Condi Gets a Pass While FEMA Takes the Fall

This morning's Washington Post has a front-page  article by staff writer Elizabeth Williamson on how foreign offers of aid for the Katrina disaster were not accepted for days if at all:

Offers of foreign aid worth tens of millions of dollars -- including a Swedish water purification system, a German cellular telephone network and two Canadian rescue ships -- have been delayed for days awaiting review by backlogged federal agencies, according to European diplomats and information collected by the State Department.

The article blames these delays on FEMA:

Since Hurricane Katrina, more than 90 countries and international organizations offered to assist in recovery efforts for the flood-stricken region, but nearly all endeavors remained mired yesterday in bureaucratic entanglements, in most cases, at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

To support its contention that FEMA is the root of the problem, the Post quotes a couple of people. One is an official of a European company offering aid:

"FEMA? That was a lost case," said Mirit Hemy, an executive with the Netherlands-based New Skies Satellite who made the phone calls. "We got zero help, and we lost one week trying to get hold of them."

The other is a State Department spokesman:

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that to his knowledge, all offers of foreign aid have been accepted and some have arrived, such as Air Canada's flights to relocate displaced people. But many others must be vetted by emergency relief specialists [i.e. FEMA].

However, the Post gives little hard evidence pointing to FEMA as the culprit. On the other hand, the article cites at least two instances where the State Department held things up by denying flight clearances for aircraft bearing emergency equipment.

Even Hemy, the European executive quoted above, had problems with more than just FEMA:

New Skies even arranged transport, securing a C-130 cargo plane from the Israeli air force, to pick up the equipment and technicians from Germany and bring them to Louisiana. "With one call, I got an airplane," Hemy said. And then, over four days, she and the owner of Unisat, Uri Bar-Zemer, called contacts at FEMA, the American Red Cross, the State Department, even members of Congress, trying to find someone to accept the gift.

Nowhere in the article does the Post point out that the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, stayed on vacation during the early days of the crisis, when the relief offers came pouring in. In fact, in an article about State's reaction to the disaster, there is not a single mention of the Secretary of State at all!

One would imagine that a real secretary of state would take charge of the situation from day one, instead of laughing it up at a Broadway show and buying expensive shoes. Meanwhile, the State Department was giving mixed signals about whether it would accept such aid.

But even after Condi returned, what has she been doing (besides joining the president for photo ops)? Why are such problems still occurring? And why is the Post protecting her?

I think we can go even further then that. It is clear that FEMA is being set up to take the fall for all of the mistakes, laziness, and poor judgment throughout the federal government. The incompetent nitwit, Mike Brown, will be thrown over the side so the President can look like a leader and say he has acted decisively. (Bush doesn't normally fire people, but in this case the pressure will be too great. Someone must be sacrificed. Brown will get his Medal of Freedom in a year or two, when the hullabaloo dies down.)

This isn't to say that FEMA doesn't bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility for the catastrophe -- it does -- or that Brown shouldn't be sacked--indeed he should. But the Bush Administration will use FEMA as the whipping boy to hide the disastrous decisions and non-decisions by Condi and other officials. The larger issues will, of course, be swept under the rug.  Just watch.