KATRINA

Exposing the Security Facade House investigators released a draft Katrina report yesterday titled, "A Failure of Initiative." The report tells us what we already know: "Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare." As the administration remains obsessed with brandishing its national security credentials in time for campaign season, the report's conclusions paint a troubling picture. President Bush's security team failed during one of our country's worst natural disaster, despite receiving more than adequate warning about the storm. "It remains difficult to understand how government could respond so ineffectively to a disaster that was anticipated for years, and for which specific dire warnings had been issued for days," the report said. "This crisis was not only predictable, it was predicted." Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who is hesitant to question Bush's national security credibility said, "And next time, God forbid, it could be a terrorist attack, and there's not going to be a warning from the weather service. We got a lot to do, and we better do it together and quickly."

REPORT CRACKS ADMINISTRATION'S SECURITY FACADE: President Bush has claimed his administration "understands our obligation to protect you, to protect the American people." Bush's closest allies turn to national security whenever Bush is threatened politically. "And with an important election coming up," Vice President Cheney said recently, "people need to know just how we view the most critical questions of national security, and how we propose to defend the nation." "The Bush White House has not been shy about its political use of an event, the 9/11 terrorist attacks," the Christian Science Monitor reports. "Now, President Bush faces increasing pressure to prove that he is on top of his game as the nation's protector in chief, against both terrorists and natural disasters." But as the House Katrina report found, "Four and a half years after 9/11, America is still not ready for prime time."

LESSONS OF 9/11 REMAIN UNLEARNED: "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th," Bush promised in 2002. Yet Katrina demonstrated how the administration remains saddled with a "pre-9/11 worldview" which made them "deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong" about how to deal with Katrina. The storm "exposed the U.S. government's failure to learn the lessons of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks," with "poor communications among first responders, a shortage of qualified emergency personnel and lack of training and funding" still plaguing the federal government's disaster response. 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean (R-NJ) found during his latest assessment that "a lot of things we need to do really to prevent another 9/11 just simply aren't being done by the President or by the Congress." Similarly, the administration is not doing what it needs to do to prevent another Katrina.

ADMINISTRATION UNINTERSTED IN ACCOUNTABILITY: The House report "lays primary fault with the passive reaction and misjudgments of top Bush aides, singling out Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, the Homeland Security Operations Center and the White House Homeland Security Council." In response, the White House did what it always does - express confidence in those who have failed. White House spokesperson Allen Abney said Bush retains "full confidence" in Chertoff and the rest of Homeland Security's leadership. "The president is less interested in yesterday, and more interested with today and tomorrow," Abney added, "so that we can be better prepared for next time."