Director of FEMA Stripped of Role as Relief Leader

The top US emergencies official has been removed from his role managing the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is being sent back to Washington from Louisiana where he has been overseeing aid work.

Mr Brown, who remains head of Fema, has faced strong criticism over the slow pace of the rescue effort.

In New Orleans, the focus has switched from rescue to recovery though some still resist the evacuation orders.

'Inaccuracies and lies'

Mr Brown is being replaced by Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Thad W Allen who has been overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts.

Announcing the reshuffle, Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff said Mr Brown would remain head of Fema.

"I have directed Mike Brown to return to administering Fema nationally," he said at a news conference in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Mr Chertoff said he appreciated the work done by the Fema director and that his replacement had his full support.

Allegations were made that Mr Brown had exaggerated his previous experience in emergency management.

As news broke of his transfer back to Washington, Michael Brown told AP news agency he was keen to return there to "correct all the inaccuracies and lies that are being said".

The "story", he said, was not his own career but "the worst disaster in US history".

The BBC's Washington correspondent, Justin Webb, says that questions over Mr Brown's eligibility for his post have intensified political pressure on the White House.

President George W Bush is to begin a third visit to the disaster zone on Sunday, with stops in both Mississippi and Louisiana, a spokesman said.

Political figures in both the Republican and Democrat parties have accused the authorities of responding slowly.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said there had been "a lot of failures at a lot of levels - local, state and federal".

Debate still rages in Washington into how independent the inquiries being launched into Katrina - led by President Bush himself and the Senate - will really be.

Recovery street by street

"What we are starting today, again... is a recovery operation, a recovery operation to search by street, by grid, for any remains of individuals who have passed away," Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security in New Orleans, said on Friday.

Officials in New Orleans say after initial searches for bodies that the death toll there may be much smaller than the thousands initially feared.

The authorities have secured the city and believe they have persuaded most of the residents that this is no longer a place in which it is fit to live, the BBC's Daniela Relph reports.

Those still refusing to leave are being moved out by force, our correspondent adds, though there have been a few isolated cases in which officers have handcuffed residents and carried them from their homes.

Nato has announced that its members will use their ships and aircraft to take aid to the disaster zones as a show of solidarity with the victims.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4231170.stm

THE man criticised for delays in the United States government's response to Hurricane Katrina last night paid the price for those failures, when he was removed from his role overseeing operations and sent back to Washington.

His departure came hours after former US Secretary of State Colin Powell was strongly critical of the relief operation, and said that it was the poor black population that had suffered disproportionately.

Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), had initially been backed by President George Bush, who told him: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

But with Mr Bush's own poll ratings in freefall over the handling of the crisis, that support appeared to have evaporated yesterday.

And hours after doubts were raised about Mr Brown's qualifications for the job, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was reported to have taken the decision to replace him in charge of operations on the ground with Vice Admiral Thad Allen, chief of staff of the US Coast Guard.

Officials said Mr Brown had not been fired as FEMA director but had been told to return to Washington from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was the primary official overseeing the federal response to the disaster. Ironically, his departure came as an initial sweep of New Orleans suggested that far fewer people than at first thought had perished as a result of Hurricane Katrina.

Pressure had been mounting on Mr Brown for days, and hours earlier Mr Powell had added his voice to those criticising the federal government's response to the disaster

Mr Powell said he believed it should have been obvious to everyone that many people would be unable to respond to the order to evacuate New Orleans. "There have been a lot of failures at a lot of levels - local, state and federal. There was more than enough warning over time about the dangers to New Orleans. Not enough was done," he said. "I don't think advantage was taken of the time that was available to us, and I just don't know why."

He said the main reason that those left behind were unable to leave was because they were poor and could not do it alone. Many did not have credit cards and only one family in ten had a car, he added.

"When you look at those who weren't able to get out, it should have been a blinding flash of the obvious to everybody that when you order a mandatory evacuation, you can't expect everybody to evacuate on their own," he said.

Mr Powell said he did not think that race was a factor in the slow response, but that many of those unable to leave New Orleans in time were trapped by poverty.

"I don't think it's racism, I think it's economic," said Mr Powell. "But poverty disproportionately affects African-Americans. And it happened because they were poor."

The pressure on Mr Brown was ratcheted up further when it emerged that five of the eight officials in charge of FEMA were political appointees who had little experience in handling disasters.

It was reported in the US that as political operatives took the top jobs in the agency, professionals and experts in hurricanes and disasters left.

There also were claims that Mr Brown's official biography released by the White House at the time of his nomination exaggerated his experience in disaster relief.

The 2001 release on the White House website said that Mr Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Oklahoma, from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing the emergency services division".

But Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, was reported to have questioned that description, suggesting that he was merely "an assistant to the city manager" from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself.

Mr Brown was a friend of former Bush campaign director Joe Allbaugh, the previous FEMA head.

http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1917882005

A beleaguered Michael Brown said Friday he doesn't know why he was removed from his onsite command of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, but he does know the first thing he'll do when he returns to Washington.

"I'm going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife, and maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night's sleep," Brown told The Associated Press. "And then I'm going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency director spoke from Louisiana before the move was announced by his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Critics called for Brown's resignation after government agencies seemed sluggish in their response to Katrina.

On Friday, allegations surfaced that Brown had padded his resume. He angrily denied those charges and contended that the White House and FEMA had erred in their descriptions of two of his past jobs.

"This story's not about me. This story's about the worst disaster of the history of our country that stretched every government to its limit and now we have to help these victims," Brown said. "That's all I've wanted to do."

Brown said he will still oversee FEMA, including housing, victims' assistance and other aspects of Katrina recovery efforts. But he may not be there for long, according to two officials close to Brown who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss his plans.

They said the FEMA chief had been planning to retire after the hurricane season, and Friday's action virtually assures his departure.

In the interview, Brown praised his onsite replacement, Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, but said the switch was Chertoff's idea.

"You'd have to ask Secretary Chertoff why he made that decision," Brown said.

At a news conference later, Chertoff suggested the change came as the Gulf Coast efforts entered a new phase, and that Brown might be needed to manage other potential disasters.

Asked if he was being made a scapegoat, Brown said, "By the press, yes. By the president, no."

He heatedly denied suggestions by some news organizations that he had padded his resume, answering some charges point by point:

_He was assistant to the city manager in Edmond, Okla. "I have no clue" why the FEMA Web site says he was assistant city manager, an important distinction. Either way, Brown noted that the city's former mayor, Carl Reherman, has vouched for his involvement in emergency planning. Indeed, Reherman told the AP that Brown "worked hard at everything he did," including planning for natural and manmade disasters.

_A 2003 White House press release incorrectly says Brown was executive director of the Independent Electrical Contractors, which is headquartered in Virginia. Brown said he worked for the group's Denver chapter, and he didn't know why the White House suggested otherwise. Terry Moreland, the group's Rocky Mountain chapter chief, said Brown was in the post for about six months in 2001, just before he went to FEMA. "People hardly got to know him."

_Denying allegations to the contrary, Brown said he regularly attended meetings of an Oklahoma retirement home's development committee.

While waiting for his military flight back to Washington, the FEMA chief accused journalists of rushing to judgment and passing rumors off as fact.

"I'm anxious to get back to D.C. to correct all the inaccuracies and lies," he said.

Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday September 10, 2005
The Guardian

Michael Brown, the head of the Bush administration's disaster relief effort, was relieved yesterday of his role coordinating the response to Hurricane Katrina, after allegations that he had embroidered his professional record and had no emergency management experience.

A US coast guard commander, Rear Admiral Thad Allen, took over relief operations from Mr Brown, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), who was recalled to Washington.

Announcing the move, Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, said that "Mike Brown has done everything he possibly could" in leading the response.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1566861,00.html