FEMA's BROWN: WHITE HOUSE LIED

Michael D. Brown, the embattled former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, testified before a Senate committee today (FRIDAY) that he told the White House about levee breaches in New Orleans the day they happened.
"For them to claim that they didn't have awareness of it is just baloney," Brown said.
In an often tense exchange, Brown told the committee that he wasn't exactly sure who he talked to from the White House staff that night, but said it was probably Deputy Chief of Staff Joseph Hagin, who he said was in Crawford, Tex., with President Bush.
Asked if he told the White House staffer specifically that the New Orleans levees had been breached, Brown said he informed him that "everything we had planned about, worried about, was coming true." He said that talking to Hagin was like "speaking to the president."
Brown's testimony was significant because White House officials have said that the levee breach caught them by surprise.
The breaching of the levees caused large parts of New Orleans to be inundated in water in the wake of the devastating hurricane. Brown was later removed as FEMA director after bitter criticism of the federal response to the hurricane.
Brown said not only did he inform the White House, but he also informed top Homeland Security officials about the situation on the same day. His comments contradicted previous statements by agency officials, who said they did not know the levees had been breached until the following day.
At the same time, Brown said he thought talking to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was a "waste of time" and that it was easier and more effective to go straight to the White House.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters there were conflicting reports about the state of the New Orleans levees after the storm hit.
"Some were saying it was over top, some were saying it was breached," he said. "We knew of the flooding that was going on. That's why our top priority was focused on saving lives.
"The cause of the flooding was secondary to that top priority and that's the way it should be," McClellan said.
Brown testified that if the hurricane had been a terrorist attack rather than a calamitous natural disaster, the federal response would have been very different. He said natural disasters "had become the stepchild of the Department of Homeland Security."
FEMA's mission of responding to natural disasters, he said, had been marginalized after it became part of the newly created Department of Homeland Security.
"There was a cultural clash that didn't recognize the absolute inherent science of preparing for a disaster," he told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. "Any time you break that cycle, you're doomed to failure."
Several Republican senators attacked Brown, while some Democratic senators defended him.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said he thought Brown had become the "designated scapegoat" for the government's sluggish response to the disaster.
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) accused Brown of poor leadership, saying strong leadership can often overcome bureaucratic problems.
"What do you want me to say?," Brown responded angrily. "I've admitted to mistakes. What do you want from me?"