01st Sep 2005
Chertoff Unaware That Thousands Are Without Food in New Orleans
All Things Considered’s host Robert Siegel did an excellent job this afternoon grilling Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff over the New Orleans disaster in a seven minute interview. The best exchange was this one [quick and dirty transcript]:
Siegel: We are hearing from our reporter, and I’m not elaborating, thousands of people at the convention center in New Orleans with no food. Zero.
Chertoff: I’m telling you that we’re getting food and water to areas where people are staging. And the one thing about an episode like this, if you talk to someone and get a rumor or an anecdotal version of something, I think it’s dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place. The limitation of getting food and water to people is the condition on the ground. As soon as we can physically move through the ground with these assets, we’re going to do that. [Homeland Security has apparently not heard of boats.]
Siegel: But Mr. Secretary, when you say that we shouldn’t listen to rumors, these are things coming from reporters who have covered not only many many other hurricans, they’ve covered wars and refuge camps. These aren’t rumors. They’re seeing thousands of people there.
Chertoff: Well, I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who do not have food and water.
The 7:09-minute web clip doesn’t include this coda, but when I heard the interview sometime after 5pm EST, Siegel added a post-script that a few hours after the interview, someone from Chertoff’s office called back to acknowledge that the NPR reporter’s version of the situation was correct: thousands at the convention center with zero food five days after the hurrican, and it’s news to Homeland Security.
Later in the interview, Siegel, per his lovable wont, barely conceals contempt and sarcasm, asking:
There is said to have been a been a report in 2001 that listed a catastrophic hurricane hitting New Orleans as one of the three greatest potential disasters the country could face. As someone who inherrited FEMA and 9/11 being the preoccupation that has faced us all, have you had a plan somewhere in an office near yours that says “Huge Hurricane Hits New Orleans: Here’s What We Do in Case of That Catastrophe”?
Jerkoff (I mean Chertoff) gives some mealy-mouthed non-answer. I feel safe. (Are we still at Code Orange?)
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