Oh, I have to be fair, and mention this (from Independent Weekly, in an article posted BEFORE Katrina .. very eerie!) :
"In the wake of the terrorist attacks, leading members of Congress pushed for a radical restructuring of the government's anti-terrorism apparatus. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) proposed legislation to merge several federal agencies into a new security-focused umbrella department. At first, the White House opposed the plan, calling it impractical and unnecessary.
But then, as former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke explained in his recent book Against all Enemies, "the White House legislative affairs office began to take a head count on Capitol Hill." Realizing that the Lieberman Bill would likely pass both houses of Congress, with no credit given to the White House, in June 2002 the administration changed its tune, calling for a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that would be even larger than the one Lieberman had proposed.
Under the administration's plan, 22 government agencies, FEMA among them, would be merged into the DHS. Analysts in and out of government warned against subsuming the emergency agency's vital functions in a new super-department. "There are concerns of FEMA losing its identity as an agency that is quick to respond to all hazards and disasters," the agency's inspector general noted in a memo to Allbaugh. Congress' Government Accountability Office judged the merger to be a "high-risk" endeavor for FEMA, and the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington think-tank, cautioned in a report that such a move could hobble the agency's natural disaster programs. "While a merged FEMA might become highly adept at preparing for and responding to terrorism, it would likely become less effective in performing its current mission in case of natural disasters as time, effort and attention are inevitably diverted to other tasks within the larger organization."
(SEPTEMBER 22, 2004
A Disaster Waiting to Happen
As FEMA weathers a storm of Bush administration policy and budget changes, protection from natural hazards may be trumped by ?homeland security?)
So, to begin with, an idiot DEMOCRAT (Joe Lieberman, a confirmed moron, look at his record on video games) suggests that we do something as retarded as put well-oiled machines like FEMA under a new agency, and the Bush White House rightly calls it a stupid idea. Then, they about face, and go with an even *more* ambitiously stupid plan. Bah.
Edit : and there's this, James Lee Witt's comments regarding the stupidity of putting FEMA under DHS :
March 2004: Former FEMA Director Warns that US Is No Longer Prepared to Respond Effectively to Disasters
Edit event
Former FEMA director James Lee Witt tells Congress: ?I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared. In fact one state emergency manager told me, ?It is like a stake has been driven into the heart of emergency management.??
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