WASHINGTON - Lawmakers from both parties said Thursday a newly disclosed videotape of a pre-Katrina briefing for President Bush and top administration officials raises new questions about government response to the storm that flooded New Orleans and killed more than 1,300 people.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., said the video "makes it perfectly clear once again that this disaster was not out of the blue or unforeseeable. It was not only predictable, it was actually predicted. That's what made the failures in response — at the local, state and federal level — all the more outrageous."
The video, obtained by The Associated Press, "confirms what we have suspected all along," said Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, charging that Bush administration officials have "systematically misled the American people."
Reid and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California renewed their calls for an independent commission to investigate the federal response to the hurricane.
The House and Senate have conducted separate investigations of the federal response, and the White House did its own investigation. House Democrats for the most part refused to participate in the House probe, insisting since last fall that an independent commission should be created to handle the probe.
"I try not to get angry, but I am plenty frustrated that we're not getting answers" from the administration, said Rep. Charlie Melancon, D-La., one of the few Democrats who participated in the House investigation. "If nobody was hiding anything, why did the committee not get the documents it requested? We need to use subpoenas if necessary to get those documents."
A spokesman for Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., who headed the House investigation, said there was nothing new in the tape and accompanying transcripts.
"Top federal, state and local officials failed to process and act on information at their disposal," said David Marin, the spokesman. "We already knew that."
But Rep. Bennie Thompson (news, bio, voting record), D-Miss., the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, disagreed.
"If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million," he said. "Six months after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the homes and livelihoods of millions along the Gulf Coast, the truth about what the president knew and when he knew it has come to light."
Of course, the Democrats have been calling for independent probes in the Iraqi WMD intelligence failings, the White House role in marketing the Iraq war, the Valerie Plame leak, Portgate, Jack Abramoff, NSA wiretappings, and Katrina. And in all that time, the Republicans in Congress have been able to delay and block any independent or even congressional probes into these scandals. The Republicans know that any such probe into the Bush administration's role in any of these scandals, is going to bring up even more damaging evidence of White House manipulations, lies, and a general contempt for the law. When you have criminals such as Karl Rove ready to blackmail moderate Republicans if they do not toe the White House line, and allow Bush to circumvent the FISA courts with his illegal spying program, you have a situation where President Bush has become accountable to no one. There is no way that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, or House Speaker Dennis Hastert is going to allow any type of independent probe to investigate the White House. The Republicans are not going to allow an independent Katrina probe--not even after we caught President Bush lying in a publicized video conference with FEMA officials.
The only way for the Democrats to get their independent probes, and to bring back the power of congressional oversight against the White House, is to remove the Republicans from their leadership position in one or both houses of Congress.
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