Senate Panel says ‘Abolish FEMA’

Arrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!! Do these people just not get it? The problem with FEMA – as with every other agency since Bush took office – is that incompetent 'Buddies of George' were put in charge, instead of people who had actual experience!

Does anyone remember FEMA being this incompetent prior to the Bush administration? Could it be that FEMA did its job well prior to that because the former Presidents appointed FEMA directors who knew what their jobs were and did them? Hurricane Andrew, anyone? Hurricane Hugo? Ringing any bells there?

Simply put, the problem is not the department, it's the idiots running it. Brown (until he quit/was fired) and Chertoff, and the man who appointed them, the chief boob himself. 

From the Associated Press:

Hurricane Katrina’s latest fatality should be FEMA, the nation’s disaster response agency, a Senate inquiry concluded in calling for a government overhaul to avoid future failures like those the devastating storm exposed.

Eighty-six recommendations by the bipartisan panel indicate the United States is still woefully unprepared for a storm of Katrina’s scope with the start of the hurricane season little more than a month away.

The new authority would be “better equipped with the tools to prepare for and respond to a disaster,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who led the inquiry by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

[snip] 

Though the proposed changes do not place blame on any official or government agency, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., will offer “additional views” to the panel’s findings in a statement accusing President Bush of failing “to provide critical leadership when it was most needed.”

“The United States was, and is, ill-prepared to respond to a catastrophic event of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina,” said the recommendations. “Catastrophic events are, by their nature, difficult to imagine and to adequately plan for, and the existing plans and training proved inadequate in Katrina.”

The recommendations were being released Thursday morning and will be included in the Senate panel’s full report to be issued next week.

[snip] 

Former FEMA Director Michael Brown, who resigned under fire after Katrina, said the new agency would basically have the same mission FEMA had a year ago before its disaster planning responsibilities were taken away to focus solely on responding to calls for help.

“It sounds like they’re just re-creating the wheel and making it look like they’re calling for change,” Brown said. “If indeed that’s all they’re doing, they owe more than that to the American public.”