Sept. 5, 2005



Dear Senator Sarbanes,



I write you again after only a few days because not only did I not receive a satisfactory response to my letter of Sep. 2, I was mocked and rebuked by your staff when I called your office to follow up on my faxed letter challenging your lack of initiative on the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. I was told, in an extremely patronizing tone, "I'm sure the Senator is doing everything he can to help the victims." Well Senator, I certainly do not appreciate being patronized to by your staff, when in fact my reason for calling was that you are not, in fact, doing "everything you can" in this effort. I have outlined below some of the actions that I, and many other Maryland constituents, would like to see acted upon immediately.



On FEMA and the Federal response:

The President of Jefferson Parish Aaron Broussard told Meet the Press today (Sep. 5) that FEMA cut his parish's emergency communications lines and he had to have his sheriff restore the severed lines and post armed deputies to ensure that FEMA did not try to cut the communications lines again. Broussard's statement: "Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, 'No one is getting near these lines.'" He also said, "that Wal-Mart had sent three trucks full of bottled water to the area, and that the national guard told them it was not needed and sent them back", and, "that a ship was in the harbor with medical supplies, personel and food, that the national guard told them it wasn't needed and refused to allow them to help out."



FEMA has bungled every stage of this emergency, including directly sabotaging emergency aid efforts. Control should be given to New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagins, the man who knows the city better than anyone. He should be directing the relief efforts, and all other agencies should report to him.



Michael D. Brown, Under Secretary for Emergency Preparedness and Response, Department of Homeland Security, and William Lokey, the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area, should be fired for incompetence. FEMA has made an absolute mockery out of this rescue and relief operation. Michael Brown is unfit for the job to which he was assigned by George W. Bush. Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, Michael Brown spent 11 years as the commissioner of judges and stewards for the International Arabian Horse Association, a breeders' and horse-show organization based in Colorado, a job from which he was "asked to resign" amidst allegations of supervisory failures (source: Sep. 4 Boston Herald) -- hardly a man qualified to oversee the largest disaster in US history (or any disaster at all).



State Governor Kathleen Blanco should also be held criminally responsible for ordering a mandatory evacuation, but not providing the means for people to evacuate. If Cuba can evacuate 1.5 million people from Havana, as they did just last month when Hurricane Dennis hit the island in a direct hit, then surely Louisiana can evacuate 250,000. There's simply no excuse for the outright incompetence of these public officials. They should be fired, or resign, immediately.



George W. Bush's actions in response to this catastrophe have been absolutely appalling. Where was he on Sunday Aug. 28, when the hurricane was clearly becoming "The Big One" that would hit New Orleans? At his ranch in Crawford, Texas, on vacation (ignoring, as he has for months, the peace delegation of mothers whose children were killed in the Iraq war, camped outside his doorstep). Where was he on Monday Aug. 29, when the hurricane hit, the levees broke and the city faced exactly the 'doomsday scenario' that had been predicted time and time again? Travelling to California and Arizona, acting as a salesman for the pharmaceutical companies, advocating new, high-priced drugs for Medicare recipients. What about Tuesday Aug. 30, as the waters rose and the city drowned? Still no word from Mr. Bush, who was busy playing guitar for a photo-op in San Diego and then rushing back to continue his vacation in Crawford. Only Wednesday Aug. 31, after flying over the region in his private jet and landing in Washington, did he make a statement at all, a statement described in a New York Times editorial as his "worst speech ever", in which he called on his dad to lead the relief effort. What kind of a 'leader' gets on television three days after the event and says he is depending on his father and former President Clinton to head up relief efforts?? Where is the leader who will say, "I will not rest until I know that every survivor of the hurricane is safe"? Where is a leader who will immediately admit the mistake of not giving the requested funds to levee restoration, and devote the needed federal money to rescue the survivors and mop up the mistake? That leader is simply not there. Instead, we have George W. Bush, who gave an interview to ABC on Thursday saying "no one expected the levees to be breached", when in fact such a scenario was listed by FEMA as one of the three most likely disasters in the US. George W. Bush needs to be held responsible for his trivializing of this massive disaster, and his failure to act, and to act appropriately.



On Foreign aid:

Condoleeza Rice said in her press conference on Sept. 2 that "I said to [the French Foreign Minister, Mr. Douste-Blazy] what I've been saying to everyone, which is that we are working very closely with the Department of Homeland Security to match up what is available with what is needed, and that I would get back to him." According to FEMA, NO foreign aid donations have yet been accepted. Many of these donations are sitting just offshore, including 1100 Cuban doctors who are extremely well-trained in hurricane response. The Cuban doctors worked wonders in Honduras when that country was hit by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 (and 11,000 were killed). Working under severe conditions, with little to no equipment, these Cuban doctors saved literally thousands of lives. Now, in the current crisis, it is not a time for the higher-ups in the Department of Homeland Security to sift through the list of foreign aid deciding which would be politically expedient for the current administration to accept, and which to reject. Now is the time to overcome political differences and accept this foreign aid which is being so graciously offered.



According to an article entitled "US declines Swedish aid - for now" yesterday (Sep. 4) in the Swedish paper The Local, "Sweden had offered to send medical and technical aid to the hurricane-ravaged southern United States, and had been planning to send a military cargo plane filled with water sanitation equipment as well as five water sanitation experts on Sunday morning. Early Sunday however, Swedish authorities received word that the US logistically could not immediately accept the aid. 'The planned... flight to the US with aid equipment from the Rescue Services Agency will not take place on Sunday,' the agency said in a statement."



ALL of the offers of foreign aid should be IMMEDIATELY accepted, including the aid from Sweden, Cuba and Venezuela.



On Domestic aid:

In a news release entitled "Cash Sought To Help Hurricane Victims, Volunteers Should Not Self-Dispatch", Release Date: August 29, 2005, FEMA listed several domestic organizations for donations.



The Red Cross is the first organization listed. Their record for aid distribution is dismal. The Red Cross, under the Liberty Fund, collected $564 million in donations after 9/11. Months after the event, the Red Cross had distributed only $154 million. The Red Cross' explanation for keeping the majority of the money was that it would be used to help 'fight the war on terror'. Then Red Cross President Dr. Bernadine Healy arrogantly responded when questioned about the withholding of funds by stating, "The Liberty Fund is a war fund. It has evolved into a war fund." Despite the family members of victims of 9/11 complaining bitterly to a House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight panel, the issue seemed to be brushed under the carpet. Congress needs to demand complete transparency of all donations to the Red Cross, and a full accounting that ensures that every cent is going to people in need -- not into the Red Cross bank account to stay.



Why is Pat Robertson's organization, 'Operation Blessing', listed as #3 on FEMA's list? Surely this man, and his organization, have been discredited, considering that Robertson recently called for the United States to violate international law and assassinate President Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected head of state in Venezuela, saying "We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability "(source: BBC News Report " Profile: Pat Robertson" Thursday, 25 August 2005, 08:38 GMT 09:38 UK). Robertson once signed a letter calling feminism a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft and become lesbians" (same source). This man is a disgrace to this country, and a search of his organization's records show that money donated to 'Operation Blessing' may well be going to support Robertson's for-profit company, African Development Co., which is doing exploratory mining for diamonds in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (source: IRS records). Pat Robertson, and his organization 'Operation Blessing', need to be subjected to a criminal investigation, NOT listed as a legitimate aid organization by FEMA.



Other voluntary aid organizations, hundreds of which are already stepping up to fill the gaping holes left by the Department of Homeland Security/FEMA, should be allowed to bring aid and supplies to those who need it in New Orleans and surrounding areas. Jason Robideaux, an attorney from Lafayette, reported on Sept. 2 that 500 captained boats from Lafayette, LA were denied entry to New Orleans to rescue survivors. It is now three days later, and many of those survivors still remain on their roofs or in their attics in New Orleans, with no water. How many have drowned in these three days because those boats were denied entry? This is unconscionable! I demand that all rescue missions be allowed entry into New Orleans, and that the blocking of the Lafayette rescue boats on Sept. 2 be thoroughly investigated, and prosecuted.



The mobilization of the military is unnecessary, and will hinder, rather than help, relief efforts. In a Sept. 2 article in The Army Times newspaper entitled "Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans", Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force, was quoted as saying, "This place is going to look like Little Somalia...We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control." A combat operation resembling the disaster in Somalia is absolutely not what is needed in New Orleans right now. While people are thirsting to death and drowning in flood waters, it is cruel and inhuman to declare a combat operation on these people. Most of those left in New Orleans are sick and elderly (despite the common media image that the city is full of stereotypical black male criminals, this is simply not the case). The military "combat operation" must be called off immediately, and replaced with a search and rescue effort to find survivors and give them medical attention, water and food.



The Federal Government should activate the Civilian Reserve Air Fleet, a major air support plan under a pre-existing contract with airlines that lets the government quickly put private cargo and passenger planes into service -- this is something that should have been done on the first day of the disaster. That it was not done before now further proves the incompetence and negligence of the governmental response to this disaster.



On abandoning New Orleans

Rep. Dennis Hastert's comment that "It looks like a lot of that place could be bulldozed," in an interview last Wednesday (Aug. 31) with the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights, Illinois, is an insult and an affront to the citizens of New Orleans, especially made, as it was, in the midst of the unfolding tragedy. Although he tempered his comment a few days later after criticism, I ask that you rebuke Rep. Hastert for his blunt disregard for the survivors who needed rescuing at the time, that you strongly uphold New Orleans' citizens' right to return and rebuild their city and challenge any politician who proposes the abandonment of this incredibly rich and diverse city.



I can provide source materials for any of the references listed in this letter. Thank you for your prompt attention to these matters.