WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- A White House inquiry into Hurricane Katrina has found that key post-Sept. 11 changes to the way the country deals with large-scale emergencies failed to function properly or even impeded the federal response.
According to White House PowerPoint slides shown at a briefing for lawmakers last week, "The National Response Plan did not function as planned."
The plan, published last year and formally in effect for 12 months to date, provides rules for allocating roles and responsibilities during a domestic emergency.
The plan also specifies how federal agencies are to coordinate with state and local governments and the private sector and when Washington steps in to assume control of the response.
But according to the briefing slides this "bureaucratic process delayed the federal response."
Under the heading, "Problems with military," one section of the briefing detailed how "The National Response Plan's structure prevented best use of ... Department of Defense assets.
"This structure is not sufficient for a catastrophic event," the section concluded.
Another part of the briefing, headed "Problems with emergency communications," stated there was a "Lack of comprehensive national strategy and plans to unite communications plans, architectures and standards."
"Problems with training and exercises," included that "Federal, state and local entities were neither properly trained nor exercised" owing to a "Focus on terrorism rather than all hazards," and there being "No true National Exercise Program."
Members of the House select committee on Katrina got the briefing from deputy homeland security adviser Ken Rapuano Thursday. It covered most of the initial findings of the inquiry ordered by President Bush in the wake of the nation's flawed response to the storm -- which destroyed a major city and displaced millions of people, mostly poor and/or black.
In a letter to the select committee Chairman Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., Democrats Charlie Melancon of Louisiana, and Gene Taylor of Mississippi described the briefing, saying the White House inquiry had uncovered "a massive failure in virtually all aspects of the federal response."
They added that the briefing left important questions about the White House's response unanswered, and renewed their request for a subpoena to obtain copies of e-mails and other documents from senior White House officials, including Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
Davis has said that a subpoena -- which would likely be fought by the White House long past the expiration of the committee's mandate on Feb 15 next year -- would serve no purpose but to embarrass the president.
Ellery Gould, spokesman for Melancon, said the congressman "respects Chairman Davis (and) believes he is honest in his desire to really get to the bottom of (the nation's response to Katrina). He definitely has the benefit of the doubt, but the litmus test will be this question of White House documents."
"The president doesn't have a Blackberry," David Marin, chief of staff for the select committee, told United Press International. "Andy Card's e-mails are like the president's e-mails ... there are serious and legitimate constitutional questions about that."
Marin said the White House had provided more than 10,000 documents to the inquiry. "We are working with them," he said, adding that the inquiry was still seeking documents from there and other federal agencies. Marin said the work of the congressional inquiry -- formally called the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina -- would be judged on its report, not on how many subpoenas it issued.
Taylor and Melancon, who are taking part in the inquiry in defiance of a boycott called by House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., provide in their letter transcriptions by congressional staff of more than 60 White House PowerPoint slides from the briefing.
The two Democrats are the sole minority contingent on the panel, although they enjoy staff support from the office of Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., ranking member of Davis' government reform committee.
Marin said the Democrats' account of the White House presentation was accurate, though he added "I wouldn't have written it that way."
Rapuano "Listed literally dozens of things (the administration) did wrong," Marin told United Press International. "He acknowledged more institutional failings at the White House and elsewhere than we expected."
Marin said the briefing had "surprised" members with the length of the list of errors and mistakes acknowledged by officials. He said members were "concerned how little progress has been made since Sept. 11.
"If this is the response when we get days and days of notice, I shudder to think what might happen if an event occurred without warning," he added.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told UPI she could not comment on the accuracy of the Democrats' account, but added "The president has said he was not satisfied with the response and has taken responsibility for that."
"The president ordered this lessons-learned review and it is moving forward," she said. "We will learn the lessons of Katrina and apply the recommendations of the inquiry" to improve the nation's response to future disasters.
In their letter, Melancon and Taylor complain that the briefing was cut short, and a timeline of White House actions after the day the storm struck was not completed. Marin said the remainder would be rescheduled.
The Democrats also state that Rapuano "consistently refused to provide any specifics about conversations he and others had with top officials" like Card, Card's deputy Joe Hagin and Rapuano's immediate superior, homeland security advisor Fran Townsend.
"Rapauno did say that he had been in constant contact with Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Michael Jackson during the critical two days before landfall, but declined on advice of counsel to say whether (Homeland Security) Secretary (Michael) Chertoff was in the loop during those critical days," reads their letter. "There was someone there with him from the White House counsel's office," said one person at the meeting. "He was basically unwilling to go beyond his prepared remarks. He didn't answer any of the tough questions."
Marin disputed that characterization, saying that Rapuano had merely -- and properly -- "declined to characterize the actions or state of knowledge of other individual" members of the White House staff.
Rapuano emphasized to the briefing that a key source of the problems with the response was that federal officials were relying on state and local governments which had, in some cases, been literally swept away by the storm, to head emergency efforts.
But, according to the letter, he "could not explain why the White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not anticipate that state and local officials would be overwhelmed by the hurricane," given that such an outcome had been widely predicted.
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UPI's Brandon Thurner contributed reporting for this article.
