WASHINGTON – Former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown said Tuesday that it was not his job to take over the evacuation of New Orleans and rescue the drowning city from Hurricane Katrina, blaming Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and “dysfunctional” state officials for the government’s failed response to the disaster.
Over six hours of tense and at times angry testimony to a House investigative panel whose members condemned and derided him, Brown also blamed the Department of Homeland Security, and indirectly the Bush administration, for what he said was FEMA’s emaciated state. His agency, he said, suffered from budget cuts and a shortage of qualified personnel ever since it was subsumed within the gigantic department.
President Bush initially stood by Brown, saying he was “doing a heck of a job,” before he was recalled to Washington Sept. 9. Brown resigned three days later.
Brown, 50, took responsibility for two mistakes. He said he should have set up regular media briefings instead of conducting numerous television interviews. He added: “I very strongly, personally regret that I was unable to persuade Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together.”
Committee members, however, took umbrage at Brown’s account of who was to blame, and they leveled harsh criticism at him.
“You can try to throw as much as you can on the backs of Louisianans, but I’m a witness as to what happened in Mississippi. You folks fell on your face,” said Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., who lost his home to the hurricane.
Bush, Taylor told Brown, “made a very good move when he asked you to leave your job.”
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., echoed that sentiment, telling Brown: “I’m happy you left. That kind of look in the lights like a deer tells me you weren’t capable of doing that job.”
“So I guess you want me to be the superhero, to step in there and take everyone out of New Orleans,” a visibly angry Brown told Shays.
Shays shot back: “What I wanted you to do is do your job and coordinate.”
Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., offered Brown no help. When Brown argued that the White House “was fully engaged … behind the scenes,” Davis interjected: “They had to be behind the scenes, because I think we didn’t see anything out front.”
In Baton Rouge, La., Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher said, “Mike Brown wasn’t engaged then, and he surely isn’t now.”
Nagin spokeswoman Sally Forman said, “The governor and the mayor were totally on the same page.”
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