FEMA's leaders' experience questioned

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency is led by officials with little experience in dealing with disaster situations, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Michael Brown is in charge of FEMA and has come under criticism for what is perceived to be a slow federal response to devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, which raked the U.S. Gulf Coast last week. Before joining FEMA, Brown was commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association and had no disaster management experience, the Tribune said.

Neither FEMA Acting Deputy Director Patrick Rhode nor Acting Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks Altshuler list emergency management experience on their official résumés, the newspaper said.

While a FEMA spokeswoman told the Tribune such experience isn't as important as the "ability to keep the organization running," U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said: "Disaster preparedness, whether it's in anticipation of potential weather-related incidents or terrorist incidents requires a skill set that in my mind someone has to be trained for."