The Blame Game (cont.)

With Brownie gone, it's time to move on up the ladder of responsibility. The Wall Street Journal reports that "internal documents and emails from FEMA and other government agencies dating back to Aug. 31 and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show the extent to which the federal government bungled its response to the hurricane. The documents highlight serious deficiencies in the Department of Homeland Security's National Response Plan, a post-Sept. 11 playbook on how to deal with catastrophic events. Mr. Chertoff activated the National Response Plan last Tuesday by declaring the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina an 'Incident of National Significance'" AND . . .

"Some Homeland Security officials are already starting to acknowledge significant weaknesses in the national response plan, which was completely disregarded at times during the crisis.

'We at the department are not well prepared, and unfortunately, recent history has shown that that's the case,' Lee Holcomb, the department chief technology officer told a breakfast meeting of Information Technology executives on Wednesday in Washington."

Specific failures cited by WSJ include delays in activating health and safety workers, delays in coordinating with the NIH, ordering the wrong number of buses . . . Chertoff, Chertoff, bo bertoff . . .