SAN DIEGO
-- A few weeks ago, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff
stopped by the editorial department of The San Diego Union-Tribune
to provide an update on what his department is doing to secure
the U.S.-Mexico border.
No surprises there.
Politicians and public officials always run to the border for
chest-thumping and photo-ops. Yet the story line down there never
changes. Immigrants stream across because -- as President Bush
said in his State of the Union address -- ``this economy could
not function without them."
What is surprising
is how the homeland security chief has somehow managed to cruise
through the political fallout of Hurricane Katrina without a scratch.
While the media focused on the glaringly incompetent Michael Brown,
now the former head of FEMA, Chertoff stayed safely under the
radar.
I never understood
that. Chertoff was Brown's boss, and the responsibility of responding
to major natural disasters was supposed to fall under the purview
of the Department of Homeland Security.
But did
Chertoff know that? According to an article published by the Knight
Ridder newspapers last fall and which drew on obtained federal
documents, Chertoff ``may have been confused about his lead role
in disaster response and that of his department.'' He sent out
a memo to other Cabinet secretaries saying that the White House
was going to have a multi-department task force to respond to
Katrina when, all along, he was supposed to be spearheading the
response.
According to the
article, Chertoff had been given the authority to set in motion
a large-scale federal reaction under the National Response Plan,
the government's battle blueprint for handling major natural disasters
and terrorist attacks. Under the NRP, Chertoff could have mobilized
federal agencies into action without having to wait around until
state or local officials yelled for help. Brown didn't find himself
with that level of power until about a day and a half after the
storm hit, when Chertoff passed the hot potato by designating
him the ``principal federal official'' in charge of responding
to Katrina.
I wanted to ask Chertoff
about that, and more. But the first thing you learn when you sit
down with him is that the former federal prosecutor and federal
judge is as slippery as they come.
When questions about
Katrina came up, he initially argued that the storm was of such
magnitude that no one could have prepared for it. Then, a few
minutes later, he criticized local officials for not having a
preparedness plan to deal with such a catastrophe.
When I asked him
if he regretted not invoking the power given him by the NRP, Chertoff
insisted that the plan does not create any ``command and control
authority'' and that it certainly doesn't supersede the authority
of the states.
But if that's the
case, then why have a National Response Plan? Why not just have
50 individual plans, one for each state?
He also said that,
in the end, the problem ``wasn't a lack of power to direct resources
(but) the lack of a plan'' to deal with something else that was
unforeseen: the large number of people who stayed behind in the
Louisiana Superdome. That was just another way of blaming local
officials for not evacuating everyone in the city.
Yet investigators
with the Government Accountability Office have recently issued
a blistering report blaming Chertoff and his boss, President Bush,
for not providing ``clear leadership responsibility and accountability''
after Katrina and not establishing a clear chain of command. The
report also blasted Chertoff for not providing more advance training
and not doing a better job of preparing for such a disaster. And,
the report said, while Chertoff did authorize federal assistance
to states and localities, he also failed, until 36 hours later,
to classify the storm as ``an incident of national significance''
-- something that might have speeded up the federal response.
A spokesman for the
Homeland Security Department returned fire, saying the report
``displays a significant misunderstanding of core aspects of the
Katrina response.''
In our interview,
Chertoff acknowledged that Katrina had ``exposed some shortcomings
in our processes and our capabilities.'' Now, he said, the idea
was to ``build those capabilities that didn't exist and change
those processes.''
What I was hoping
to hear from the secretary -- but didn't -- was an admission that
he and his department messed up, that mistakes were made and that
he'd make sure that these mistakes aren't repeated in the future.
Either Chertoff understands
that or he doesn't. And if he doesn't, we need a new secretary
of homeland security.
©
2006, The San Diego Union-Tribune
