We found out yesterday that in the 48 hours before Katrina's landfall, the White House "received detailed warnings about the storm's likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property." Unfortunately for Bush, this didn't exactly jibe with what he was saying in the first few days after the Katrina disaster:
President Bush, in a televised interview three days after Katrina hit, suggested that the scale of the flooding in New Orleans was unexpected. "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm," Bush said in a Sept. 1 interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."Obviously, there is a lot more of this kind of stuff yet to be uncovered. The Bush Administration is certainly acting like there is, given the effort it is making to obstruct the Senate investigation:
A Senate inquiry into the government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina is being crippled by White House stonewalling, according to senators leading the investigation. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the Bush administration is blocking officials from answering even routine questions about the times and dates of meetings and phone calls with the White House during the crisis.Of course, such a response isn't surprising, given that the Bush looks upon Congress as nothing more than a ceremonial body with no real power. And it certainly doesn't hurt Bush to have allies in Congress who are totally unwilling to stand up to his incompetent and corrupt regime.
According to the report, White House staffers and other federal agency employees have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators in some cases. "No one believes that the government responded adequately," said Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman. "And we can't put that story together if people feel they're under a gag order from the White House."
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