Homeland Emergency: Disaster Relief is Suffering Under New DHS Bureaucracy

New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin estimated Tuesday that hundreds, maybe thousands of people have died since Hurricane Katrina hit the city. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is scrambling to find temporary housing for tens of thousands of people and to rescue people stranded on roofs and in the now-uninhabitable Super Dome. We turn now to the politics behind FEMA's relief efforts and ask the question - would Katrina have been so devastating if disaster relief had not been incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security?

FEMA was created in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter and President Bill Clinton elevated the head of FEMA to a cabinet-level position in 1992. But after September 11, 2001, President Bush moved the agency under the umbrella of the newly created Department of Homeland Security. While FEMA oversees both disaster preparedness and relief, it may soon be reduced to coordinating only post-disaster efforts. Critics say this narrower mandate would limit the effectiveness of FEMA's work and that operating within the Department of Homeland Security consigns disaster relief to a lower priority than counter-terrorism related activities.

* President Bush, speaking yesterday afternoon about the strategy of the federal government in coordinating relief efforts:
"The people in the affected regions expect the federal government to work with the state government and local government with an effective response. I have directed Secretary of Homeland Security Mike Chertoff to chair a Cabinet-level task force to coordinate all our assistance from Washington. FEMA Director Mike Brown is in charge of all federal response and recovery efforts in the field. I've instructed them to work closely with state and local officials, as well as with the private sector, to ensure that we're helping, not hindering, recovery efforts. This recovery will take a long time. This recovery will take years."
* Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security speaking at a news conference Wednesday in Washington:
"Truckloads of water, ice, meals, medical supplies, generators, tents, and tarpaulins. There are currently over 1700 trailer trucks, which have been mobilized to move these supplies into position. The coast guard has worked heroically for the last 48 hours rescuing or assisting well more than 1000 people who were in distress and held high and dry above the flood waters."

Thousands remained stranded in New Orleans, in homes and in hospitals with no running water or electricity. We turn now to a look at the new infrastructure for disaster management in the United States.

* Matthew Brzezinski, author of "Fortress America: On the Frontlines of Homeland Security-An Inside Look at the Coming Surveillance State." He is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and former foreign correspondent at The Wall Street Journal.

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