truth-telling. She had tried to warn the FBI that the Agency lacked follow-up on suspicious activity in the days preceding 9/11.
“In 2003, I stood in staunch opposition to having FEMA removed from the jurisdiction of the Transportation Committee and placed under the Department of Homeland Security. FEMA wasn’t meant to catch terrorists. Ten months after FEMA and the Bush Administration failed the stranded citizens of Louisiana and Mississippi during Hurricane Katrina, this year’s hurricane season has begun. FEMA is no better prepared now than they were then,” Oberstar says in collected quotes on his website.
“Who would you rather have protect you? FEMA? Or Coleen Rowley?” Oberstar would roar in characteristic fashion while backing Rowley. [3]
Rowley’s campaign was all about telling the truth to the American public. Oberstar reminded audiences on the stump that Rowley told the truth about the FBI’s lack of due diligence in the days preceding 9/11. Oberstar was driving the point home about lack of government transparency and the dangers lurking behind the curtain of “security.”
“Maybe” the Conspiracy Theories are “Right”
In a blistering 2007 attack, Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) accused the Bush administration of denying Congress access to disaster planning, after Bush denied the Homeland Security Committee of Congress the right to see the FEMA plans for Marshall Law. De Fazio’s statement is available on YOUTUBE. See: DeFazio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ByoqZqDGaA
Initially, DeFazio was trying to defuse conspiracy theories and concerns that the Bush administration had plans for suspension of civil liberties. DeFazio, as a member of the Homeland Security Committee, asked to see the plan for government continuity. He has the required security clearances and had never before been denied access to secure documents.
But in a break with tradition, DeFazio's request, although initially approved, was later rejected. The congressman still has not been informed who made the decision about his request, nor about the reason for it.
"I just can't believe that they're going to deny a member of Congress the right of reviewing how they plan to conduct the government of the United States after a significant terrorist attack," DeFazio said. "I would think that would be relevant to any member of Congress, let alone a member of the Homeland Security Committee."
"Maybe the people who think there's a conspiracy out there are right," he said. [4]
Political scientist Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute, referred to the decision to deny DeFazio access as "inexplicable," saying he could not think of "one good reason" for it.[5]
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