White House stonewalls official Hurricane Katrina inquiry

At his press conference Thursday, Bush defended the practice. “If people give me advice and they’re forced to disclose that advice, it means the next time an issue comes up, I might not be able to get unvarnished advice from my advisors.” He also claimed his administration had been “fully cooperative” with the House and Senate committees.

At the committee hearing Tuesday, witness presentations focused on the extent of emergency preparedness in the months and years before Katrina, which left at least 1,100 dead, displaced more than a million area residents, and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.

But the investigation, conducted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has been thwarted by the White House from obtaining communications logs, and even dates and times of meetings and phone calls regarding Katrina emergency response efforts.

White House spokesperson Trent Duffy told reporters Tuesday that the administration had declined to provide testimony from Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff; Card’s deputy, Joe Hagin; and domestic security adviser Frances Townsend. Townsend’s deputy, Ken Rapuano, has given informal, non-public briefings to the committee, but has also effectively been placed under a presidential gag order. In addition, Duffy said that the administration has refused to provide staff member correspondence, including e-mails regarding the hurricane.

Joseph Lieberman (Democrat—Connecticut), the highest-ranking senator on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of enacting a “gag order” to hinder the committee’s work. “The problems begin at the White House, where there has been a near total lack of cooperation that has made it impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough investigation we have a responsibility to do.”

According to Lieberman, attorneys advised former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) head Michael Brown during a closed-door session not to respond to questions on “whether he spoke to the president or the vice president, or comment on the substance of conversations” he had with White House officials during the response operation. Brown did acknowledge that he had exchanged e-mails and phone calls repeatedly with Bush, Chief of Staff Card and Card’s deputy during the two days before Katrina made landfall. When asked about the types of requests he made in preparation, Brown stated, “I’m being advised by counsel that I can’t discuss with you my conversations with the president’s chief of staff and the president.”

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/hurr-j28.shtml