Senators grill Homeland Security chief over Katrina response

At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, one year to the day from when he was sworn as secretary of the Homeland Security Department, Michael Chertoff came under fire for problems with the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina.

"The department's overall lack of preparedness for this catastrophe prevented both decisive action before the storm hit and an effective response in the immediate aftermath," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "After landfall, the department far too often appeared to be frozen with indecision and nearly paralyzed by ineffective communications . . . As a result, the suffering of Katrina's victims was worsened and prolonged."

Although Senate minority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has called for Chertoff to resign, no members of the committee did so.

"I still have confidence in your ability to manage the department," said Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah.

Chertoff did not respond to questions from a reporter after the hearing on whether he has submitted or will submit his resignation.

He acknowledged he was in charge of coordinating the overall federal response to the hurricane and said he accepts responsibility for problems with the government's preparations and response. He noted that President Bush issued emergency declarations before the storm made landfall Aug. 29, but said he does not believe preparations for the hurricane were adequate.

Chertoff came before the committee on the same day that House Republicans released a blistering report criticizing him for not being fully engaged during the crisis. Chertoff said the report's claim that he was detached "is simply not correct."

He said he received conflicting information on Aug. 29 -- the day the storm made landfall -- about whether levees in New Orleans had been breached. He said he went to bed that night thinking the levees withstood the storm.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., released a Coast Guard e-mail from 1:51 p.m. on Aug. 29 stating that at least one levee had already broke. The message was widely circulated to officials involved in the response effort.

"A levee in New Orleans has been breached sending 3 to 8 feet of water into the 9th Ward area of the city," the e-mail stated. "Significant structural damage has been reported in New Orleans due to Katrina."

The Coast Guard is part of DHS.

"Something's not working well in your shop if you're not notified," Levin said. "How do these screw-ups happen?"

Committee ranking member Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., also criticized Chertoff for going to Atlanta on Aug. 30, rather than Louisiana.

"With all the information coming into your department's operations center on the day that Katrina struck New Orleans - that the city was flooding and people were trapped or drowning - how could you as secretary of Homeland Security go to bed that night not knowing what was happening and get up the next morning and proceed, not to New Orleans to oversee the response, but to Atlanta for a conference?" Lieberman asked.

Chertoff said he was in constant touch with officials managing the crisis and that he went to an Atlanta operations center to oversee the response.

He said he also now believes it was a mistake to put Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown in charge of coordinating hurricane operations in the Gulf Coast.

Brown told the committee last week that he viewed communications with Chertoff as a waste of time during the week after the storm hit. Chertoff said he was astonished by that statement.

Collins said she believes putting Brown in charge of the crisis was one of Chertoff's biggest mistakes.

Chertoff said that on Sept. 1, he began to think Brown was incapable of handling the crisis. Some senators, however, questioned why Chertoff did not object when President Bush told Brown on Sept. 2 that he was "doing a heck of a job."

Brown ultimately was removed from his position and resigned from government.

Chertoff also said he believes that changes to the National Response Plan are needed. He said Katrina proved the plan is "cumbersome" and showed "genuine confusion about elements of the plan."