Former Gov. Blanco says public deserves full story of Rumsfeld role in Katrina response [View All]

Source: Times Picayune, New Orleans

Former Gov. Kathleen Blanco today issued a statement regarding Robert Draper's article, "And He Shall be Judged," featured in the June 2009 issue of GQ magazine.

In the article, unnamed White House staffers say that stalling in the week following Hurricane Katrina between President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld delayed federal troops being sent to Louisiana until Saturday, five days after the hurricane made landfall.

-snip-

"I repeatedly asked for federal troops to handle logistics in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and believed we were going to get them -- and we should have. With American citizens dying, we should have had federal troops pouring in immediately. I always said it would take years to accurately write the history of Katrina, and sure enough the true story continues to come to light.

Unfortunately, this article reveals yet again the larger picture of why the national response was delayed while our people were in danger -- the administration was not fully engaged in the situation until it went beyond the level of a crisis.

Read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/05/former_gov_blanco_says_public.html