In a segment about the alleged conversation in which President Bush suggested to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that the U.S. should bomb Al-Jazeera broadcast facilities in Qatar, the BBC World Service hosted an exchange early this morning between Frank Gaffney and a representative from Al-Jazeera.

Frank Gaffney, of course, is the Michael Certoff look-alike who worked in President Reagan's DOD and went on to become the president of the neocon Center for Security Policy.

Gaffney is asked whether, if true, isn't it outrageous that President Bush would suggest bombing a civilian news agency?

"If it has some truth to it, I'm not sure it is outrageous."  Seriously?

Seriously.  Gaffney goes on.

With so much public and media attention rightfully focused on the flooded city of New Orleans, a few of us have been wondering about the relief effort in other parts of the Gulf Coast.  Two days ago, I posted this diary about FEMA incompetence in Mississippi:

http://charliereece.mydd.com/story/2005/9/9/93953/98017#readmore

Now, a report in the local Lafayette newspaper reveals that FEMA opened their first office in that hurricane-ravaged city on Friday.  ELEVEN DAYS after Hurricane Katrina struck.

http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050910/NEWS05/509100313

Listening to NPR this morning, I was outraged to hear residents of Mississippi's Gulf Coast lost in a sea of red tape at a disaster relief center.  The link to the story is here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4838698

Residents reported having gone to the center the day before and making appointments for the following day (due to long lines and overworked FEMA staff).  When they arrived for their appointments the next morning, these residents found that the entire staff had been inexplicably changed, and that no record existed of their appointments!  Another resident spent over six hours at the relief center and came out bemoaning the completely disorganized relief effort being conducted inside the center and, most importantly, having absolutely no idea if or when she would be receiving any disaster assistance.

I've been traveling throughout the Hurricane Katrina disaster and most of its aftermath, so I've been absent from the discussion thus far. This past weekend was spent watching the same pathetic video loop on CNN over and over while bereft of internet connectivity in a beach house on the North Carolina coast. Nice house, but wi-fi would have been nicer.

Let me first say that I have to agree with those criticizing the local evacuation plan from New Orleans proper and surrounding parishes. Yes, the contra-flow thingy worked well for those with the means to drive themselves out, and it probably helped save lots of lives. But an aggressive mandatory evacuation program that accounted for hundreds of thousands of poor and aged citizens who had no ability to arrange for their own transportation might have saved more. I've read press reports of planning meetings with local leaders (including Mayor Nagin) in which reference is made to depending upon a "help thy neighbor" strategy of evacuation in which those more able would check on their less able neighbors. Apparently, in the rush to get the hell out of the way of impending death and destruction, a number of the less able were left behind.

But this failure of local leaders does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to absolve those in charge of federal relief efforts, especially the inexperienced and inept Mike "Brownie" Brown and the uninformed and unemotional Michael "One Scary Lookin' Dude" Chertoff. There are so many examples of the snafus in communication that a list here would be superfluous, but a large proportion of the instances that I've heard stem from confusion surrounding interagency approvals for offers of supplies and manpower from outside the area. How many stories have each of you heard about sheriffs/firefighters/etc. driving hours and hours to respond to local officials' desperate calls for help only to be turned back by FEMA officials on the edge of the disaster area because the effort did not have proper approvals from FEMA/state agencies/local agencies/etc. ? For me, the answer is far too many. Add to this the blatant and severely underreported examples of staged photo ops for the President (which actually cost lives because of resources diverted for them and rescue and relief flights grounded while the President was in the area) and the genuinely abysmal relief response by FEMA in the first crucial days of the disaster, and you've got the makings of a national disgrace. An independent commission MUST be appointed to investigate the lethal mistakes made in the lead-up and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; after all, the death toll from this disaster is likely to exceed that of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.