Original at DailyKos.
This news is at least a few hours old, from the Associated Press:
A timeline pieced together by Senate Democrats shows that the Bush White House knew as early as 8:30 a.m. EST, August 29.
The first internal White House communication about levee failures came at 11:13 a.m. on Aug. 29 in a “Katrina Spot Report” by the White House Homeland Security Council.
“Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city,” the internal report said.
White House spokesperson Trent Duffy explained that Bush and his aides were fully apprised of the situation. But they didn’t move a muscle.
So how come Bush, as Senator Joe Lieberman put it, “…could have woken up Tuesday morning unaware of this obviously catastrophic situation”?
Update [2006-2-10 11:8:41 by blksista]: Brownie has been testifying on C-Span since 9:30 a.m. EST. Pass the popcorn. Give your impressions of his performance here.
At least 28 local, state and Federal agencies reported to the White House that the levees surrounding the Crescent City had broken.
The Bush administration has said it knew definitively early Tuesday, the day after the storm, that the levees had been breached, based on an Army Corps of Engineers assessment.
Democrats said the documents showed there was little excuse for the tardy federal response.
The revelation comes the day before Michael Brown, the controversial former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), comes before the Senate commmittee investigating the administration’s slow and ultimately killing response to the unfolding devastation. Brown already testified before the House investigating committee in September 2005. However, this time it is believed that he will no longer play the fall guy and start flipping, thus laying blame elsewhere.
Think Progress has a Katrina timeline.
This should be interesting. Perhaps Brownie will lay down a few puzzle pieces that might connect Bush’s New Orleans cronies on the Bring New Orleans Back Committee and in the Garden District to the lackadaisical response to the tragedy that became New Orleans. But I guess that might be asking for too much.
As something like has happened before several times in Louisiana history, with the elites allowing the citizenry–white and black and Latino and Asian–to die needlessly and horribly, so that their property and lives might be spared, so it wouldn’t surprise me that in the 21st century, history would repeat itself.
word is from Arianna and ‘nem that he’s ready to sing like a canary with all of those e-mails and communications at the ready.
Let the canary soar, like he’s never soared before…..;-)
That guy’s such a slime, he’ll turn on anyone to save his own pasty little ass.
his golden parachute must not have quite been “golden” enough!
That would make my day.
The “8:30 a.m.” time is close – the flood warning was posted by NWS @ 8:14 a.m. More on this over @ Fryday News on ePM.
Also linked is the article by Knight-Ridder reporting the breach as early as 3 a.m.
But I read yesterday, at Scottie’s press briefing that the W/H may claim excutive privliedge to shut up Brownie.
be looking to put the hat on Bush for the Katrina footdragging makes me wonder how many more of these folks there are. This administration has had an airtight hold on all information for a long time. I’ll bet there are dozens of high-placed officials chomping at the bit to spill their guts about Katrina and Iraq and warrantless spying and…
Ed, I sure hope you are right about this one. I would like to see it happen and soon! We the ppl, need this for our own survivial sake. Oh how my heart goes out to all the ppl of NOLA and this should not have happened at all. The constraints that the government put on the state and local government was, as I see it, unreal! I really would like to see the state go after dubya for his lying and such during this ordeal.
Another whistleblower here. They are coming out of the woodwork folks. Katrina, Iraq, 9/11. It’s about flippin time!
Poor Bush, to paraphrase (Ann Richards), like father, son was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. What does he care about little people? As for matters of state, he’s not to be bothered when at Crawford, where he vacations.
Wasn’t he at Crawford in 08/2001 when he was briefed-‘bin Laden determined to attack the United States’? And wasn’t he at Crawford when Katrina hit, before he flew off to eat cake with McCain? Thought so.
With all the criticism of the lack of a “vision thing” for the Dems perhaps they should just start building up a story about competence vs incompetence.
We all know the stories about various people (like Brownie) being put in office because of their political work, or as a favor to a large contributor, but this type of thing is done by every administration.
The difference this time is that political hacks have been put into operational jobs, not just managerial ones. In addition to the FEMA case, there have been examples at FDA where drug recommendations by scientific panels have been blocked by political appointees. Then there was the WH aide from the oil industry who censored scientific reports on global warming. Most recently there was the same attempt at NASA.
The Dems need to compile these stories into a continuing narrative and then explain how they would put people with proper credentials and experience in place instead. Perhaps even a tentative list of future appointees, or at least, a set of shadow advisory boards which would start work now on selecting a future operational team and appropriate operational goals.
A couple more stories for your arch-narrative (a great idea, BTW):
With all the criticism of the lack of a “vision thing” for the Dems perhaps they should just start building up a story about competence vs incompetence.
The last two elections were about that! Unfortunately, the kool-aid drinkers refuse to rouse from their sweet dream until everything lies in smolding ruins about them.
but with the competence of current D leaders/consultants we may have to package all that in a jar of Pablum, strap them into a high chair, and continue to stick spoonfuls into their little beaks, until they’ve assimilated it all.
I haven’t perticipated in this tragedy discussion here because I have trouble keeping the emotional aspect out of it. I tend to be less productive when I take an issue so deeply personal that I let that affect my reactions/comments to others’ comments.
I just wanted to say thank you for all of your hard work and today looks to be the day of change on this. Brown will do some serious damage to this administration and we can only hope it leads to accountability.
Live on Cspan. No one is evolking executive privelage and Brown is going to sing like an opera singer. Pass the popcorn please!
So many investigations go on,.
Intel fuck ups
Wire tap fuck ups
FEMA fuck ups
Lobbying fuck ups
9/11 fuck ups
George W. Bush is a fuck up.
He said he called the whitehouse directly and talked to an oficial (Hagin) when they knew the levee had broken. So where was Chertoff?
In Atlanta at a bird flu conference according to Brownie this morning.
Wonderful! We can use that to tie in our “preparations” for bird flu to NOLA!
How much Tamiflu do we have stockpiled?
And how many nuclear bombs?
I feel so much better now…
Yeah, KP, some of the testimony was pretty damning but just reiterated the incompetencey and lack of concern and compassion on these twits!
then a read through of The Great Influenza, by John Barry, will cure that “ailment.”
This is probably hornblowing, but I diaried the Administration/media’s campaign to fudge the time of the levee breaks in the wee hours of Sept. 1 on dKos. It was already obvious, even then, that they were revising history to save their own asses.
Here’s as straight-out a lie as Bush will ever tell, from Sept. 2, per whitehouse.gov: “The levees broke on Tuesday in New Orleans.”
Here’s a longer selection: