[Senate Hearing 109-813]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-813
HURRICANE KATRINA: THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT'S ROLE IN THE RESPONSE
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 9, 2006
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
David T. Flanagan, General Counsel
Thomas R. Eldridge, Senior Counsel
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
Robert F. Muse, Minority General Counsel
Dan M. Berkovitz, Minority Counsel, Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Collins.............................................. 1
Senator Lieberman............................................ 3
Senator Levin................................................ 19
Senator Akaka................................................ 25
Senator Dayton............................................... 28
Senator Warner............................................... 41
WITNESSES
Thursday, February 9, 2006
Hon. Paul McHale, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland
Defense, U.S. Department of Defense............................ 7
Admiral Timothy J. Keating, Commander, North American Aerospace
Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command...................... 9
Lieutenant General H. Steven Blum, Chief, National Guard Bureau.. 10
Lieutenant General Russel L. Honore, Commanding General, First
U.S. Army...................................................... 43
Major General Bennett C. Landreneau, Adjutant General, Louisiana
National Guard, and Director, Louisiana Office of Homeland
Security and Emergency Preparedness............................ 44
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Blum, Lieutenant General H. Steven:
Testimony.................................................... 10
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 78
Honore, Lieutenant General Russel L.:
Testimony.................................................... 42
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 91
Keating, Admiral Timothy J.:
Testimony.................................................... 9
Prepared statement........................................... 73
Landreneau, Major General Bennett C.:
Testimony.................................................... 43
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 109
McHale, Hon. Paul:
Testimony.................................................... 7
Prepared statement........................................... 63
APPENDIX
Post-hearing letter for the Record from Lieutenant General Russel
L. Honore dated February 21, 2006 108
Post-hearing questions and responses for the Record from:
Hon. Paul McHale............................................. 159
Admiral Timothy J. Keating................................... 167
Exhibit 5........................................................ 172
Exhibit 6........................................................ 190
Exhibit 18....................................................... 203
Exhibit 27....................................................... 236
Exhibit B........................................................ 242
Exhibit C........................................................ 255
HURRICANE KATRINA: THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT'S ROLE IN THE RESPONSE
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:01 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M.
Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Collins, Warner, Lieberman, Levin, Akaka,
and Dayton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS
Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order. Good
morning.
Today the Committee will scrutinize the performance of the
U.S. military, both National Guard and active duty forces, in
the response to Hurricane Katrina. We will analyze the
military's actions on the ground, review the military's work
with other agencies involved in the response, and explore the
relationship between the Guard and the active duty troops. In
doing so, we will examine the fundamental issue of whether the
U.S. military is properly structured to meet the 21st Century
threats to our homeland.
There is no question that our men and women of our military
shared much in common with the first responders helping the
victims of Katrina. That is, they performed very well under
extraordinarily difficult and, at times, dangerous conditions.
There is also no question that the military brought
substantial resources to relieve the suffering of the Gulf
region. From Meals Ready to Eat (MREs), vehicles, and
communications equipment to the ships that became vital
platforms for search and rescue operations, we have heard
throughout these hearings of the military's enormous
contributions to the relief effort.
There is also no question, however, that the military was
not immune from the conflicts, the confusion, and the lack of
coordination that occurred across all levels of government and
that may have prevented the response from being as quick and
effective as it should have been. Furthermore, it is apparent
that these problems existed not just between the military and
other Federal agencies, but also within the military itself.
The active duty military and the National Guard share many
traits: Unmatched material assets, experienced and dedicated
leaders, and highly trained personnel possessing courage and
devotion to duty. Yet during Katrina, the active duty military
and the National Guard at times seemed to be, to paraphrase
Churchill's famous quip about England and America, two forces
separated by a common mission.
Katrina revealed a split between Northern Command, the
combatant command focused on homeland security and created in
the wake of September 11, and the National Guard, which is
under the command of its State's Governor. The very institution
that Americans look to as a model for a unified chain of
command revealed itself to have fallen a bit short in that
regard. Better coordination between the active duty forces and
the National Guard must be ensured before the next disaster
strikes.
I appreciate the appearance today of our first panel of
very distinguished witnesses: The Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Homeland Defense Paul McHale; the Commander of
Northern Command, Admiral Timothy Keating; and the Chief of the
National Guard Bureau, General Steven Blum. I look forward to
hearing their views on these important issues.
The second panel of witnesses will describe military
preparedness and response on the ground for Hurricane Katrina.
I'm very pleased to have with us today General Russel Honore,
the Commander of the Joint Task Force Katrina, and General
Bennett Landreneau, the Louisiana National Guard Adjutant
General.
I'm interested in hearing from all of our witnesses what
problems they encountered in melding two forces into one
cohesive effort, the challenges they faced in trying to
establish a clear and effective chain of command, and the
difficulties in the relationship between DOD and FEMA. For
example, FEMA officials have told the Committee that the
Department of Defense subjected its Katrina mission assignments
to what FEMA viewed as unnecessarily protracted and detailed
reviews that delayed the requested support.
On the other hand, we know that Defense officials often saw
those same requests as vague and not clearly identifying the
exact support that was needed. ``Send us everything you've
got'' is not a reasonable request to make of a military that
bears enormous national security responsibilities around the
world.
This conflict reveals, above all, one of the fundamental
problems that the Committee's investigation has uncovered no
matter what level of government we examined, and that is the
lack of concerted pre-disaster planning so that the
expectations and capabilities are understood in advance and so
that needs can be met rapidly, effectively, and efficiently
when disaster strikes.
Among the questions I hope we will answer this morning are:
What did DOD do to prepare for this storm, both in terms of
planning and prepositioning of assets? Why didn't the
Department of Defense work through the coordination role with
FEMA before the storm, and did the failure to do so contribute
to the sense among some FEMA officials that the Department was
slow to assist in the effort?
When were active duty troops requested, and should they
have been deployed earlier? Did disputes over the chain of
command affect the timing of the deployment of troops? Why was
the command and control issue still being debated almost a week
into the disaster, and was this a distraction or worse?
If most of the work in the response was done by the
National Guard with little visibility by Northern Command, then
do we need to better define Northern Command's mission going
forward? Is Northern Command truly prepared to assist in
natural disasters as well as in terrorist attacks? What will
the Department do going forward to bridge the gaps in
coordination between the active duty forces and the National
Guard?
These questions raised by Katrina delve into the
philosophical basis of American Government, in many ways. They
bring into focus the principle of federalism and the respective
roles and authorities of 50 sovereign States under one central
but limited government.
From the founding of our Nation to the present day,
questions of deploying the military in response to domestic
crises have been of grave concern. They are addressed in our
Constitution and in laws ranging from the Posse Comitatus Act
to the Insurrection Act to the Stafford Act.
The key question for this panel is: How can we continue to
uphold the traditional principles of federalism as we confront
the challenges and threats of the 21st Century? We will explore
that question in the context of Hurricane Katrina, an event
that brought longstanding traditions and deeply rooted
political philosophy into a collision with reality.
The U.S. military, both active duty forces and the National
Guard, is unparalleled in excellence, commitment, and courage.
We must find a better way to employ this valuable resource when
disaster strikes our Nation while we continue to embrace the
principles of federalism that lie at the heart of our
governmental system.
Senator Collins. Senator Lieberman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN
Senator Lieberman. Thank you. Thanks, Madam Chairman. Good
morning to the witnesses.
As the Chairman has indicated, today's hearing is our 17th
in the Committee's investigation of preparations for and
response to Hurricane Katrina. This one offers us an
opportunity to examine a very critical question about what role
we want our military to have in dealing with the most
catastrophic of natural disasters, whether they're natural or
inflicted by terrorist enemies.
The answer to that question, of course, has both very
practical and very constitutional implications. Despite its
designation as a supporting agency under the National Response
Plan, which we've talked a lot about in this Committee, I must
say that the Defense Department's preparation and initial
response to Hurricane Katrina seemed to me to be,
unfortunately, about as passive as most other Federal agencies.
But when the military did engage, it engaged with full
force and great effectiveness. It took on the responsibilities
of many other agencies at different levels of our government.
By Thursday of the week of the hurricane, FEMA essentially
turned over its logistical obligations to the military,
resulting in a $1 billion mission assignment, the largest in
the history of FEMA mission assignments.
Members of Congress, including myself, frequently and
proudly say that the United States has the best military in the
history of the world because of the men and women who comprise
it, but also because we invest in them and our military. I
think in the days after Hurricane Katrina, we were reminded
again of the wisdom of those investments.
The military's contribution to the rescue of the
communities along the Gulf Coast that were hit by Katrina is
yet another testament to the fact that we not only have
extraordinary men and women serving in our military under
extraordinary leaders, but that the Defense Department itself
has the best communications equipment, logistical ability,
equipment generally like helicopters and boats, medical teams,
and other resources necessary to respond to a catastrophe.
The question is when and how we use those assets. Today
we're going to hear from two panels of witnesses, the senior
uniformed officers who led the operations on the ground in
Louisiana and the top civilians and uniformed officers who set
the policies and implemented the full military response.
With a few individual exceptions, the Pentagon's
preparations for this cataclysmic storm in the days before
landfall were slow and unsure. Situational awareness was poor,
and the Pentagon was hesitant to move necessary assets unless
they were requested.
Our military is superb, as those of us who are privileged
to serve on the Armed Services Committee in addition to this
one know, at planning for different threat situations. But it
does appear that the Pentagon did not do much planning in
advance of Katrina to anticipate the challenges of a so-called
Incident of National Significance, as defined under the
National Response Plan.
On Tuesday of Katrina's week one, the military recognized
that the rescue of the Gulf Coast was uncertain and foundering
under the administration of the Department of Homeland
Security. In this regard, we are indebted to Deputy Secretary
of Defense Gordon England, who that morning was watching, as
the rest of the Nation and the world were, the suffering of
people in New Orleans particularly. And he was watching on
television.
He concluded that troops and equipment needed to be
deployed immediately, without the normal paperwork. And we
thank him for that. We also thank Lieutenant General Blum for
orchestrating the deployment of thousands of National Guard
troops from around America to the Gulf Coast and Admiral
Keating for ordering the deployment of, ultimately, 22,000
active duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, and the
materiel to support them.
We are of course also grateful to the men and women in the
trenches. Under the most difficult of circumstances, Major
General Landreneau ably led the Louisiana National Guard
troops, which swelled from a force of 5,000 based in Louisiana
to an eventual force of 30,000, literally from every State in
the Union, mobilized, I believe, by Lieutenant General Blum.
Lieutenant General Honore we all got to know very well
during that period of time. He's from Louisiana. He had
previous experience in responding to hurricanes. As Katrina
approached and he was at First Army Command in Atlanta, he
followed the weather forecast and acted on that day. He asked
the Pentagon to identify equipment and assets that he knew from
previous experience would be needed if the storm was as bad as
everybody was saying it definitely would be at that time.
I hope you understand in the next sentence that I'm not
making a pun here. General Honore filled a large and visible
leadership role in New Orleans when he arrived. Mayor Nagin
actually likened him to John Wayne, which may not be far from
the truth. General Honore's conduct actually was exactly in the
forceful and decisive manner that was necessary to reassure all
who saw him there and throughout the Nation as the city plunged
deeper into the crisis.
In some sense, General Honore's presence as the top active
duty Federal Army officer there highlights the critical
constitutional questions that are at stake. How much authority
should the military have in domestic matters? We've heard and
asked much about the Posse Comitatus law here; I'm sure we'll
ask it again. And we know that this country has a tradition
which contains a strong aversion to military control in
civilian settings unless absolutely necessary. These are
difficult questions that must be studied in a thoughtful manner
and resolved in advance, not in the heat of a crisis, as
appears to have happened here.
As we learned from Governors Blanco and Barbour last week,
when disaster strikes a State, no governor in America is going
to willingly cede authority over their National Guard to the
Federal Government. But what if there is a catastrophe so great
that the National Guard is overwhelmed, as the New Orleans
Police and the firefighters were in the Hurricane Katrina
situation?
What if, God forbid, the disaster is an unexpected
terrorist attack without the warning that the weather experts
gave us about Hurricane Katrina coming? Is federalization then
necessary to bring all the critical resources of the military
to bear? Hurricane Katrina showed us that we need to define
where that line is drawn to the best of our ability and define
it ahead of the crisis.
Governor Blanco testified to the pressure that she felt
from the White House to federalize her National Guard. She said
she thought the pressure resulted from considerations that were
not purely military, but political, calling it ``posturing
instead of a real solution.'' I'd like to ask some of our
witnesses to help us better understand what that was all about.
Hurricane Katrina also revealed some uncertainties and
tensions between the Pentagon, NORTHCOM, and the National Guard
Bureau regarding the military's role in domestic crises. Our
Committee has learned through interviews and documents of some
disagreements about the degree to which the Defense Department
should operate on U.S. soil, and these disagreements may have
limited the military's response time and effectiveness in this
case because of the initial hesitation to deploy active duty
troops or even to preposition assets before Hurricane Katrina
made landfall and before the Department of Defense was
requested to do so.
Once again, the fictional Hurricane Pam exercise made clear
that local and State resources would immediately be overwhelmed
by a Category 3 or higher storm, which Katrina was. The
National Response Plan (NRP) had been in place to guide all
Federal agencies in the event of such a catastrophe.
But instead of using the NRP to address in advance these
matters related to a catastrophic event and to resolve
bureaucratic differences and construct a comprehensive action
plan, the Federal Government appeared to be operating without
that advance implementation of the NRP and therefore too much
on the fly.
And the roles of the military, National Guard and active
duty, look to have been part of a response that was cobbled
together as the week went on instead of in advance. It is a
great tribute to our military that it and the men and women who
wear the uniforms nevertheless performed so well.
I'm sure all of our witnesses would agree that's no way to
manage a crisis of this magnitude, without the necessary
planning and pre-training for it. It's certainly not what we
envisioned when this Committee led in the creation of the
Homeland Security Department. The lack of a plan led to
unnecessary confusion, unnecessary bureaucratic struggles and,
I'm afraid, more human suffering than should have occurred.
This hearing can and, I'm confident, will, help us resolve
some of those questions so that we do better next time when, as
I've said earlier, we may not have the advance notice that we
had in this occasion. I look forward to the testimony of the
witnesses, and I thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
I'm very pleased to welcome our first panel this morning.
Paul McHale is the very first Assistant Secretary of Defense
for Homeland Defense. Admiral Timothy Keating is the Commander
of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace
Defense Command. And Lieutenant General Steven Blum is the
Chief of the National Guard Bureau.
I'm going to put more extensive introductions into the
record, but I know we're eager to proceed at this point. But I
want to thank each of you for your long career in public
service, and I want to share with my colleagues an interesting
fact about General Blum. And that is that his son serves in the
Maryland National Guard and was deployed during Hurricane
Katrina to assist in Louisiana. So I think that's an
interesting little fact for our Committee.
This is an ongoing investigation, so I'm going to ask that
you stand, and I'm going to ask that the second panel stand at
the same time so that I can swear you all in.
Do you swear that the testimony you will be giving to the
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you, God?
Secretary McHale. I do.
Admiral Keating. I do.
General Blum. I do.
General Honore. I do.
General Landreneau. I do.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Secretary McHale, we're going
to begin with you.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. PAUL McHALE,\1\ ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE FOR HOMELAND DEFENSE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Secretary McHale. Senator Collins, Senator Lieberman,
Senator Levin, Senator Dayton, good morning. I have submitted
my formal statement for the record, and Madam Chairwoman, with
your consent, I'll simply proceed to a brief and relatively
informal opening statement.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Secretary McHale appears in the
Appendix on page 63.
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Chairman Collins. Thank you. Your full statement will be
included in the record.
Secretary McHale. In order to maximize the time for
questions, including what I hope will be detailed follow-up
questions on the important points that were raised by Senator
Lieberman, my opening remarks will be brief and to the point.
The Department of Defense response to Hurricane Katrina was
the largest, fastest deployment of military forces for a civil
support mission in our Nation's history. That is a fact.
Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast during the
early morning hours of August 29. By landfall plus 5, more than
34,000 military forces had been deployed into the affected
area. That's more than five times the number of military
personnel deployed within the same time frame in response to
1992's Hurricane Andrew.
By landfall plus 7, more than 53,000 military personnel had
been deployed in response to Katrina, three times the
comparable response to Hurricane Andrew. And by September 10,
military forces reached their peak at nearly 72,000, 50,000
National Guardsmen and 22,000 active duty personnel, a total
deployment for Katrina more than twice the size of the military
response to Hurricane Andrew. In scope and speed, no civil
support mission in the history of the United States remotely
approaches the DOD response to Hurricane Katrina.
The Department of Defense received 93 mission assignments
from FEMA and approved all of them, and contrary to some of the
statements that have been made to you previously, both during
hearings and during questioning by Members of your staff, we
respectfully disagree, very forcefully disagree, with the
characterization that the processing and ultimate approval of
those requests for assistance took an undue amount of time.
I would hope that we would pierce the rhetoric of past
criticism, look to the documented time frame for the approval
of those requests for assistance (RFAs), and focus on the
complexity of those RFAs, and in that context, I believe that
we worked very effectively. And I invite your questioning on
those points.
Many of these mission assignments were approved verbally by
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Acting Deputy
Secretary of Defense Gordon England and were in fact in
execution when the paperwork caught up days later. I want to
assure the Members of this Committee: Our Department felt a
sense of urgency before, during, and after landfall and acted
upon it. And the record well documents that activity.
In addition to the 72,000 men and women in uniform, the
Department of Defense coordinated the deployment of 293 medium
and heavy lift helicopters, 68 airplanes, 23 U.S. Navy ships,
13 mortuary affairs teams, and two standing joint headquarters
to support FEMA's planning efforts.
DOD military personnel evacuated more than 80,000 Gulf
Coast residents and rescued another 15,000. Military forces
provided significant medical assistance, including 10,000
medical evacuations by ground and air, the delivery of medical
treatment to more than 5,000 sick and injured persons, as well
as support for disease prevention and control. DOD committed
more than 2,000 healthcare professionals for civil support
contingencies and approved six bases as FEMA staging areas.
When violence erupted in New Orleans, Lieutenant General
Blum, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, coordinated over a 3-
day period the deployment of 4,200 National Guard military
police and security personnel into New Orleans, dramatically
increasing the security presence. The President deployed 7,200
active duty military personnel for humanitarian relief. Their
presence, in combination with National Guard security forces,
restored civil order in the City of New Orleans.
DOD delivered critical emergency supplies: More than 30
million meals, including 24.5 million MREs and some 10,000
truckloads of ice and water. As noted by Senator Lieberman a
few moments ago, in a single RFA processed within a 24-hour
period of time, we took on a $1 billion civil support mission
to provide full logistics support throughout a two-state area.
No RFA of that complexity had ever been considered, let
alone processed and approved, within 24 hours, contrary to the
express criticism stated on the record to this Committee by
previous witnesses. Their timeline was factually inaccurate.
In short, we believe that DOD met its civil support mission
requirement and did so because our men and women in uniform
acted to minimize paperwork, cut bureaucracy, and provide much-
needed capabilities with a sense of urgency. The domestic
deployment of 50,000 National Guardsmen from all 50 States,
three Territories, and the District of Columbia was
historically unprecedented and central to the success of our
total force mission.
In closing, fully consistent with the observations made by
Senator Lieberman, our performance was not without defect. We
did very well, but there are areas, many in the same areas
tracked by Senator Lieberman in his opening comments, where we,
too, believe that we must do better next time around. Many of
the areas identified by the Senator were in fact first
identified by our Department during internal after-action
reviews. And let me touch on those very briefly.
Our performance can be improved. DOD communication with
first responders was not interoperable. Early situational
awareness, as noted by the Senator, was poor, a problem that
should have been corrected following identical damage
assessment challenges during Hurricane Andrew.
Military command and control, as noted, was workable but
not unified. National Guard/Joint Staff/NORTHCOM planning,
though superbly executed, was not well integrated. Our task-
organized deployment reflected the total force, but our
planning did not.
The roles, missions, and authorities of DOD in responding
to catastrophic events need to be examined. Portions of the
National Response Plan need to be reviewed and perhaps
rewritten. With the disestablishment of JTF Katrina, the
Department shifted from response and recovery operations to a
focus on a comprehensive after-action review of our response to
Hurricane Katrina. We performed well. We were not passive. We
were not slow.
The execution of the missions met or exceeded any standard
previously set for civil support missions in the history of the
United States. We take pride in that. But with equal
conviction, we are absolutely committed to better performance
the next time around. We do intend to get better.
My colleagues and I would welcome your questions following
the opening statements by the other two witnesses.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Admiral Keating.
TESTIMONY OF ADMIRAL TIMOTHY J. KEATING,\1\ COMMANDER, NORTH
AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND AND U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND
Admiral Keating. Madam Chairman, good morning. Members of
the Committee, good morning. And thanks for the opportunity to
appear before your Committee this morning.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Admiral Keating appears in the
Appendix on page 73.
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A couple of key points that I would like to make in
addition to the formal opening remarks that we've submitted for
the record that you've indicated would be included. From the
U.S. Northern Command perspective, we were directed by the
Secretary of Defense to support the National Response Plan, and
we did so. We supported the Department of Homeland Security and
the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief
efforts.
Now, as you know, the National Response Plan and Title 10
statutes define U.S. Northern Command's responsibilities and
authorities for civil support. From our perspective, hurricane
relief was conducted as a coordinated effort among Federal,
State, and local governments, as well as nongovernmental
organizations. Our experience in exercises before Hurricane
Katrina and since demonstrate that we have adequate capability
to meet homeland defense and civil support crises.
I'd like to point out that cooperative efforts with allies
from around the world, over 100, particularly Canada and
Mexico, paid dividends during and after the catastrophe. The
global community rushed to offer humanitarian assistance to the
U.S. We're grateful for their generosity.
As Secretary McHale mentioned, we're now engaged at
Northern Command in a comprehensive after-action review of our
Nation's response to Hurricane Katrina. We, the U.S. Northern
Command, have sent over 50 representatives to the Gulf Coast
and other areas to talk with Federal, State, and local
officials. Their critical lessons learned report will improve
future civil support operations. Of this I'm confident.
We're anxious to engage in discussions regarding the
Defense Department's role and U.S. Northern Command's role in
disaster response and the authorities required for Department
of Defense action. It's important to note, I think, that
throughout this operation, Katrina and Rita, we at Northern
Command did not lose focus on our primary mission, homeland
defense. We were ready and able to thwart any attempt by our
adversaries to exploit this tragedy.
In closing, I would recommend to you that the men and women
of the U.S. Northern Command are resolutely committed to our
mission to deter, prevent, and defeat attacks by those who
would threaten our United States. I look forward to your
questions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Admiral. General Blum.
TESTIMONY OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL H. STEVEN BLUM,\1\ CHIEF,
NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU (NGB)
General Blum. Good morning. Chairman Collins, Senator
Lieberman, distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you
for the opportunity to discuss the National Guard's role in the
preparation and response to Hurricane Katrina here today.
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\1\ The prepared statement of General Blum with attachments appears
in the Appendix on page 78.
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The National Guard, as you know, is no longer a strategic
reserve. It is an operational force at home. It has always been
an operational force for the past 368 years. We are your
military first responders for homeland missions.
The National Guard is an essential part of the Department
of Defense. As such, the National Guard soldiers and airmen
continue to answer the Nation's call to duty. America's
governors, through emergency management assistance compact
agreements, at the request of the governors of the affected
States, rapidly fielded the largest National Guard domestic
response force in the history of our Nation in the wake of
Hurricane Katrina.
At a time when the National Guard had over 80,000 citizen
soldiers and airmen deployed around the world in the Global War
on Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other regions, soldiers
and airmen, as you said, from every State, all 50 States, the
Territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia, all responded to the
area. Not a single National Guard failed to respond to
Hurricane Katrina.
The Guard responded in record time with a record number of
troops, as has been stated, over 50,000 Army and Air Guard
members at its peak. The National Guard forces were in the
water, on the streets, and in the air throughout the affected
region rescuing people, saving lives, all within 4 hours of the
hurricane winds clearing and allowing the recovery efforts to
start.
The Guard had more than 11,000 citizen soldiers and airmen
involved in these rescue operations on August 31. The National
Guard amassed an additional 30,000 troops in the following 96
hours. There were more than 6,500 in New Orleans alone by
September 2, 2005. The fact that the National Guard units were
deployed in Iraq at the time of Katrina did in no way, in any
way or any measure, lessen the Guard's ability to respond with
trained and ready personnel and equipment.
The National Guard was the first military responder, as it
should be, beginning rescue operations, as I said, within 4
hours of the storm's passage. Guardsmen provided to the
disaster area by the Nation's governors rescued more than
17,000 American citizens by helicopter alone, evacuated and
relocated another greater than 70,000 American citizens to
places where they could have hope and start recovering their
lives.
The National Guard restored order and assisted in recovery
efforts. The National Guard pilots flew thousands of sorties
over long hours without a single mishap. Never before in our
history has the National Guard responded so quickly and so well
to such a dire need of our fellow American citizens here at
home inside the United States.
As provided by the National Response Plan, the National
Guard's immediate response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster
was, as I said, unprecedented in military history. We did not
wait. We anticipated needs. We responded immediately and, I
feel, very effectively. The National Guard delivered when and
where they were needed, often getting formal requests long
after the delivery of the capability.
Can we do better? In a word, absolutely, we can do better.
The National Guard must be better equipped for these missions
here in our homeland, for homeland defense and to support
homeland security missions. The interagency and
intergovernmental relationships are absolutely fundamental to
the success of a Federal response in any disaster, and we must
continue to foster even stronger relationships between the
National Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S.
Northern Command, and the Department of Defense.
The track record of the National Guard in response to
Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that whether overseas or here at
home, America's National Guard is ready. It's reliable. It's
accessible. And it's absolutely essential to the security of
this Nation.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, General.
Admiral Keating and General Blum, I'd like to read to you
from the National Guard's after-action report concerning
Katrina. In your exhibit books, it's behind tab No. 27.\1\ The
part I'm going to read is also on the poster before you.
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\1\ Exhibit 27 appears in the Appendix on page 236.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
According to the report, ``With few exceptions, the
National Guard Joint Task Force elements had significant
command and control difficulties while trying to respond to the
disaster. These difficulties were compounded with the
deployment of Title 10 forces''--in other words, active duty
forces--``into the Joint Area of Operations, and lack of
command and control coordination and poor communications
between Title 10 and Title 32 forces were significant issues.''
It goes on to say that the disconnect between the Guard and
the active duty command and control structures resulted in some
duplication of efforts. It gives as an example that the 82nd
Airborne moved into a sector that was already being patrolled
by two National Guard units. In addition, our investigation has
indicated that there was duplication in helicopter missions,
with two helicopters sent on the same rescue missions, which
arguably delays the rescue of other victims.
From your perspective, and I'm going to start first with
you, General, what should be done in the future to avoid the
command and control difficulties that the Guard's after-action
report very candidly says were problems during Katrina?
General Blum. I'll be honest with you, Chairman. I do not
professionally or personally subscribe to what I'm reading on
this chart. And I doubt that was rendered by the National Guard
Bureau. It certainly was not rendered by me. It does not
reflect my professional feelings of what occurred during that
time.
Was there perhaps a duplication of effort? It's certainly
possible. What you described, the 82nd being assigned to a
sector where people were already performing missions, you could
call that duplication. I could call that an expansion of
capabilities because the 82nd could assume a role and a mission
that they could perform very well, and that would free up the
troops that were doing other things to do things, frankly, that
they could do without the limitation of Posse Comitatus. So it
actually may have been a very good thing.
When I was asked about the ordering of Federal troops into
the area, there was never one time that General Blum or the
National Guard Bureau pushed back. They were welcomed. I had my
faucet turned on full volume. I was doing everything the
National Guard could possibly do through EMAC and the
affected--and the donor States that sent their personnel and
equipment and expertise.
And having someone at the Federal level opening up a second
spigot, so to speak, to allow more capability to flow in faster
and expand our ability to render positive effects, reduce
suffering, save people, and restore order quicker were
welcomed. At no time did I see a difficulty with the command
and control structures that were in place. It was all about
unity of effort in my mind. Unity of command does not guarantee
unity of effort. Unity of effort guarantees success, and I
think we achieved that.
So I don't really know who the author of this is.
Chairman Collins. Let me show you the report because it is
a report dated December 21, 2005, ``National Guard After-Action
Review, Hurricane Response, September 2005.'' And it has the
seal, Departments of the Army, and the Air Force and the
National Guard Bureau.
It's a very extensive report, which we've read thoroughly,
and this is one of the key observations. In fact, it's the very
first observation that is in the summary. So I'm surprised that
you're not familiar with it or disagree with it.
General Blum. I, too, am surprised. I'm not familiar with
it. But I stand on my sworn statement. And what I said now,
today, many months after the hurricane is exactly what I felt
during the time the hurricane was occurring and the response
was occurring.
I think what you're trying to get is how I really feel
about it, and I just stated that.
Chairman Collins. It is.
Admiral Keating, what's your reaction to the command and
control issues? Did you see difficulties or confusion from your
perspective at Northern Command?
Admiral Keating. From our headquarters, Madam Chairman--the
last sentence on the slide, there were Title 10 forces and
Title 32, previous to that, State active duty forces deployed
to the area. And if that results--and there was extensive
coordination between the National Guard Bureau and Generals
Cross and Landreneau through Russ Honore and Task Force Katrina
up through our headquarters to the Department of Defense. We
were in, at least once a day, a teleconference with the
Secretary of Defense. Steve Blum and I were participants, as
was Secretary McHale.
So there may have been tactical disconnects between troops
on the ground in an area where communications were a challenge,
and there may have been duplication of effort. Your point that
if there are two helicopters going to spot X, that may mean no
one goes to spot Y.
I don't think that happened. I think because of the volume
of response that there were command and control challenges, but
there was extensive coordination. And there's a difference in
that Russ Honore couldn't tell elements of the Emergency
Management Assistance Compact assembled Guard forces what to
do, nor could they tell General Honore what to do. But I know,
for a fact, that there was frequent, near-continuous
communication and coordination.
So the bottom line there, I'd say, I don't disagree that
there had been times when Title 10 and Title 32 forces may not
have been crystal clear on what they were doing. But there was
extensive coordination. And I don't know that I would say it
was a duplication of effort. It was a harmony of effort, and it
was a comprehensive lay-down of those capabilities that were
resident in uniformed forces, whether Guard or active.
Long answer to a short question. I don't think it was a
critical factor in the execution of our mission following
Katrina.
Chairman Collins. Secretary McHale, in the four previous
instances in which the National Guard and active duty forces
were together, used on domestic missions, a single dual-hatted
commander was designated as the commander for both the National
Guard and the active duty military forces, with a dual
reporting line up the chain of command and to the State's
governor.
Well, let me ask you the question: Should there have been a
single commander, a dual-hatted officer, in the case of Katrina
to coordinate the active duty and the Guard?
Secretary McHale. No. We, in the military, in looking at
the goal of maximum operational effectiveness, routinely try to
achieve at least two things: Unity of command and unity of
effort.
The Constitution of the United States was not written to
support maximum effectiveness in military operations. The
Constitution was written to establish a Federal system of
government under that document, and that means that inevitably,
at the beginning of a domestic military mission, the governors,
pursuant to their authorities under the Constitution, will have
command and control of their State National Guard forces. The
President and the Secretary of Defense, under Article II of the
Constitution, will command the Federal forces.
So we start any domestic mission with a breach in that
principle of unity of command. The way in which that breach is
addressed in a crisis circumstance is through the
federalization of the Guard, often combined with an invocation
by the President of the Insurrection Act. That is a very
significant decision, particularly when exercised in the face
of opposition by the affected governor.
In this case, recognizing that we started with a division
in the command structure, with the governor in command of
National Guard forces and the Secretary of Defense in command
of Title 10 forces, though we could not immediately achieve,
unless we invoked the Insurrection Act and the federalization
of the Guard, unity of command, we could achieve unity of
effort. And that means that instead of a command relationship
over all those forces, you respect the normal Constitutional
paradigm and insist upon close coordination among those forces.
And what happened was throughout the course of the
execution of the mission, the Secretary of Defense was in
routine daily contact with General Honore and Admiral Keating
to ask General Honore how that coordinating relationship was
working with the National Guard. And General Honore, as he will
tell you, gave repeated assurances that the relationship was
working well, that he and General Landreneau had a good
relationship, and although there was not technical unity of
command, there was unity of effort.
If that relationship had broken down, the Secretary of
Defense would have known about it immediately and an
appropriate recommendation could have been made to the
President. But in light of the assurances that the relationship
was working, achieving unity of command, one person in charge,
stripping the governor involuntarily of her command and
control, was not the right course of action.
Chairman Collins. Are you aware that the White House
proposed a dual-hatted officer to achieve unity of command to
Governor Blanco?
Secretary McHale. Senator, I'm not only aware of it, I
recommended that to the Secretary of Defense. He reviewed that
recommendation, concurred in that recommendation, and took it
to the President for the President's consideration.
Chairman Collins. Just to clarify your previous response,
then, I'd asked you whether you thought there should have been
a dual-hatted officer; you said no.
Secretary McHale. In retrospect, that's correct.
Chairman Collins. OK.
Secretary McHale. At the time that we were looking at that
goal of unity of command, and in light of the fact that on four
previous occasions during the previous 12 to 18 months we had
in fact used that procedure, a dual-hatted command, a National
Guard officer in command of both National Guard forces and
active duty forces--we used that paradigm at the G8 Summit. We
used it at the Democratic and Republican conventions. We used
it for Operation Winter Freeze along the Canadian border. That
was a reasonable concept to consider.
And it was presented to the governor for her consideration.
That would not have stripped her of her command. That would
have brought into the charge of a single officer unified
command under both the President and the governor. Governor
Blanco rejected that proposal, and we went forward with the
coordinating system that I described a few minutes ago. And, in
fact, that worked well.
So I believe it was prudent to consider a dual-hatted
command. I frankly have reservations now whether that approach
should be used in a crisis environment. And based on the
positive relationship between Major General Landreneau and
General Honore, in retrospect I'm glad that we did not invoke
either a dual-hatted command or the statutory authority under
the Insurrection Act.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
Let me say to my friend Secretary McHale in response to
your opening statement, which I appreciate, that, again, when
the military swung into action here, National Guard and Title
10 active military, the contribution made was extraordinary and
just critical.
And my concern, as I look back at this, because in a
catastrophe of this type time is obviously of the essence, is
that the majority of the assets didn't come in until the week
after landfall. The National Guard was obviously first and
mobilized by Wednesday. The active duty military didn't fully
come in until the following Saturday.
So I think the question we would ask, really thinking about
the next catastrophe, is: Do we want to be in a position to
have both the National Guard and active duty military move more
quickly with the extraordinary resources they have? It's not an
easy question. It's a little easier in hindsight.
I will tell you that in a totally separate field, the Coast
Guard--because this is their work, normally they saw the
weather forecasts. Beginning Friday before the Monday of
landfall, they began to preposition assets in the region and
personnel so that when it hit on Monday morning, they were
ready to be out there Monday afternoon.
And I think that's the question we've all got to ask
ourselves when we see really a big disaster coming, whether we
want also the Guard and/or the active duty military to be ready
to swing into action.
I want to go back and ask a couple of questions about
planning. Admiral Keating, as the Chairman said, you are the
second Commander of Northern Command, which was established in
2002 as the combatant command responsible for military
operations in the continental United States, obviously part of
a reaction to September 11, 2001. As part of that, NORTHCOM was
assigned--was designated as the combatant commander responsible
for all defense support to civil authority, so-called DSCA
missions within the continental United States.
In addition, in January 2005, the Federal Government
essentially updates, broadens, deepens what was the Federal
Response Plan into the National Response Plan. We've talked
here about the emergency support functions. DOD is given a
backup role on--as far as I can see--every ESF there.
As you look back, do you think that the Department of
Defense, specifically NORTHCOM, from 2002 did enough planning
to be ready to quickly implement or activate its responsibility
under the defense support to civil authorities ideal?
Admiral Keating. Senator, I do think that we were--we have
on the shelf, and had on the shelf pre-Katrina, our CONPLAN
2501. That's a concept plan. It is a comprehensive approach to
providing defense support to civil authorities, as you say,
across--and what areas of consequence management would we, as
the DOD's local commander, be required to provide to support
civil authorities. That is a plan ready to be approved by the
Secretary, and it is on our shelf.
Senator Lieberman. And sir, to interrupt very briefly----
Admiral Keating. Sure.
Senator Lieberman [continuing]. That would cover both
natural disasters and a terrorist attack?
Admiral Keating. It is--yes to the natural disasters. And
we have a separate plan, CONPLAN 0500, for chemical,
biological, radiological, nuclear, and high yield explosives.
So that family of plans we think covers the span of
consequences to which we would be directed to reply. So we have
both plans on the shelf.
The challenge, Senator, I think, is exercising those plans.
Senator Lieberman. Literally to exercise in advance of the
catastrophe, you mean?
Admiral Keating. Precisely. To duplicate the total
elimination of infrastructure, as witnessed in Southern
Mississippi actually more dramatically than in New Orleans----
Senator Lieberman. Right.
Admiral Keating [continuing]. We simply cannot replicate
that in the field. We have done tabletop exercises. We've done
computer war games at several war colleges. We work with our
friends in the commercial industry as well. Coors Brewery, as a
matter of fact, runs significant exercises here right in--close
to us.
So we have the plans on the shelf. The challenge is
exercising those plans in the field with sufficient fidelity to
duplicate--to provide sufficient challenge to us to execute
those plans and to consider the second, third, and fourth order
consequences of a significant disaster.
Senator Lieberman. Yes. So in that sense, you wish you had
been able to exercise those plans more before Katrina hit?
Admiral Keating. Yes, sir. I do.
Senator Lieberman. And Secretary McHale, I see you
agreeing. Is anything being done to try to create--
understanding the difficulties you've described, to create the
opportunities to exercise those plans? Secretary McHale, you
want to get into this?
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. The observation made by the
Admiral is correct. And I think everyone in the Department of
Defense, both in the Pentagon and out in the operating forces,
would welcome the opportunity for more frequent, more
challenging, more realistic catastrophic scenarios to test our
capability to respond.
And in fact, that kind of catastrophic series of scenarios
forming the basis for a coordinated series of war games was
underway prior to Katrina. We had developed a proposal that was
then underway--frankly, Katrina caused part of it to be
postponed--to deal with catastrophic events, not major
disasters. We have 50 to 60 major disasters a year,
presidentially declared. We're talking about a level of
destruction that equaled or exceeded the kind of loss that we
experienced real world in terms of the aftermath of Katrina.
And so, not only can I tell you do we believe that should
take place, I can reassure you it was underway prior to
Katrina. And we're talking about things such as multiple
nuclear explosions, multiple RDDs----
Senator Lieberman. Right. Worst case scenarios.
Admiral Keating [continuing]. Category 5 storms over major
American cities.
Senator Lieberman. But we live in that kind of reality
today.
Admiral Keating. Yes, sir.
Senator Lieberman. So those are the worst case, but it's
important to exercise for them.
Our own review, as we go over what the Pentagon did before
landfall, does include, Admiral, NORTHCOM deploying Defense
Coordinating Officers to the region. Correct? Do you remember
what day that was done on?
Admiral Keating. We had Defense Coordinating Officers in
place, according to our timeline, Senator, on Friday, August
26.
Senator Lieberman. That sounds right to me.
Admiral Keating. Three days before landfall.
Senator Lieberman. Here's an interesting exchange I want to
ask you about. I mentioned that General Honore, at First Army
Command on Sunday, August 28, was agitated by what he was
seeing, and sends the request, which is Exhibit B.\1\ He sent
it to NORTHCOM and to the Joint Staff asking that assets be
identified that in his experience with hurricanes would be
required within the first 24 or 48 hours--helicopters, boats,
medical capabilities, communications equipment.
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\1\ Exhibit B appears in the Appendix on page 242.
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He sends the list, and he receives an e-mail response from
General Rowe at the Pentagon----
Admiral Keating. Senator, General Rowe is our----
Senator Lieberman. I'm sorry.
Admiral Keating. Yes, sir--was our operations officer.
Senator Lieberman. Correct. He gets a response from him
that they're working on it. Then on August 29, which is the day
of the landfall, he gets another response from General Rowe. I
can't resist reading the first two words from Rowe to Honore.
``Sir, hooah.'' Right?
Admiral Keating. That's a technical term, sir.
Senator Lieberman. Yes. I'm familiar with it. ``Joint
Forces Command reviewing joint solutions from force
providers,'' which had been provided at that time, possible--
but in the meantime, the storm has already hit. And then he
says, ``Somewhat hamstrung by JDOMS desire to wait for RFAs.''
And the translation being hamstrung, I presume, because of a
decision to wait for the request, the RFAs, from FEMA to act.
In fact, our indication is that FEMA finally did ask--had
asked on Sunday, August 28, for some helicopters. They were
approved on August 29 and did not arrive until August 30. I'm
glad that they arrived on August 30, but obviously, if they had
arrived on August 29 and been able to go out in the afternoon
or whenever the storm had subsided, it would have been a lot
better situation.
How do you respond to General Rowe's statement that he was
hamstrung by this waiting, this decision to wait for FEMA to
request? And I suppose in retrospect, Secretary McHale, Admiral
Keating, should we next time be in a position where you don't
wait, where you decide--you've got General Honore seeing this
coming. He's made a request. And in a sense, like the Coast
Guard, because that's the way they operate because this is
their normal business, you just get ready to go and you go?
Secretary McHale. Sir, we didn't wait. And the comment that
you quote from JDOMS was not reflective of either how the
leadership at the Pentagon viewed the issue or how we
operationally responded. We were a whole lot closer to the
mindset of General Honore and General Rowe. And in fact--I
don't know if this is the appropriate time--we can go back a
week before landfall, and day by day, with a sense of urgency,
bring to your attention in a manner that is absolutely
documented the proactive preparation that we put in place in
advance of landfall on August 29.
You mentioned the RFAs that had come in. The simple fact is
every RFA that had come in at that point was promptly approved,
vocally, I believe, and we deployed those assets--including
helicopters, most especially helicopters, for search and
rescue--as fast as was humanly possible under the
circumstances.
Senator Lieberman. Well, that's my question in part.
Because let's say the two helicopters had been--I'm asking the
question; I assume they hadn't been prepositioned close by--
then they would have--if asked for by FEMA on Sunday, August
28, presumably they wouldn't have had to wait until Tuesday
night, August 30, until those helicopters arrived, and they
were desperately needed on Monday afternoon and Tuesday.
Secretary McHale. They were desperately needed. We moved as
quickly as was humanly possible. And as we look at your very
legitimate question, the underlying point is: What is the
expectation--certainly not reflected in the current National
Response Plan--in terms of the timeline of DOD's response in
support of another lead Federal agency?
When you can get helicopters there within 24 to 48 hours of
the event, that makes you virtually a first responder. That's
the standard we met. If that isn't fast enough, if we expect to
have helicopters in significant numbers there within hours
after the event, that is going to require a change in the
national paradigm in terms of what we expect of the Department
of Defense as a secondary mission often in conflict with, in
terms of resources, our primary mission to fight and win wars
overseas.
So if the expectation is going to be--it wasn't on August
29----
Senator Lieberman. I agree with you.
Secretary McHale [continuing]. But if the expectation is
going to be a 24-hour or less response, we're going to have to
train and equip and assign missions to the Department of
Defense according to a different paradigm. Based on the
paradigm we had in place, our response was very fast.
Senator Lieberman. I think you've raised very important
points, and that's why I think we're all looking back. Do we
wish that you had--that essentially the paradigm had been
different, the National Response Plan had been different, and
that the Pentagon had been operating under a plan that would
have required you in this circumstance to preposition assets as
the storm was approaching and then be ready to move quickly?
You moved very quickly when asked. Obviously, the full
force of the----
Secretary McHale. Sir, we did preposition assets. And that,
as I say to my friend and a former attorney general, I hate to
challenge your reliance on a fact not in evidence. But we did
preposition assets, and as early as August 23, a week before
landfall, I turned to an Air Force colonel, who is seated
behind me, Rich Chavez, and when I found out that there was a
tropical depression 400 miles off the coast of Florida a week
before landfall in Louisiana, I instructed Colonel Chavez to do
a complete inventory of DOD assets that might be available to
assist FEMA in this case.
And I instructed him to look to the force package we had
used the year before for the four hurricanes in Florida to
assure that those assets would be in place. Pursuant to that
guidance, Colonel Chavez did that on August 23, a week before
landfall, before Katrina even had a name. And we had that
complete inventory compiled.
We were extremely proactive in anticipating well in advance
of landfall the kinds of capabilities we would have to employ.
Senator Lieberman. OK. My time is up. Still, the fact is
the great bulk of the Federal forces obviously didn't move in
until the Saturday afterward. But the helicopters, the two
helicopters that were requested, and the fact that they arrived
30 hours after--well, they arrived actually 2 days after
requested, and those were 2 critical days. We can come back to
this.
Secretary McHale. And I would welcome that, sir, because I
think that is the issue. And we ought not to draw a
distinction--because we don't in the Pentagon or in our
strategy for homeland defense and civil support--between our
active forces and our reserve component forces. We believe in a
total force.
And the force flow, both Guard and active duty, was huge
during this period of time. And it wasn't by accident that the
Guard forces got there in large numbers ahead of the Title 10
forces, based on the strategy we published in June that I
believe was validated by Katrina. For domestic missions, it
makes a great deal of sense to rely primarily on the National
Guard, their capabilities and speed of response, and then to
augment our Title 10 forces in support of the Guard as
required.
So it wasn't delay, it was design that moved a huge number
of Guard forces in initially, followed by very substantial
forces from the active component.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Levin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN
Senator Levin. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Thank you to each
of our witnesses, not just for being here today, but for your
service to this Nation. We're grateful for that.
Admiral, what was your position on whether the Guard forces
that flowed into Louisiana and Mississippi were sufficient to
meet the States' needs?
Admiral Keating. Throughout the early days on Tuesday,
Wednesday, into Thursday, Senator, we were confident that the
numbers flowing were appropriate and adequate. And from our
headquarters, Senator and Madam Chairman, and this kind of goes
to Senator Lieberman's point, it's not so important to us as to
numbers. It's capabilities. And we end up with 22,000 or so--
22,500 for active forces.
The number is of little consequence to us. It's the
capability resident in the forces deploying. And so if it's a
National Guardsman from Connecticut, that's great. If it's an
active duty force out of the 82nd Airborne, that's great.
Senator Levin. It was your judgment at that time through
Thursday that the forces were adequate, the National Guard?
Admiral Keating. The flow was--the forces and the
capabilities----
Senator Levin. Including their capabilities. But the
National Guard forces were adequate for the job.
Admiral, there's an Exhibit C\1\--there was a message that
came from General Rowe, who's your J-3----
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\1\ Exhibit C appears in the Appendix on page 255.
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Admiral Keating. Correct.
Senator Levin [continuing]. To General Honore, James
Hickey, who was with General Honore, and that's Colonel Hickey.
And here's what the message said. It said that ``the governor
has asked that Federal troops pick up the rest of the tasks
being uncovered by the Guard.'' There was a desire to
concentrate the Guardsmen in New Orleans for law enforcement
and security tasks, but the governor specifically asked for
Federal troops to pick up the rest of the tasks.
Now, that message was Wednesday, August 31. And the
response that came back was as follows, from General Honore to
you, essentially, which is, ``Push back. I will see the
Governor today.'' So what General Honore--and we'll be able to
talk to him later, except I won't be able to be here, so we'll
need your view on this for my purposes--General Honore was
telling you at that point to push back on that request. Is that
fair?
Admiral Keating. Yes, sir. It is fair.
Senator Levin. All right. Then, at the same time that was
going on, General Honore sent a message to General Amos at the
Marines, with a copy to you, saying to the Marine commander,
the Marine general, ``Hello, brother. Get here as fast as you
can.'' And a copy of that came to you.
What did you make of that, when you received that message
at the same time you were--I guess literally within an hour of
each other, you were getting two messages from General Honore,
one saying, push back against the governor's request for
Federal troops, and then you get a copy of a message from him
to General Amos at the Marines saying, ``Brother, get here as
fast as you can''? What did you make of that?
Admiral Keating. I talked to Russel about it that afternoon
or the next morning, Senator, and I don't remember precisely.
As I recall, the issue became for the specific application of
those forces. We had missions that we were looking to do in
Mississippi that were completely separate and distinct from,
obviously, the missions in New Orleans, writ small, and
Louisiana, writ large.
My understanding at the time was the National Guard forces
were principally going to New Orleans, and a good number of
them, at that time 4,500 or so, were military police, separate
and distinct from the forces that Russ might need throughout
the rest of Louisiana and in Mississippi. So different
requirements, is how I interpreted it, and as we discussed, as
I recall the conversation the next morning. Different
requirements.
Senator Levin. So that it was your understanding from
General Honore when you talked to him that this was not
inconsistent with his saying to you, push back against the
governor for Federal troops?
Admiral Keating. It was not inconsistent sir.
Secretary McHale. Senator, what was the date on that, if I
may ask, sir?
Admiral Keating. Wednesday, I think.
Senator Levin. Both were Wednesday, August 31.
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir.
Senator Levin. The first message from General Honore was
Thursday, September 1, at 11:46 a.m. The other message on
Thursday, September 1, was at 1:46 p.m.
Secretary McHale. Sir, I think the explanation is that on
Wednesday of that week, General Amos was in command of both
aviation and ground forces in the Marine Corps. The Marine
Corps forces that were then headed toward the AOR were aviation
assets, principally helicopters and some medical capabilities.
And they were desperately needed, and they had to get to the
AOR as quickly as possible.
Marine Corps ground forces weren't deployed until the
following weekend. So when we think of Marine Corps assets, we
should not assume that we're talking about infantry. The assets
were moving on ship, and they were primarily helicopters and
medical personnel, desperately needed.
Senator Levin. Those were not the Federal troops that the
governor was asking for?
Secretary McHale. That's correct. and that's why it is
consistent to say, we don't need light infantry, for instance,
out of the 2nd Marine Division under General Amos, but we do
need Marine Corps helicopters and medical capabilities out of
Marine Corps aviation, also under General Amos.
Senator Levin. Now, when General Honore told you, Admiral,
that you should push back against the governor's request, it
was also stated at that time, I believe, that the Office of the
Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff agree with that. Is that correct?
Admiral Keating. As I recall, that's correct, sir.
Senator Levin. All right. Now, on Friday, another message
was sent from General Honore to General Amos. And that was an
expletive ``hitting the fan. Get here as fast as you can.''
Was that something which also referred to different assets
than the governor wanted, as far as you can--when you got a
copy of that message?
Admiral Keating. Yes, sir.
Senator Levin. OK. Now, I want to get to this unity of
command issue because I must say, Secretary, I have trouble
with your explanation to the Chairman's question.
At the time that you were recommending to the governor that
there be unity of command, you believe that was the better
course. Is that correct? But subsequently, or at some later
point, you felt that it was a mistake to make that
recommendation to the President. Is that a fair summary?
Secretary McHale. I think that's a fair summary. During
that week sir, at that very point in time, anyone who was
watching TV saw that the situation of civil disorder was bad
and getting worse in New Orleans. There was a concern with
regard to how we might achieve unity of effort, and therefore
we thought about ways in which we might achieve unity of
command.
Having used the dual-hatted approach four times
successfully in the previous year, year and a half, we
certainly looked at that as an option. And I recommended it to
the Secretary, and he brought it to the President's attention.
Senator Levin. Isn't that ordinarily the better course of
action, to have unity of command?
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. It is.
Senator Levin. Either in the Federal or the State officer?
Secretary McHale. From the standpoint of operational
effectiveness, yes, sir, that's true. The challenge here is
that we've got a Constitution that has been drawn in a way that
it conflicts with unity of command because it gives command
authority both to the governor and to the President.
Senator Levin. But the Constitution is consistent with
unity of command where there's an agreement on it. Is that not
correct?
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir, and that's really where we were
coming from. We sought the governor's agreement. We presented
to her a concept that would have preserved her command
authority but would have unified that command in the hands of a
single officer who also would have been responsible to the
President. She then rejected it.
Senator Levin. And that's ordinarily the better course of
action, is that there be unity of command. And if she had
agreed to that, there would have been unity of command?
Secretary McHale. Well, sir, that's what brought us to that
recommendation. But in retrospect----
Senator Levin. OK. I'm running out of time.
Secretary McHale. In retrospect, the disagreement at the
level of chief executives has led me to conclude that in a
crisis environment, unlike preplanned events, in a crisis
environment dual-hatting is probably not an effective approach.
Senator Levin. In general?
Secretary McHale. In general, in a crisis environment. I
anticipate that in a non-crisis environment, a national special
security event, it remains a very viable alternative.
Senator Levin. All right. I've got to disagree with you on
this. It seems to me in a crisis environment, providing there's
planning in advance, it may be the most essential place for
unity of command. But that's just my opinion.
Secretary McHale. Well, that's not what I said, sir. Unity
of command can be achieved, but not through dual-hatting
because a dual-hatted command falls apart if you have a
difference of opinion between the two executives. And in a
crisis environment, I think it's almost inevitable that a
President and a governor will have differences of opinion. To
put an officer in the crossfire between the two of them, I
think, is untenable.
Senator Levin. Doesn't dual-hatting give unity of command
at least in one person?
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. Who then is responsible to two
chief executives.
Senator Levin. I understand. But there's one person who has
that unity.
Who were the Marines, when they were deployed, commanded
by?
Secretary McHale. Are you talking about the ground forces,
sir?
Senator Levin. Yes.
Secretary McHale. The ground forces were deployed by
Presidential order on Saturday.
Senator Levin. But hadn't they previously been deployed by
the Marine commander without that Presidential order?
Secretary McHale. I'm not aware of that. It was First
Battalion----
Senator Levin. Were you aware of that, Admiral?
Admiral Keating. The aviation assets. Yes. There were
Marine helicopters in the AOR. Yes, sir.
Senator Levin. Right. That were under whose command when
they were deployed?
Admiral Keating. Mine.
Senator Levin. But there was no Presidential order for that
at that time?
Admiral Keating. There was not. We were acting on verbal
orders authorized by then-Acting Secretary England.
Senator Levin. OK. But there had been a verbal order prior
to your order?
Admiral Keating. You bet. Yes, sir.
Senator Levin. Got you.
Secretary McHale. Sir, what we had done was we had chopped
the aviation assets.
Senator Levin. OK. Final question to General Blum. Your
answer on this assessment, this National Guard assessment, to
the Chairman is striking that you were not familiar with this
until today because it really is a very--it gives an overview
about the command and control difficulties.
I'm just curious if you could for the record----
General Blum. Yes, sir.
Senator Levin [continuing]. You won't know today because
you've never seen this before--let us know who prepared this
Guard Bureau report.
General Blum. Well, certainly, sir, I could tell you what
it is. It's an after-action report. It's a compilation of
observations by people who viewed the situation, and probably
with somebody in my Joint Operations Center, one of my watch
officers or someone like that, who made a--from their point of
view, that's what they saw.
They didn't have the total perspective that I did. And it's
probably an accurate and valid validation that they would come
and make sworn testimony that's the way they saw it.
Senator Levin. I got you.
General Blum. I don't happen to subscribe to that because I
saw the whole--the big picture.
The other point is, to help you a little bit, I think, with
your dilemma, sir, on asking Admiral Keating and the Secretary
about the Federal forces, if I could refer you to this chart
over here.\1\ On the day in question, we had over 10,000,
growing to 20,000, soldiers that were on the ground and closing
on Louisiana and Mississippi.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ National Guard Chart appears in the Appendix on page 82.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
And I was in communications through telephone with General
Honore on a pretty frequent basis, as well as Northern Command,
as well as Secretary McHale, as well as General Landreneau in
Louisiana and Hack Cross in Mississippi. And they were telling
me that the flow of the National Guard forces that they
requested were arriving at the rate with the right capabilities
to do the jobs that they wanted done and were satisfied that
what we had promised Governor Blanco and Governor Barbour were
in fact arriving in time to meet their requirements.
So this is in the early stages of the response. And
remember, the National Guard, both Army and Air Guard, are DOD
assets that we share with the people who are in charge. There
is unity of command. That's called a governor. The governor is
the Commander in Chief. All of this military support is to
civil authorities. That civilian authority is the governor in
the State.
There were five States affected, not just Louisiana. Texas
saw it the same. Governor Perry saw it the same way. Governor
Blanco saw it the same way. Governor Barbour saw it the same
way in Mississippi. Governor Riley saw it the same way in
Alabama. And Governor Bush saw it the same way in Florida.
They see it as they are the elected civilian leader, and
they are in charge of the event. All of the military forces
that come into that State are coming there to support them,
whether they're sent by the President or they're sent by their
other governors through EMAC.
When they show up into the State, if they're in the
National Guard, they work for the Adjutant General of the
State. All the governors agree to that. If Federal forces come
into the State, they respond to a Federal chain of command, but
the job they're doing is in support of those elected governors.
So there really is--now, unity of command is----
Senator Levin. General, my time is way overdue.
General Blum. All right, sir.
Senator Levin. I think we understand that.
General Blum. Trying to be helpful.
Senator Levin. The question is whether those Federal forces
should have come earlier at the request of the governor or
whether there should have been a push back at that time. And I
think if you had to do it all over again, they would have come
in earlier rather than later. I think that's the bottom line in
terms of that push back comment.
Secretary McHale. Sir, in all fairness, I'm not sure that,
in terms of the expectations of the NRP and the very proactive
planning of the Department of Defense that went well beyond
waiting for requests for assistance, to move up the timeline of
active duty forces much more quickly than we did will require a
very fundamental review of what we expect of the Department of
Defense domestically if we are to be first responders.
And in retrospect, we wish in this case someone had been a
more effective first responder. But if we are to be the first
responders, you have to change the character of the training
and the equipment, as well as the legal authorities of the
Department of Defense.
Senator Levin. That's clearly true. This isn't first
responder. This is Wednesday. This isn't Saturday or Sunday or
Monday or Tuesday. That is a Wednesday request.
Secretary McHale. We had forces flowing before landfall,
and it takes a while to move ships.
Senator Levin. Thank you. Thank you all again for your
service.
General Blum. Sir.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Akaka.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA
Senator Akaka. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. Welcome
to our panels this morning.
Admiral Keating, the DOD strategy for homeland defense and
civil support gives NORTHCOM responsibility for all States
except my own state of Hawaii and U.S. Territories,
possessions, and freely associated States in the Pacific. These
areas fall under the responsibility of the U.S. Pacific Command
for all homeland defense and civil support efforts.
While NORTHCOM's overall mission is designed around the
homeland defense and civil support mission areas, PACCOM's
primary mission is not homeland defense, in part because PACCOM
has significant war fighting responsibility for over 105
million square acres of the world. As a former director of the
Joint Staff, you have intimate knowledge of all the combatant
command capabilities.
Will you please describe how you are working with PACCOM to
ensure that the Pacific Command is capable of responding to a
natural disaster in Hawaii and the Pacific Territories, should
the need arise? For example, have you conducted any joint
disaster recovery meetings with PACCOM? This has been a long-
standing question, and there has not been a written answer. So
I'm asking for your advice on this.
Admiral Keating. Yes, sir. And thanks for the question,
Senator. We have as recently as October conducted an extensive
exercise in the field, in the water and in the skies and on
land around Alaska. And it involves forces that were
operationally controlled by the Pacific Command and tactically
controlled in the course of the exercise by Northern Command.
Admiral Fallon is a good friend of mine, as you might
suspect. We work with his command on the formulation of these
two plans that I discussed earlier, CONPLAN 2501 and 0500. They
were a full party to the development of those plans. Their
plans reflect the work that we have done with the Department of
Homeland Security and other agencies.
So there is extensive cooperation and coordination. We have
a Pacific Command officer full-time in our headquarters. So I'm
satisfied, and I can report to you that we work closely with
Pacific Command in the formulation of our plans and in the
exercise of the plans as recently as October.
Senator Akaka. Yes. And this has been a concern in Hawaii--
--
Admiral Keating. Yes, sir.
Senator Akaka [continuing]. As to who do we look to for any
first response help.
General Blum, did preexisting relationships between senior
military officials enhance DOD's ability to achieve what we're
talking about, unity of effort? Do you think that preexisting
relationships did achieve that?
General Blum. Yes, sir, I do. In fact, without those
relationships, the difficult tasks that were achieved between
the Department of Defense, the Joint Staff, U.S. Northern
Command, the National Guard, Russ Honore's task force, and the
National Guard Adjutants General in the five States affected
would have been impossible.
So I have to say that the previously existing relationships
were a key to the successful response that DOD played for
Hurricanes Katrina, Wilma, and Rita, that shortly came after.
The answer is yes, sir.
Senator Akaka. Yes. Would the unity of effort concept work
if such relationships did not exist?
General Blum. They would be extremely more difficult to
achieve without those relationships.
Senator Akaka. Secretary McHale, would you comment on that?
Secretary McHale. Sir, I agree completely with General
Blum. It is vitally important that we establish those kinds of
relationships. There's only so much you can do on paper. The
relationships between commanders, between human beings, between
departments, in face-to-face confidence built on prior
relationships, that is of enormous value in a crisis
environment to cut through the paperwork and achieve
decisionmaking and operational deployment in an effective
manner.
This is not about--the strategy you cited was written in
our office. We have an expression in the military: As soon as
you cross the line of departure, you can forget about the
paperwork. There are operational requirements. A strategy is
helpful, but those peer-to-peer relationships of trust and
confidence make it happen.
Senator Akaka. Well, thank you so much for that.
Secretary McHale, a memo issued by former Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in March 2003 giving guidance on the
implementation of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Homeland Defense states, ``To focus the use of
resources in preventing and responding to crisis, the Assistant
Secretary of Homeland Defense will serve as the DOD domestic
crisis manager.''
Will you please explain what authority you have to deploy
DOD resources during a domestic crisis?
Secretary McHale. Sir, I have no authority to deploy
resources except the authority that is granted narrowly to me
by the Secretary of Defense in a given circumstance. Command
and control going back to Goldwater-Nichols, 1986 in the
Congress, establishes a chain of command that goes from the
President to the Secretary of Defense to the combatant
commander, and the deployment of forces falls squarely within
the responsibilities of that chain of command. So only someone
who is vested with command authority--I do not have command
authority--can deploy forces.
Now, during the course of Hurricane Katrina and on many
other occasions in the last 3 years, I have had management
responsibilities, not command responsibilities. And what that
means is I try to gather as much information as I can, I bring
it promptly to the attention of the Secretary of Defense, I
offer a recommendation to the Secretary, and then he makes the
decision.
The only caveat to that is during Katrina, probably a third
of the way into the deployment, the Secretary of Defense, under
very narrowly defined circumstances, delegated to me
decisionmaking authority. And in his name, I did approve the
deployment of forces under circumstances where it was difficult
to get the Secretary's direct approval.
The purpose was to speed up that decisionmaking process.
And whenever I made a limited number of decisions under that
circumstance, I promptly advised the Secretary of Defense of
the fact that I had made such decisions.
Senator Akaka. Secretary, as the DOD domestic crisis
manager, are you the point person with whom all other Federal
agencies and State and local officials interface during a
domestic crisis?
Secretary McHale. The answer to that is yes, sir. But it's
a little more channeled than that. While we do interface with a
multitude of Federal agencies and departments simultaneously,
and we have a whole staff led by Colonel Chavez that does that,
most of that communication under the National Response Plan is
first channeled to the Department of Homeland Security.
The Department of Homeland Security has the lead under the
National Response Plan. And while we interface with all the
Federal agencies, in a crisis environment probably 90 percent
of our communication is with DHS because they have the Federal
lead and we are in support of their mission.
Senator Akaka. Secretary McHale, Deputy Secretary England
called Admiral Keating and instructed the Admiral that NORTHCOM
should push DOD resources to the disaster site in anticipation
of receiving a FEMA mission assignment. Were you involved or
notified of this decision?
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. I was in the meeting--that's
dated August 30, I believe?
Senator Akaka. I don't have the date.
Secretary McHale. My belief is that the communication
between the Deputy Secretary and Admiral Keating took place on
August 30. And it followed a meeting that I had attended with
the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, and others early that morning. And the sense of urgency
that is clearly implied by the content of that communication
had in fact been guiding our Department for more than a week
prior to that communication.
We felt a sense of urgency. We leaned forward well beyond
waiting passively for RFAs. We tried to identify assets, deploy
them, and move as quickly as was humanly possible to include
most especially the rapid deployment of National Guard forces.
So yes, sir, I was aware of that communication and had
participated in the meeting that immediately preceded it.
Senator Akaka. Madam Chairman, if I had more time, I wanted
to compliment our military for what had happened in 1992 in
Hawaii when we had Hurricane Iniki, and how well it moved with
Admiral Chuck Larson as the CINCPAC head.
We arrived at 3 a.m. in the morning, and he called us
together. To make it quick, he said, when you get in there,
provide all the supplies and equipment that's needed. And as
soon as you begin to do that, begin to plan to get out. And
anything you do, you do by consulting the Mayor of Kauai.
And it worked out so beautifully. The people of Kauai were
so happy that when the military moved out, they had banners to
say, ``Mahalo,'' which is ``thank you,'' to them for what they
did to help the people of Kauai. And we need to make sure that
all Americans are afforded the same level of cooperation and
coordination. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Dayton.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAYTON
Senator Dayton. I'm impressed by your testimony, and I
trust you understand we're Monday morning quarterbacking here,
obviously. And I'm reminded what President Eisenhower said--I'm
paraphrasing a bit--but that any 8th grade student of history
can make better decisions in hindsight than a president or a
general can in the midst of the battle.
But we are--and I agree with Senator Lieberman's
observation. And I'm glad that it is being modeled because I
think we are, in a sense, using this as a learning experience
for what we need to do legislatively. I'm impressed that the
Constitution is first and foremost before you and that you're
following that as you understand it, and others with you. And
that's refreshing to know. And it is important.
But I think, what Senator Akaka just said about
interjecting also at the local level, the mayor. At what point
does this plurality of command, or responsibility, I guess, the
governor, a mayor, Federal agencies, FEMA--at what point does
that get overwhelmed by the magnitude of the event such that
there does have to be a shift? And who makes that decision?
I think that really is the crux of some very critical
issues here. And certainly we need to know, is there anything
in terms of legislation or in terms of what we impose as
restrictions that are impeding that decisionmaking and that
response?
As part of that, Mr. Secretary, I wonder if you could
elaborate on your relationship with FEMA. And you talk about
being in support of FEMA. You said in your written testimony
that on Thursday, August 25, DOD augmented its liaison officer
at FEMA with three emergency preparedness liaison officers.
Where is that occurring? Is that in New Orleans? Baton
Rouge? Washington?
Secretary McHale. That reference, sir, I believe was FEMA
headquarters here in Washington, DC. I'll take both parts of
your question in the order in which you presented them.
The Constitution is lots of things, but it's not a model of
efficiency. It wasn't designed to be efficient. The system of
checks and balances brings inevitable----
Senator Dayton. Sorry. I've got limited time. I'm agreeing
with you.
Secretary McHale. Well, on the question of FEMA, what we
have done is we have established over a 3-year period of time a
very close working relationship, particularly in a crisis
environment, with DHS and with FEMA. And so we have a full-time
staff that is co-located with the Homeland Security Operations
Center over in the Department of Homeland Security. In a crisis
environment, as indicated in the note that you cited, we send
additional officers under the authority of our staff over to
FEMA to be co-located at FEMA headquarters here in Washington,
DC.
Admiral Keating has the authority, and he exercised the
authority, to forward deploy Defense Coordinating Officers and
their teams in the field in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, in
this case, to be co-located with FEMA. We had two Joint
Headquarters that we deployed to be co-located with FEMA.
We made it a focused-intent effort on our part to establish
the closest possible working relationship with FEMA to include,
you'll see in the record, on August 31, I called Mike Brown. I
indicated to Mike Brown that we had two very talented officers,
two colonels, that we would make available to him to augment
his personal staff to ensure better connectivity and support
between FEMA and DOD. He accepted that offer, and those
colonels were deployed and promptly joined him in New Orleans.
Senator Dayton. Following that, then, sir, according to
your written testimony, on Thursday, September 1, FEMA made a
request to DOD to accept the responsibility to provide ``full
logistics support'' through the entire area. That's at the time
where the levees have broken----
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir.
Senator Dayton [continuing]. Forty eight hours before. The
civil order, disorder, is kind of overwhelming the local law
enforcement. Then your next page, I just want to be clear that
full logistics support, that includes, then, as you out line
here, search and rescue, security assessment, command and
control infrastructure, geospatial surveillance, firefighting,
health and medical support, disease prevention, quarantine
planning, debris removal, and restoration of basic utilities?
Secretary McHale. No, sir.
Senator Dayton. Is that full logistics support?
Secretary McHale. No, sir.
Senator Dayton. What is that?
Secretary McHale. And this comes----
Senator Dayton. You're also being asked for that as well.
Secretary McHale. Well, we were asked for that over the
weekend. And the FEMA witnesses who have conferred with the
Committee confused those two packages of requests for
assistance. Here's the chronology.
On Thursday, we got the largest request for assistance in
the history in the United States. And it wasn't anything other
than, ``full logistics support throughout the entire area of
responsibility.''
Senator Dayton. What does that mean, then, please?
Secretary McHale. Well, that's what we asked. And over a
period of time, in consultation with FEMA and the Homeland
Security Operations Center, we got a better understanding of
what they meant by ``full logistics support,'' and we helped
them in that effort.
Senator Dayton. Over a period of time? What period are we
talking? Days? Weeks?
Secretary McHale. Within 24 hours, we received that request
for assistance. It had an estimated cost of $1 billion. It
ultimately covered two States and all the disaster areas. And
within 24 hours, approximately after the receipt of that
request for assistance, which came in on Thursday, it was
approved by the Secretary of Defense on Friday, and I
communicated that approval, as did others, to senior officials
at the Department of Homeland Security. So that was the first
RFA, the largest----
Senator Dayton. So what constituted, then, in this instance
``full logistics support''? What were the components of that?
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. We viewed it, in consultation
with DHS, the provision of food, ice, fuel, restoration of
transportation systems, and items of that type. We conferred
with the Joint Staff, General McNabb, who is the J-4 on the
Joint Staff. He assured the Secretary of Defense and me that we
could execute that mission. And we promptly said yes.
Now, that was a very broad, fairly loosely defined mission
requirement. But in a crisis circumstance, we felt that we
should take that on, and we did.
Senator Dayton. I'm sorry to be interrupting, but my time
is limited.
Secretary McHale. That's all right, sir.
Senator Dayton. Is this the first instance in which that
kind of full logistics support was requested of DOD? Who
provides these in lesser emergency situations?
Secretary McHale. A request of that type, fortunately for
our country, is unprecedented.
Senator Dayton. All right.
Secretary McHale. It came in on Thursday on a single 8\1/2\
by 11 sheet of paper. It said nothing more than what I have
just quoted to you. We discussed it with DHS and FEMA. We
refined it a little bit to make sure that we had the capacity
to meet the requirement. The Secretary was convinced that we
could meet it. He approved it, and we communicated that late
Friday afternoon back to DHS. And I sent an e-mail to Deputy
Secretary Jackson about 7 o'clock Friday night confirming the
Secretary's approval.
Senator Dayton. That's the first package, as you've
described it.
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. And that was a single RFA.
Senator Dayton. Then the second package is this search and
rescue, security assessment, etc.?
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir. That was a separate package.
What happened there, very briefly, was on Saturday morning I
met across a table with Deputy Secretary Jackson. We talked
about the challenges that had been experienced in the very
chaotic circumstances of the previous week.
I asked Deputy Secretary Jackson to discuss with me the
anticipated mission tasks that we could expect DOD to provide.
He and I sat down and drew up a list of about a dozen mission-
essential tasks, which were the missions, the mission areas,
you quoted a few moments ago.
On Sunday, while the Secretary of Defense was in New
Orleans, that list was reviewed by senior officials in the
Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security.
There were seven requests for assistance in that package. They
totaled about three-quarters of a billion dollars. And they
were approved vocally by the Secretary of Defense on Monday.
So on Friday, we had vocal approval of a $1 billion RFA,
and on Monday, we had a second series of RFAs with a cost
estimate of three-quarters of a billion dollars, also vocally
approved by the Secretary of Defense. There was no delay at all
in that process.
Senator Dayton. Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Secretary. But I've
got to get my questions in here.
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir.
Senator Dayton. Fast-forwarding, now, we're in a situation,
as described in the Washington Post today, ``New Orleans is a
Gordian knot of complications.'' Everything seems to be
snarled. Vast sections of the city are still without utilities.
We saw this when the Chairman and the Ranking Member--I
accompanied them and others just about 3 weeks ago down to New
Orleans and Mississippi. But in New Orleans, it says here an
estimated 50 million cubic yards of hurricane and flood debris;
of that, only about 6 million has been picked up.
So initially--and I'm not faulting you with this; I just
want to understand why so little has gone from the point of
obviously overwhelming impact? If you have at one point
initially responsibility for debris removal, restoration of
basic utilities, how long did you maintain having that
responsibility? At what point and to whom did that
responsibility shift?
Secretary McHale. We provided support to the lead Federal
agency, DHS and FEMA, for about a 5 to 6-week period of time.
At the end of that period, perhaps even a little less than
that, we began the retrograde of our forces--Admiral Keating
can address that--in close coordination with the Department of
Homeland Security.
And so we began to--we built up our force very quickly. And
then as soon as civilian authorities were able to step into the
breach in a coordinated retrograde, we began to remove our
forces from the area of responsibility so that today, for
instance, there are no active duty military forces committed to
the mission. There are about 2,000 National Guard forces
committed. But they, too, are expected to be retrograded by the
end of this month.
So what you're describing as the current situation has once
more, and in fact several months ago, been transferred back to
civilian authorities.
Senator Dayton. So the Federal Government is providing $80
billion now, or $62 billion that the Congress has approved,
another $18 billion that the President has requested. And that
goes down to, at this point, then, the governor and the rest of
this State and local civilian authorities, and they have the
operational responsibility--if debris is not being removed, if
basic utilities are not being restored, who's responsible for
that at this point in time?
Secretary McHale. Sir, I can answer that, but I'm probably
not qualified to do so. So I'll exercise some unusual
restraint. All I can tell you is that is no longer a DOD
mission. We transferred that mission back to civilian
authorities approximately a month after landfall.
Senator Dayton. In closing, I'd just say, General Blum,
when we were down in Mississippi and New Orleans, they're not
putting up banners down there. If they are, they're
unprintable. They have bumper stickers down there related to
FEMA that are printable but not appropriate for this setting.
But in both Mississippi and New Orleans, from the governors
and the local officials, there was very high praise for the
National Guard and their response. And I share that with all of
you.
General Blum. Thank you.
Senator Dayton. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam
Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
General Blum, I want to go back to the National Guard
after-action review. Because as you can see, this is a
voluminous report. You testified earlier to me and to Senator
Levin's question, in response to our questions, that you hadn't
seen this report and that you disagree with the findings that I
read to you.
I want to point out that this report refers to the National
Guard Bureau and specifically to J-7. Now, is that one of the
directorates on your staff?
General Blum. Yes, it is, and from their point of view,
what they have in there may be their life experience and
absolutely truth as they see it. The problem is, the J-7
doesn't have the total picture. An after-action review, that
200-some page document that you have, is a compilation of all
the lessons learned as they saw it.
Now, that gets further refined, and will ultimately come to
me to say what we really do need to do. And I've already done
some of that with the more critical issues. There's probably
lots of goodness in that. Perhaps 90 percent of that document
may be absolutely accurate and valid.
But that particular paragraph that I saw displayed on the
chart does not reflect my professional or personal feelings,
and I don't think it accurately presents the overall picture of
what was going on with DOD, the Joint Staff, Northern Command,
General Honore's Joint Task Force in the two States. And I
thought that I owed it to you to give you ground truth.
Chairman Collins. You do, and I appreciate that. I do want
to point out to you that the NGB J-7 analyzed, in compiling
this, after-action reports from the Army National Guard, the
Air National Guard, the National Guard Bureau Joint Staff,
lessons learned liaison officers deployed to the areas of
operations, the NGB public affairs office, the NGB Judge
Advocate General's office, as well as a structured hot wash
conducted in Texas at the very end of September.
So it isn't as if this is the opinion of one narrow
directorate. It's a directorate that did what appears, from the
description on how this report was compiled, a very thorough
assessment across the board of after-action reports. So I
wanted to clarify that as well.
And I guess my final question on this report for you is: I
understand that you personally disagree with the findings that
I read to you, but are you saying that it's the official
position of the National Guard Bureau that the findings that I
read you on command and control are inaccurate?
General Blum. The paragraph that you exposed me to today,
the official findings are what I say, I am the Chief of the
National Guard.
Chairman Collins. Right. That's why I'm----
General Blum. Ultimately, I am the final word on what the
Guard's opinion is on that. And I've shared that with you now
twice, and I stand by it.
Chairman Collins. Right. I just wanted to be very clear on
this because it's unusual to have a report that comes from your
bureau----
General Blum. No, it really isn't. And any time you do an
after-action review of a complex operation, you will see many
refracted versions of the truth. We're hearing some of it this
morning. Perception is not always reality. It is my job to look
at the whole picture. What they are holding are several pieces
of the puzzle, several tiles in a mosaic. I happen to see the
view of the entire thing from a vantage of perspective that
they did not have.
Chairman Collins. Right. But your J-7 talked to the Army
National Guard, the Air National Guard, the public affairs
office, and the JAG office. This wasn't just a narrow section.
And I just want to get that on the record.
General Blum. I am not attacking the job they did, nor
the----
Chairman Collins. I fully understand your personal views.
Thank you.
General Blum. OK. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Admiral Keating, I want to go back to the
time frame on the deployment of active duty troops. Governor
Blanco told us that she asked for the deployment of Federal
troops on August 30. On August 31, two key active duty units,
the 82nd Airborne Division and the First Cavalry Division, were
put on heightened alert. But they were not actually deployed to
the disaster area until September 3.
I'm trying to get a better understanding of why the troops
were not deployed earlier. You have the request from the
governor on August 30. You have the heightened alert given to
these two key units on August 31. But they're not actually
deployed until September 3.
Admiral Keating. Yes, ma'am. And that timeline is accurate.
Those forces in question, the 82nd Airborne, First Cavalry, and
some elements of Marine units from both coasts, represent less
than a third of the total active duty forces committed.
While they were somewhat prominent in that their role in
New Orleans was significant, and they're readily identified by
their red berets, I would hasten to point out to you and to the
Members of your Committee, we had active duty forces there
before the hurricanes hit. We were deploying--because of the
authorities that Secretary England gave me--ships, airplanes,
Air Force personnel who were opening up airports, literally as
the hurricane was clearing the central part of our country.
So those forces in question, yes, ma'am. Identified,
prepared to deploy order--is the term we give them--on
Wednesday of that week. Didn't get the authority to move them
until Friday night and Saturday of the week after landfall.
Less than a third of the total active duty forces committed to
the actual rescue operation, however.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Secretary McHale, I appreciated the candor in your earlier
testimony this morning talking about the relationship between
DOD and DHS and the very different perceptions on how the
process works. And as you've correctly pointed out, we've had
testimony, sworn testimony, before the Committee which paints a
very different picture from your perception of how the process
works.
So I'd like to follow up on the issue of mission
assignments for a moment. The Stafford Act--which is the law
that authorizes mission assignments, as you're well aware--is
very clear in the authority that it gives to the President,
which he has designated to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
And that authority is to direct--that's the word that's used--
direct any Federal agency, with or without reimbursement, to
utilize its authorities and resources in support of State and
local assistance efforts.
Now, the word ``direct'' in my judgment does not suggest
any room on the part of the agency that's asking for help to
negotiate terms with the--or I should say on the part of the
agency that's been asked for help to negotiate the terms of
that help.
I want to get this clear in the record because we have been
told repeatedly by FEMA officials that DOD is alone among
Federal agencies and departments in requiring an often lengthy
period of negotiations before it will accept a mission
assignment. In other words, other agencies just take the
mission assignment from FEMA and go forth and do it. FEMA tells
us that DOD even rejects the term ``mission assignment'' and
instead says that these are simply requests for assistance. Big
difference.
The White House, in a briefing, recently told us that to
enter into a mission assignment, FEMA and the Defense
Department undergo this 21-step process. And the White House
said, that's too long. It's got to be streamlined in some way.
Now, let me say that I think DOD got some assignments from
FEMA that lacked clarity, that were vague--take over logistics,
what does that mean? But I am troubled about the DOD approach
that the Pentagon has the ability to treat these as requests
when the law says that agencies are directed to comply. Could
you comment on this issue further for us?
Secretary McHale. The description that has been given to
you by past witnesses with regard to the chain of command is
accurate. The description given to you in seeking a change in
the law on that subject indicating undue delay in processing
RFAs is inaccurate. So the rationale for the argument is false,
although the description of the authorities as they currently
exist is accurate. Let me backstep a little bit.
The Department of Defense is unique under the Constitution
and under the Goldwater-Nichols Act. There is a military chain
of command from the President to the Secretary of Defense to
Admiral Keating out to his operating forces.
We have taken the position that, under existing authorities
and as a matter of policy, placing a FEMA official or a DHS
official in command, placing that civilian outside the
Department of Defense within the military chain of command,
violates Goldwater-Nichols and is a bad idea.
You can decide whether or not it would have been a good
idea for Secretary Brown to have command authority over General
Honore's forces in New Orleans. We take the position that only
General Honore should have command over his forces.
The historic term is a request for assistance. The term
used more recently by FEMA is a mission assignment. We do push
back on that because we do not believe that the chain of
command within the military, though we want to work closely and
in a supportive and efficient way to assist FEMA, giving FEMA
actual command authority over military forces places a military
commander in the field in a very difficult position. Does he
listen to the PFO or does he listen to the Secretary of Defense
in receiving his orders?
With regard to the facts that they have presented, and
Senator, I would say in a very respectful way, it really isn't
our perception. Those who criticized us were factually wrong.
They confused two different sets of RFAs. The $1 billion RFA,
it's well documented, was processed and approved within 24
hours. The seven RFAs initially generated by Deputy Secretary
Jackson and me over the weekend were approved verbally by the
Secretary of Defense.
I can tell you, in a crisis, there are no 21 steps for
approval. It involves frequently a phone call from the Homeland
Security Operations Center, from Matt Broderick to me or to
another official in DOD; a review by the Joint Staff; a
conference with the combatant commander; and a prompt
presentation to the Secretary of Defense, who's not at all
hesitant to make a firm decision very promptly.
We decided almost $2 billion worth of RFAs between Friday
and Monday. I don't know that human beings can assess such
complex missions and approve them more rapidly than that. And
that's the documented record.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thank you. General Blum, I'm interested
in the way we talk about dual-hatting with the National Guard
separately reporting to the governors and then the Department
of Defense.
General Landreneau mobilized the Louisiana National Guard,
but you also mobilized a considerable force from throughout the
Nation, National Guardsmen to come into the damaged area. Do
you have any requirement--I just want to have this for the
record--to notify Northern Command, for instance, or anyone at
the Department of Defense--or get any approvals at the Defense
Department to do that? I mentioned Northern Command because of
the responsibility for homeland defense.
General Blum. In statute, sir, no. In practicality,
obviously you have to do that. It gets to Senator Akaka's
question: If you don't have that communication and
relationship, you have misunderstanding, duplication,
redundancy, and confusion.
Senator Lieberman. Yes. That's what's really interesting
about our American system because you have no real legal
requirement to notify.
General Blum. That's correct.
Senator Lieberman. You've got a separate command authority
to the governors. Do you remember who you did notify that this
was happening at the Defense Department?
General Blum. Well, we can start with the Secretary of
Defense, who was personally knowledgeable every----
Senator Lieberman. You spoke directly to him that this was
happening?
General Blum. Every day. The Deputy SECDEF.
Senator Lieberman. Good enough.
General Blum. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Senator Lieberman. I got it. Good enough.
General Blum. The Assistant Secretary.
Senator Lieberman. We had testimony last week from Governor
Blanco. You had been asked in the pre-hearing interviews we had
with you, General Blum, about some of this, and I want to give
you a chance to respond.
On Thursday, September 1, you visited Louisiana, and you
discussed the command and control of the rapidly escalating
number of Guard forces in the State and advised the governor,
according to her testimony--and I believe you confirmed this
with our staff earlier; certainly her staff did--that she
should not ask for federalization of the Guard. At that point,
as she testified, she was just looking for the most help she
could get. And I believe you indicated to her that
federalization would not get her an additional soldier, which
it would not.
Then she reported this series of conversations or calls
from the White House that we referred to on Friday night, three
of them from 11:30 p.m. to 2 a.m., in which she was asked by
various people, including Chief of Staff Andrew Card, to sign
that MOU which would have had a kind of federalization/dual-
hatting and that she thought that contrary to what you had said
earlier on the day before that you were advocating that she
accept federalization.
I wanted to give you a chance to respond. There was some
suggestion you may have felt under some political pressure at
that moment from the White House. Just tell us what was going
on then and how you saw what she was being asked to do.
General Blum. Absolutely. And the first part of your
question is absolutely accurate. I did visit New Orleans on
September 1. I've also visited Mississippi, talked to the
senior leadership in Mississippi, then flew into New Orleans,
and then flew up to Baton Rouge where I met with General
Landreneau and Governor Blanco.
Discussion did take place, and she asked my opinion on
federalization. I said operationally it didn't look like it was
a necessity at that time. It looked like the force flow coming
in was adequate, or more than adequate, to meet her needs. She
asked for--and so did General Landreneau at that time--
additional forces. We made communications and got that moving.
That was on September 1.
Senator Lieberman. Right. I understand.
General Blum. On September 2, the President of the United
States visited New Orleans. The mayor was there. The governor
was there. I was there. And all three of those elected
officials at the Federal, State, and local parish level had a
national news conference where they declared that General
Landreneau had just successfully taken down the last bastion of
civil unrest or concern about civil unrest in New Orleans. This
was about 12:30 that afternoon.
And they were all three elected officials--the mayor, the
governor, and the President--satisfied that the security
situation in New Orleans was in hand. And they complimented
General Landreneau and the National Guard troops who supported
what was available of the New Orleans Police Department, which
actually was the--we were in a military support to law
enforcement role at that time, authorized by the governor. And
everyone was satisfied with that.
I came back from New Orleans that evening.
Senator Lieberman. Thursday evening?
General Blum. Yes, sir. Late, pretty late. About 11:30 p.m.
I landed at Andrews, if I recall correctly. I was asked to
present to Governor Blanco some options that would be command
and control operations or federalization options.
Senator Lieberman. You mean on Friday? Friday, you were
asked to do that?
General Blum. Well, let me look at the calendar.
Senator Lieberman. I guess the question is: How did you end
up on those calls from the White House on Friday night?
General Blum. I was asked to make that. And that's not
illogical.
Senator Lieberman. No. I understand.
General Blum. Statutorily, here's where my job is in law. I
am the channel of communications between the governors and the
Department of the Army and the Air Force. Since we're talking
about Air National Guard, Army National Guard, and governors,
it would not be illogical for me to make that offering to her.
I made the offering to her. She wanted time to consider it.
Senator Lieberman. This was, again, just for the record,
the memorandum of understanding, the dual hat? That's what you
mean by the offering on Friday night over the phone?
General Blum. That's correct.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
General Blum. That's correct. And she wanted to reflect on
it, and she said, I don't see a reason to do it. She had some
concerns. We addressed the concerns. She was called back again
because of that. She again said, I would like to have some time
to look at this and my legal people look at it, and she
ultimately rejected it.
I left the White House, and if she had subsequent
conversations after that with anybody in the White House, I
wouldn't know about it.
Senator Lieberman. Yes. Do you think she made the right
decision in rejecting?
General Blum. Absolutely.
Senator Lieberman. You do? Understood.
General Blum. Absolutely.
Senator Lieberman. For the record. Then we go to Friday.
And as I said earlier, time is of the essence. And a lot of
this is when you get personnel in.
We're on Friday, and here's what Governor Blanco said to us
last week. And I quote from her testimony: ``The drama moments
were settled''--I think she means handled, but--``settled by
the Louisiana National Guard and the Guard members from 50
States, four Territories, and Washington, DC. And I couldn't
get one Federal Government to move its troops in to assist. So
you know at that point in time''--and here I think she's
talking about the Friday night discussion--``this hybrid
arrangement coming to me at midnight just seemed a little like
posturing instead of a real solution.''
Let me just add to this, in Exhibit 5,\1\ which I'm going
to describe to you but you can check if you want, General Rowe,
NORTHCOM operations director, told us that the general view at
NORTHCOM at that moment on Friday--and he suggested at DOD and
certainly at the National Guard Bureau--was that Federal troops
were no longer necessary. And then we have an Exhibit 6,\2\ 2
a.m. Saturday--that would have been September 3--8 hours before
the President gave the deployment order for Federal troops, the
Joint Staff operations director says that the Federal troops
are no longer necessary.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Exhibit 5 appears in the Appendix on page 172.
\2\ Exhibit 6 appears in the Appendix on page 190.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Rowe, incidentally, says that the reason for the
view at NORTHCOM that there was not a requirement for Federal
troops, and I'm paraphrasing here, was undoubtedly influenced
by the massive number of Guard troops that had already been
deployed.
So the question is--and here I want to give you, Mr.
Secretary, the opportunity to respond to what the governor
said, and to some extent seems to be validated by General
Rowe's interview with our staff, that by that time, as that
Saturday morning approached that the President deployed Federal
troops, they really weren't necessary.
Secretary McHale. At that time, it was clear to anyone
looking at the situation they absolutely were necessary. I'd
have to speak with General Rowe to get his understanding of his
comments. But on Saturday, September 3, there were nearly
35,000 military forces in the AOR--29,491 National Guard, 4,631
Federal forces, with massive numbers of Federal forces on the
way, ultimately building up on September 10 to 22,000. I
believe this is the distinction drawn by General Rowe, but
you'd have to ask him.
It was clear that massive combat service support, Federal
military requirements, were needed in this area--logistics,
communications, debris removal, search and rescue, and mortuary
affairs. It was obvious that this was the largest natural
disaster requiring a military response in American history, and
massive amounts of Federal military resources, including
troops.
The issue was: Did we need light infantry in order to
restore civil order in the presence of National Guard MPs? Did
we need to send in not logistics support, humanitarian relief,
but forces to restore civil order? And at the period of time,
Senator, you have cited, it was very much in question as to
whether or not troops, meaning Federal troops, infantry to
restore civil order, would be required.
Senator Lieberman. Let me interrupt. Just because by that
time, the evacuation of the Superdome and the Convention Center
had been carried out by the Guard, and there appeared to be a
restoration of order. I get your point.
Secretary McHale. We were moving in that direction. And
General Blum during that very period of time was moving 4,200
National Guard MPs and security personnel into New Orleans. So
there was real doubt as to whether we needed Federal infantry
going in.
Senator Lieberman. And maybe that's what the governor had
in mind. But you're saying beyond that function, there was a
need nonetheless for the logistics----
General Blum. Yes, sir.
Secretary McHale. Absolutely. Humanitarian relief.
General Blum. Let me help in that, if I can.
Senator Lieberman. Please.
General Blum. The Chairman alluded to the fact that my son,
who is a military police company commander from the Maryland
National Guard, was diverted from his mission in Honduras and
sent with his unit to New Orleans. They accomplished their
mission riding on amphibious vehicles provided by the U.S.
Marine Corps because the Humvees that we have in the National
Guard are not suitable for high water traffic and were
necessary in the parish that he was operating in.
So if you want to see a perfect example of jointness and
unity of effort, it is a Maryland National Guard military
police commander diverted from a mission riding on an
amphibious Marine piece of equipment that if you had not sent
the Marines in, we would not have had. So he was able to do his
support to civilian law enforcement work because of the
enhanced capabilities brought in by the Title 10 Marines, which
I think is welcome. I don't think we should--there's goodness
in this.
Senator Lieberman. I hear you. It's well said. And my time
is more than up. I think I'd like to just leave you with two
questions, which I'll frame for you and ask you to answer in
writing, to all of you.
One is--and this is really particularly for General Blum--
is there any circumstance under which you would think it
appropriate and necessary to federalize the National Guard? I'm
not asking for an answer now.
And the second question really goes more to Secretary
McHale's earlier point about the paradigm changing. Do we need
to change the paradigm? Do we need to invest more in the Title
10 active duty military to be ready to move in in this kind of
case, and in a terrorist case, with prepositioned assets or
rapid response? Or is the better alternative to give greater
support, training, equipment, etc., to the Guard nationally and
let--I don't think I have the time where we have to answer it
now. But that's a very important question for us, and it will
be something, I think, that Senator Collins and our Committee
may, if we reach a consensus, want to make some recommendations
on in our final report.
Secretary McHale. Senator, if I may, there is a third
option that should be included in that package.
Senator Lieberman. Please.
Secretary McHale. We tend to view the two options that you
have presented as a consolidated whole. We look to the total
force, whether it's active duty or National Guard. And the
rapid deployment of National Guard forces, in this case in
overwhelming numbers, reflected not a necessity. It was a
choice. It was a strategy. We believe that Title 10 forces
should be preserved for overseas war fighting, the primary
mission of the Department of Defense. And we think the Guard is
ideally suited for domestic missions.
But the third part that needs to be considered is: As we
improve DOD capabilities, both active and reserve, we need to
think through what kinds of capabilities should exist in the
civilian sector so that DOD does not become the default setting
of immediate resort because those capabilities, including first
responder capabilities, may not currently be trained and
equipped adequately within the civilian sector.
Senator Lieberman. Fair enough. I know every time I return
to those two helicopters, you and I get into a debate. But part
of the question is: Should the Guard have had those two
helicopters, and should FEMA have been ready to ask the Guard
instead of the active duty military for those helicopters, and
would they have arrived--ideally they would have arrived on
Monday afternoon after the hurricane subsided so they could
have been put right to work.
Admiral Keating. Senator, there were DOD helicopters there.
Senator Lieberman. So I guess the question, then, is: Why
didn't those two helicopters get there until Tuesday night when
they were requested on Sunday afternoon?
Admiral Keating. I don't know, sir. I'm perceiving that
there's a theme that we were slow to respond and it wasn't
until Friday/Saturday/Sunday that DOD Title 10 guys and girls
got there. Patently inaccurate.
We were talking to forces on the U.S.S. Bataan, for
example, before the hurricane hit, telling the captain of that
ship, from my lips to her ears, get as close as you can to the
center of the storm because you're certain to be needed. This
is on Sunday afternoon. She, Captain Nora Tyson, had eight
helicopters on board who were flying in near--well, bad weather
in the wake of the hurricane.
So the two helicopters that you cite, Senator, I'm not
quarreling that they were late. It's just they were two out of
what ended up to be 230 helicopters. There was much more there.
Senator Lieberman. Yes.
Secretary McHale. Sir, I was just going to say you can't
possibly deploy 72,000 forces by September 10 if you begin at a
dead start. We were leaning into this a week before landfall,
preparing forces, equipping forces, getting them ready to move,
and then actually moving them in advance of landfall.
Senator Lieberman. OK. Here's the whole picture for all of
us to look at. And we've seen it much more painfully in other
Federal agencies. When Dr. Max Mayfield and everybody else is
beginning to--with a crescendo saying, ``This is the big one,''
what more could we have done?
This is really self-critical so we do it better next time:
To get every conceivable asset in place, to evacuate more
people so we wouldn't have had those terrible circumstances at
the Superdome and the Convention Center for people in New
Orleans, and get them there as quickly as possible because time
is of the essence. And we hold ourselves, and all of you, to a
very high standard.
And I appreciate what you did, and next time we want to
make sure the Federal Government does a lot better. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you, Senator.
I want to thank this panel. I, too, am going to have some
additional questions for the record. We do need to move on to
the next panel, but I want to give you a preview of what those
questions are going to be.
Secretary McHale, it seems to me what you have described
today is a conflict between the Goldwater-Nichols Act and the
Stafford Act. If you read the two laws together, it seems to me
that there is a conflict there. And my question for the record
for you is going to be: Do you agree there is a conflict? And
if so, what are the Department's recommendations for resolving
that conflict?
It's an important issue because, in fact, the White House
has said that DOD itself identified this 21-step process as
being a problem with the response. Now, maybe you disagree with
that assessment. But that's what we have heard. And when you
look at the $1 billion--the biggest FEMA request ever made of
DOD, in fact, that was cut down to half that amount. So I want
to pursue those issues with you.
Admiral Keating, I did not get to explore with you some of
the situational awareness issues that we talked about in our
interview last Friday, including your visibility into what the
Guard was doing and also when you knew that the levees broke.
Because it was the collapse of the levees that made the
catastrophe so much worse.
And it seems to me, from what you told me last Friday, that
there was quite a delay between when the FEMA person on the
ground on Monday morning knew that the levees had broken and
when that information got to you. And that's a problem. That's
another lesson learned as far as communications. And I see
you're nodding in agreement on that.
There are so many other issues that we will be submitting
questions for the record. I do appreciate your testimony today,
and I am going to thank you now and go on to the next panel,
unless----
Senator Warner. Would you allow me----
Chairman Collins. I'm sorry. I didn't realize Senator
Warner had come in.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER
Senator Warner. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I
won't delay it. But we have the Attorney General two hearing
rooms down on the question of the surveillance issue, and I'm
part of that Intelligence Committee.
But I just want to say that I've observed quite a few
things in my 28 years here in the Senate, and this is an
extraordinary event brought on by extraordinary circumstances
of nature, which I don't think any of us could have foreseen.
But Madam Chairman and all three of us here are on the
Armed Services Committee. I personally, in my own independent
analysis of what you've done, I think you've done an exemplary
job. Yes, hindsight shows here and there we could have perhaps
done things somewhat differently.
But on the whole, I think the United States, the people of
this country, have the highest regard for the National Guard,
working with their brother Guardsmen in Louisiana and
Mississippi, and for the regular forces, Admiral Keating, which
were brought in to give additional support. Many a person has
said that the uniform was a quieting presence and a reassuring
presence to citizens that were just in a state of total
distraught.
So I may have one or two questions for the record. I still
am trying to probe this Posse Comitatus doctrine. I'm not
advocating it, but I just want to make sure the system looks at
it very carefully. And then I'd like to express my views as to
whether a change should be made to that.
Secretary McHale. Yes, sir.
Senator Warner. You and I have talked about that, Mr.
Secretary. Because when those uniforms are on the street and
the active force has to step back and turn over to the Guard
such support as they may be giving to local law enforcement, or
in the absence of local law enforcement they have to be law
enforcement, that leaves an extraordinary impression that all
those in uniform, the same uniform, half have to step back and
the other half have to take on that situation.
And there has been some testimony. There were instances
where, had the active forces had the authority--which they
don't under the law--they might have been able to curtail some
of the looting, which is a very tragic aspect of these natural
disasters.
I thank the Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Senator Warner. And I commend you and your troops.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
I'd now like to call forward our second panel of witnesses.
Lieutenant General Russel Honore is the Commanding General of
the First U.S. Army, which is based in Georgia. He's been an
Army officer since 1971 and has served in a variety of command
and staff positions. General Honore commanded Joint Task Force
Katrina, the active duty military force that responded to the
Gulf Coast region.
Major General Bennett Landreneau is the Adjutant General of
the State of Louisiana as well as the Director of the Louisiana
Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. General
Landreneau has served in the Louisiana National Guard since his
enlistment in 1969.
We're very pleased to welcome you both here today. We very
much appreciate your service, not only to the people of the
Gulf Coast but also to your country. And General Honore, we
will begin with you.
TESTIMONY OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL RUSSEL L. HONORE,\1\ COMMANDING
GENERAL, FIRST U.S. ARMY
General Honore. Good afternoon. Chairman Collins, Members
of the Committee, for four of the past six hurricane seasons,
I've had the opportunity to support the Department of Defense
planning and response to hurricanes. Hurricane Floyd in 1999,
Hurricanes Lili and Isidore in 2002, Hurricane Isabel in 2003,
and Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in 2004. I
also helped plan and supported the U.S. military's response to
devastating floods which swept through Venezuela in 1999 and in
Mozambique in 2000.
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\1\ The prepared statement of General Honore with attachments
appears in the Appendix on page 91.
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It has been 164 days since Hurricane Katrina made landfall
on the Gulf Coast of the United States. We only have 111 days
until the next hurricane season. Today, 42 percent of the
American people live within 20 miles of the waterways of
America. With that in mind, I will abbreviate my comments here
so we can get to the questions you would like to do. But I'd
like to just mention a few points.
First, prior to my return from the Gulf Coast, I had
meetings with Admiral Allen and General Landreneau, and
informally we looked at some tasks or some quick fixes. We
identified 11 of them. I'd like to share those with you:
Establish pre-event unified Command and Control (C2)
organizational structure.
Pre-position unified mobile disaster assessment teams.
Designate a single DOD point of contact for the Federal
Coordinating Officer to coordinate requirements.
Implement a local/state employee Disaster Clause to dual-
hat/train employees to fill key disaster support manning
shortfalls.
Pre-position common interoperable communications assets.
Establish external support (push packages/funding) to fill
common resource shortfalls.
Pre-allocate space in the State Emergency Operation Centers
to integrate Federal or other external agencies.
Develop a Continuity of Government Plan that sustains
government functions at the State level.
Pre-arrange support contracts for required resources.
Acquire and integrate assured power supply--meaning
generators--and make it a requirement that gas stations,
pharmacies, and local Emergency Operations Centers have
generator power during and after hurricanes.
Gain industry commitments to re-establish critical
services.
With that, ma'am, the rest of my statement is for the
record. I'll defer, with your permission, to General Landreneau
or to your instructions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. General Landreneau.
TESTIMONY OF MAJOR GENERAL BENNETT C. LANDRENEAU,\1\ ADJUTANT
GENERAL, LOUISIANA NATIONAL GUARD; DIRECTOR, LOUISIANA OFFICE
OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
General Landreneau. Madam Chairman, Senator Lieberman,
distinguished Members of the Committee, I'm honored to be here
with you today to discuss the military response for Hurricane
Katrina.
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\1\ The prepared statement of General Landreneau with attachments
appears in the Appendix on page 109.
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Before I begin I would like to express my deepest
appreciation to all who provided support to Louisiana in our
hour of need. In the face of our Nation's greatest natural
disaster, the heart and soul of this country launched the
greatest response and outpouring of support ever witnessed on
American soil, and we are forever grateful.
I greatly appreciate the hard work and creativity of the
professional emergency managers who work with the Louisiana
Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness
(LOHSEP). Their dedication is noteworthy and commendable.
I also am thankful and proud to work alongside the finest
National Guard soldiers and airmen in the United States. Their
courage and selfless service in the face of tremendous turmoil
was inspiring.
In Louisiana, the Adjutant General of the National Guard
also serves as the Director of Homeland Security and Emergency
Preparedness. As Commander of the Guard and Director of LOHSEP,
I am responsible for the actions of these organizations, and I
am responsible for ensuring these organizations implement
lessons learned from this disaster.
When Governor Blanco declared a state of emergency, I
recommended the activation of 2,000 National Guardsmen early
on. This activation began a chain of events that initiated our
emergency response plan and began the coordination with staff
and units to implement preplanned support requirements for
response operations.
As we gathered more information on the strengthening storm,
I recommended to Governor Blanco that we increase the
activation to an additional 2,000 soldiers, for a total of
4,000, unprecedented pre-storm in Louisiana.
As part of the Louisiana National Guard's response plan, we
have standing agreements with parishes in the greater New
Orleans area to provide personnel and equipment. In accordance
with our plan, high water vehicles and soldiers were assigned
to each NOPD district, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office,
St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes, along with each of the 13
parishes in Southeast Louisiana, where we assigned Louisiana
National Guard liaison teams to coordinate the Guard's
response. Mobile communication teams and engineer assessment
teams were staged along the outer path of the projected strike
zone.
These teams were moved in as soon as Katrina passed and
were able to provide early assessment of damage in areas
surrounding New Orleans. Personnel and equipment are assigned
to specific Louisiana State Police Troops, and our agreement
with the City of New Orleans is to provide medical and security
personnel for the Louisiana Superdome, as it is designated a
special needs shelter.
When the Superdome was later designated as a shelter of
last resort, the Louisiana National Guard responded. Our
Guardsmen, in support of NOPD, organized and implemented an
entrance plan that ensured that the personnel coming in were
searched and that safety was implemented.
On Monday, when we learned of the multiple failures in the
Federal levees, we recognized we were coping with a
catastrophic incident. Louisiana's five levels of redundancy
within its communications systems were either down or had
reached capacity, so our ability to receive timely and accurate
information was degraded.
As soon as it was possible, National Guard soldiers and
airmen launched search and rescue boats that had been
prepositioned at Jackson Barracks and our aviation resources,
along with the U.S. Coast Guard, soon followed as gale force
winds subsided. By Tuesday, the Louisiana National Guard had
every resource committed. We had no reserves. All engaged in
Governor Blanco's No. 1 priority, search and rescue, saving
lives.
On Tuesday morning, I received a call from General Honore
when he informed me that he was Task Force Commander for
Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. During our conversation, I
conveyed the governor's desire for Federal troops, in
particular, an Army division headquarters to plan, coordinate,
and execute the evacuation of New Orleans.
After my conversation with General Honore, I spoke to
General Blum, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, and requested
the National Guard Bureau assistance to take the lead in a
national call for additional assistance from National Guard
units throughout the country. Today, we know that one of the
most successful outcomes of Katrina was this execution of the
Emergency Management Assistance Compact.
On Wednesday, August 31, General Honore arrived in Baton
Rouge. I introduced him to Governor Blanco, at which time she
asked General Honore to coordinate the evacuation efforts in
New Orleans so that I could concentrate on search and rescue
and law and order issues. At this point, the governor expressed
increasing concern with the lack of Federal resources entering
the State.
On Thursday, September 1, we began to see the arrival of
National Guard forces in significant numbers. We eventually
processed and missioned over 30,000 National Guard soldiers and
airmen. The governors from all of the States and Territories
and Adjutant Generals deployed those soldiers in a very rapid
fashion.
Also on Thursday, the National Guard began to receive large
numbers of buses at the Louisiana Superdome. National Guard
members coordinated around the clock evacuation beginning at 10
a.m. and completing Saturday. Eventually, 822 buses would be
used by National Guard forces to evacuate the Superdome.
In addition to securing and evacuating the Louisiana
Superdome, the Louisiana National Guard received a request from
the City of New Orleans to assist in securing the Morial
Convention Center. On Friday at 12 noon, nearly 1,000 National
Guardsmen supported the securing of the Convention Center and
assisted NOPD, and by 12:30 p.m. the area was secure, and by 3
p.m. food distribution and medical triage facilities were in
place. Distribution of food, water, and medical care continued
throughout the night. The evacuation began at 10 a.m. on
Saturday, as discussed by General Blum, and was completed by 6
p.m. the same day, again by National Guard forces.
Madam Chairman, distinguished Members, I tell you today, as
I recommended to Governor Blanco, that there was never a need
to federalize the National Guard. Federalizing the National
Guard would have significantly limited our capacity to conduct
law enforcement missions and would add no advantage to our
ability to conduct operations. Thousands of National Guard
forces were pouring into the State, soldiers and airmen in a
Title 32 status, most of whom were combat-tested and uniquely
qualified to carry out the governor's priorities.
There has also been some discussion about a proposal
received by Governor Blanco on Friday evening, September 2,
outlining a dual-hatted commander, one commander to control
Title 10 and Title 32 forces. I again submit to you that this
procedure would have served no operational purpose.
By the time this document was received, there were over
8,500 National Guardsmen on the ground performing operations.
Lines of communication, chains of command, and tasking
priorities had already been accomplished. Changing this process
would have only stalled current operations and delayed vital
missions and not have provided any additional boots on the
ground.
General Honore and I were in constant communication. When
Federal land forces began to arrive on Saturday, September 3,
General Honore consulted me and we discussed their deployment.
We coordinated how those forces would be utilized. We did in
fact reach unity of effort, each component working towards a
common goal while maintaining unique chains of command. We had
developed a multi-component command operating under the legal
authorities of Title 10, 14, and 32 of the U.S. Code, all in
support of the Governor of Louisiana.
There has never been a time in our Nation's history when
the National Guard has been in greater demand. We need your
assistance to make sure our National Guard is properly
resourced to defend our Nation overseas and to defend our
people at home.
I'm very proud of the soldiers and airmen of the Louisiana
National Guard. There are thousands of examples of heroic
actions that took place as a result of commanders empowering
junior leaders to step up, to be innovative and creative, to
take care of missions, and to carry out the governor's No. 1
priority of saving lives.
I thank you and look forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much, General, and thank
you both for your testimony and your service.
General Honore, you made a very important point at the
beginning of your testimony when you reminded this Committee
that hurricane season will soon be upon us once again. And it
is that reality which has motivated this Committee to press to
conclude its hearings and write its report and make its
findings and recommendations so that we can learn the lessons
of Katrina before hurricane season is underway once again. In
that regard, your 10 quick fixes, or 11, as you listed in your
testimony, are very helpful to the Committee.
The first recommendation that you made was to establish
pre-event unified command and control organizational structure.
And as you know, with the previous panel, we've had a lot of
discussion about that issue. Four times recently, prior to the
event, whether it was the Democratic or Republican national
conventions or the international summit, and there was one
other, there was pre-event planning that led to a dual-hatted
commander being placed in charge. I believe in each case,
General Landreneau, it was the National Guard official who was
given the dual-hatted responsibility.
Is that the kind of planning that you're talking about,
General?
General Honore. To some degree, ma'am. Those operations
take months to plan and prepare. We don't have that luxury in
preparing for hurricanes or some of the other disturbances that
might happen on the earth, whether it's due to weather,
earthquakes, or WMD.
I was a part of the NORTHCOM staffing with the Department
when we staffed the dual-hatting concept. The idea was to use
that dual hat when we had a deliberate plan for a known event.
We deliberately at that time never considered it as a crisis
response, where in the middle of a crisis you would determine
who's going to take command. And I think that the Secretary
spoke to that earlier.
Chairman Collins. Well, what are you suggesting be done
with regard to command and control?
General Honore. For this hurricane season, we don't want to
fight the last hurricane, but apply the lessons learned from
it. Prior to this hurricane season we must bring people
together.
We don't want people to meet and exchange business cards at
the scene. We want to do it quicker. We want to do it better.
We have an obligation to our citizens that it does not appear
that they're waiting on us to come to their rescue. We owe,
true to our oath, that we will support and defend them. And
when that doesn't happen, it hurts us to our heart.
Going into New Orleans and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi
under those circumstances is the reason we're here today
determining how we might respond quicker. One of the things
that can be done is to create a prearranged unified command and
control organization. After talking to some of my colleagues, I
believe it's in progress and will happen prior to the next
hurricane season.
Chairman Collins. General, as far as your other 10
recommendations, do you know if any of them are being
implemented?
General Honore. We have shared them with our higher
headquarters, Northern Command, as well as with Admiral Allen
and General Landreneau.
Chairman Collins. General Landreneau, one of the lessons of
Katrina is clearly that there has to be a better system in
place, better planning, and the execution of that plan to
evacuate people with special needs, nursing homes, hospitals,
prior to landfall.
We heard truly tragic testimony over the last week of
nursing home patients who were not evacuated because the
nursing homes failed to execute their plans, but also calls for
help that went unanswered until too late.
Are you aware of any planning underway in Louisiana to
improve the evacuation of the most vulnerable citizens of the
area, those who cannot evacuate themselves, either because they
are in nursing homes or hospitals, or they're too old or infirm
or sick to do so?
General Landreneau. Absolutely. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
The governor has directed a thorough after-action review and
identification of any corrective measures that need to be taken
to ensure that during the next hurricane season, we're in the
position to be able to support whatever evacuation needs there
are.
But I must state to you that as you, in your preamble to
the questions, spoke to the very difficult time that we had
with the evacuation, the resources of the local units of
government were exhausted. The resources, all the resources of
the State, were focused on saving lives and taking care of
people. The governor had all of the agencies and all of us
focused on that. We were totally committed and overwhelmed.
FEMA was overwhelmed.
I think it's very clear, Madam Chairman, that this
incident, a catastrophic incident such as we had with Katrina,
required the execution of the identification of a catastrophic
event and the implementation of catastrophic incident annex as
part of the National Response Plan. This was not done.
It was only the second day after the hurricane that the
Secretary of Homeland Security identified Katrina as an
Incident of National Significance. But Hurricane Katrina was
never identified as a catastrophic event, as outlined in the
GAO report.
That would have given more rapid opportunity for Federal
forces to flow into the State to be able to assist us with the
evacuation. It would have also influenced the ability to bring
DOD forces in quicker.
Chairman Collins. I realize, General, that hindsight is
always 20/20. But I'm sure that you're familiar with the
testimony of the New Orleans Police Department in which we were
told that there was a specific request to the National Guard to
preposition five high water vehicles and boats at each of the
police stations around New Orleans and that the request was
denied prior to Hurricane Katrina despite the fact that it had
been approved for previous hurricanes, such as Hurricane Ivan;
and as a result, when the National Guard Barracks flooded,
access and the use of some of those vehicles was lost.
In retrospect, should the National Guard have prepositioned
high water vehicles at the police departments?
General Landreneau. Thank you, Madam Chairman, for allowing
me to comment on that because you're absolutely correct. That
was what we should do, and that's what we did. I realize that
Superintendent Riley made comments regarding this to the
Committee. Superintendent Riley, with all respect to him, was
not the superintendent at the time.
The National Guard had a prearranged agreement to
preposition some 20 high water vehicles and over 100 soldiers
with the New Orleans Police Department prior to the storm, and
that was executed. I have submitted documentation to Colonel
Ebbert, who is Superintendent Riley's supervisor, and I have
those documents to enter into the record,\1\ where we actually
did preposition that equipment and personnel with the New
Orleans Police Department.
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\1\ The National Guard documents appear in the Appendix on page
142.
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I have entered as well some statements from soldiers on how
they worked with NOPD and, in one particular case, where a
soldier tells of some 500 rescues that they were able to make
with those high water vehicles.
And in comment, if you would allow me to comment about
Jackson Barracks. And it is true that Jackson Barracks flooded.
It is the headquarters for the Louisiana National Guard.
However, prior to Hurricane Katrina, in our history, since the
levees of the Mississippi have been constructed in the early
1900s, we have not flooded at our headquarters.
For Hurricane Betsy in the early 1960s, although St.
Bernard Parish and the Ninth Ward did flood, the headquarters
for the Louisiana National Guard did not flood, and we were
able to immediately move out with equipment and personnel to do
search and rescue.
But I have to tell you, ma'am, that even with the flooding
that occurred at Jackson Barracks, the soldiers and leaders
were very resourceful. They protected the boats. We had 20
boats that were preserved. We had high water vehicles that did
flood. But on the second day after the hurricane, they were
able to get four of those high water vehicles back online.
And as a result of that, on the second day, with those four
vehicles, they were able to rescue 90 personnel from a
retirement home, the Villa St. Maurice in the Ninth Ward. They
rescued over 500 people during the week. That's just those high
water vehicles. And a lot more with the boats.
Chairman Collins. General, my time has expired, so I'm
going to yield to Senator Lieberman. But let me just clarify
that although you are correct that Superintendent Riley was not
superintendent at the time, he was the individual with the
Police Department who had the conversation with the National
Guard commander at Jackson Barracks in which he asked for and
was denied the high water vehicles. So there is a definite
conflict on the testimony. We look forward to getting the
information that you've offered to provide.
General Landreneau. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And we've
been in contact with Colonel Ebbert in New Orleans. We have
agreed to meet and go over that information as soon as I get
back.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
Thank you both, General Honore, General Landreneau, for
being here and for your excellent testimony, but also for your
extraordinary service during Hurricane Katrina and its
aftermath. You were really heroes there, and we appreciate it
greatly. You gave a lot of people a lot of confidence, which
they needed at the time.
General Honore, I thank you for the presentation of the 11
recommendations, which I gather you present on behalf of or at
least in consultation with both General Landreneau and Admiral
Allen. They are very helpful, and they go to some of the pre-
event positioning and readiness that I think this story cries
out for. So I appreciate your being very specific about it.
General Landreneau, I want to take you through a series of
questions about your expectations of FEMA in this situation.
We've talked a lot here about the Hurricane Pam exercise, which
was the fictional hurricane exercise to try to prepare Federal,
State, and local agencies for what responsibilities they'd
have. In Pam, they had not performed very well.
And I want to go particularly to the question of evacuation
responsibility because the site of the people at the Superdome
and the Convention Center was obviously the part that most
aggravated, angered, and disheartened not only the people
involved but the rest of the country and, in some sense,
embarrassed us in the eyes of the world.
One of the warnings delivered in the Hurricane Pam exercise
was exactly that, that you've got to get ready because by their
estimate, there were probably about 100,000 people who would be
left in New Orleans after an evacuation incident, which was an
extraordinary evacuation which I know everybody assisted in.
When our staff interviewed you, General Landreneau, you
told them that it was your understanding from the Hurricane Pam
exercise that FEMA had agreed that it would have responsibility
for the transportation for the evacuation of New Orleans
because State and local resources would be consumed after
landfall. Is that roughly correct?
General Landreneau. That's exactly correct, sir.
Senator Lieberman. And the understanding of the staff was,
and mine, too, that you assumed from the Hurricane Pam exercise
that FEMA would prearrange for transportation assets, also for
post-landfall evacuation, so that when the State asked for
them, those buses would be available immediately. Is that also
right?
General Landreneau. Absolutely.
Senator Lieberman. According to the governor's narrative on
Hurricane Katrina, which appears at length in Exhibit 18 \1\ in
the exhibit book, on Monday, August 29, then-FEMA Director
Michael Brown told Governor Blanco, I presume in response to
her request, that FEMA would deliver 500 buses. Were you
present for that conversation?
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\1\ Exhibit 18 appears in the Appendix on page 203.
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General Landreneau. Yes, sir. I was.
Senator Lieberman. And is that your recollection, that Mr.
Brown assured the State on Monday that FEMA would be delivering
those buses to New Orleans?
General Landreneau. Yes, sir. Mr. Brown assured the
governor the buses were available, they had them, and they
would be on the way.
Senator Lieberman. OK. But the buses, if I'm right, did not
arrive any time during that day, Monday.
General Landreneau. No, sir.
Senator Lieberman. Nor did they arrive on Tuesday morning.
Is that right?
General Landreneau. No, sir.
Senator Lieberman. So when that happened, did you follow up
directly with FEMA, either with Mr. Brown or the person in
charge on the scene, Bill Lokey, to ask where the buses were?
General Landreneau. Yes, sir, we did, numerous times
throughout the night, Monday night, Tuesday morning. The
schedule that was given to us on Tuesday was that they would be
there, would be driving in and be available first light
Wednesday morning.
Senator Lieberman. That was what finally happened. And as
far as you know, the governor also had followed up with them on
Monday night and Tuesday to ask where the buses were?
General Landreneau. Yes, sir, we did. Monday night we
expected them to be there quickly. We asked again throughout
the night, Monday night, early Tuesday morning, throughout the
day on Tuesday.
Senator Lieberman. And they finally did arrive when, did
you say?
General Landreneau. They did not arrive until Thursday.
Senator Lieberman. Thursday. I don't know whether you know
this, but our investigation has shown that, to me incredibly
based on the fact situation that you've just described on
Monday and Tuesday, FEMA did not actually ask the U.S.
Department of Transportation to obtain the buses until 1:45
a.m. on Wednesday.
Did you know that?
General Landreneau. I found that out, sir, and it's very
disappointing to know that's when it occurred because we were
actually expecting the buses much earlier than even that time.
Senator Lieberman. Right. If the buses had arrived in New
Orleans, let's say later Monday after the storm abated, or even
on Tuesday, could the buses have reached the Superdome? In
other words, were the roads clear enough to get there?
General Landreneau. We had procedures in place. We had
contingencies to be able to get the personnel to the buses
because the water was rising. In every case, from Monday
through Thursday, there were--we had plans in place and we had
contingencies to be able to get all of the personnel onto the
buses.
Senator Lieberman. So, you answered my question, then--that
if the buses had gotten to New Orleans, you could have gotten
the people to the buses to be evacuated----
General Landreneau. Absolutely.
Senator Lieberman [continuing]. From the Superdome and the
Convention Center. And the bottom line, obviously, is that if
the buses had arrived on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday, as
promised by FEMA, the people would not have to endure the
conditions they did at the Superdome or the Convention Center.
General Landreneau. Yes, sir. You're exactly right, sir.
Being on the ground, I have to tell you that the people that
were in the Superdome that had used it as a shelter of last
resort, of course, they came in. They'd used it before that way
in previous storms. They expected, when the hurricane passed,
they would walk home.
They found out that they could not. And then we began, of
course, rescuing people and bringing them to the Superdome, and
those people were under a great deal of stress, a great deal of
trauma, a great deal of depression. So there were a lot of
emotions. And to have to tell those people--we told those
people the buses would be there Wednesday morning.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
General Landreneau. We told them that on Tuesday. And then
to have to tell them on Tuesday they would not be there until
Wednesday had a compounding impact on the stress and the
situation those people had to deal with in the Superdome.
Senator Lieberman. Sure. Let me ask a final question about
this event. If you had known on Monday or Tuesday that FEMA
would not have been able to deliver the buses or would not
deliver the buses, in fact, until Thursday morning, would you
have been able to make alternative plans to obtain buses?
General Landreneau. The governor, as she testified, gave
clear direction to her staff and to the agencies to work all
the resources available in the State. And we were successful in
getting school buses. But it was being done to really try to
fill the gaps and augment the buses that we expected from FEMA.
So we would have had to double up our efforts.
Senator Lieberman. Sure. Thank you.
General Honore, let me turn to a different line of
questioning. First off, I admire you again for the initiative
you took on that Sunday, August 28, which set a lot of events
in motion that might not otherwise have been.
When you arrived in Louisiana, did you believe in your
military judgment at that point that active duty ground troops
were required?
General Honore. No, sir. At that moment we did not need
ground troops.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
General Honore. What we needed were helicopters and boats.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
General Honore. We needed naval vessels that could get into
the littorals so we could use their assets for command and
control, in addition to their hospital capability.
But on that morning, based on what I knew from morning
updates, there were sufficient National Guard troops flowing
in. What we could do is help with our joint communications,
which we brought with us.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
General Honore. And built rapidly and coordinated with the
National Guard and assisted them in the planning of the
evacuation.
Senator Lieberman. It's an important distinction, and I get
it. I appreciate it.
Tell us, if you would, about the guidance after you arrived
in Louisiana that you were receiving from your superiors at
NORTHCOM and the inputs that you were providing to them
regarding the necessity of Federal involvement.
General Honore. I might say what you have seen is a small
snippet of a vast amount of information that was not covered
based on telephone conversations. Some of the e-mails may have
given the perception that at times, we were not moving or not
preparing. Much of that was corrected by verbal communication
between myself and Admiral Keating.
To support our concept of operation we had to identify the
unique joint capabilities available. We have the Navy. Get them
into the fight. We had the U.S. Transportation Command. Get
them into the fight. Get all the helicopters into the fight,
along with available medical capability.
But again, the tasks were search and rescue and evacuation
of the Superdome and the Convention Center. Long story short,
those were the tasks we focused on for the first couple days,
and those were the assets we were asking for.
Senator Lieberman. Got it. General, I know you heard the
discussions about the memorandum of understanding that was
proposed to Governor Blanco on Friday night, the one that would
have had you serving as the dual status commander.
I wanted to ask you whether you were involved at all
personally in the development of that concept, and if so, what
was the first time that you had been brought into those
discussions?
General Honore. Some time Friday morning.
Senator Lieberman. Yes.
General Honore. I would say, again, things were pretty
fuzzy, to determine the exact time.
Senator Lieberman. Sure. Who was the discussion with?
General Honore. It was with Admiral Keating and the
Pentagon. My recommendation at that time was that we did not
need that authority, that my relationship with General
Landreneau was sufficient.
Senator Lieberman. Yes.
General Honore. Dual hatted command is a tool in the box,
and it's one we didn't need to use.
Senator Lieberman. Got it. Because basically, you felt that
you and General Landreneau had been working this out without
the need for anything more formal.
What did they say to you was the operational purpose of the
command structure that they were proposing, the dual status
command structure?
General Honore. I have no idea. I moved on from that, and
we were doing missions. I was asked for a recommendation, which
I provided. We finished the update, and we went on with
missions because our focus was to complete the evacuation of
the Convention Center.
Senator Lieberman. Understood and appreciate it.
Madam Chairman, I have one more question. Should I ask it
now or wait for a second round?
Chairman Collins. Go ahead.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks. I talked to Secretary McHale
about the two helicopters requested. And I want to sort of
present you with what I understand of this and ask you to both
respond. Because we may not have all the facts clear, but I
think it may highlight a problem in the existing structure. And
it's one of those things that you wish that there had been more
exercises on.
So here's the way I understand it. On Sunday, August 28,
FEMA did make a request of the Army for two helicopters, which
would be used for rapid needs assessment.
General Honore. Yes, sir.
Senator Lieberman. And those we believe would have come
from Fort Polk or Fort Hood. They operated from land,
obviously. Admiral Keating mentioned the movement of the U.S.S.
Bataan into the area. I'm not sure when it got there. A lot of
helicopters on it. As I understand, those were search and
rescue helicopters.
But I also believe, as General Blum said, that there were
plenty of National Guard helicopters by that time in the area.
But here's the bureaucratic question I wanted to ask you. Those
Guard helicopters were not assigned to the FEMA request. They
were not part of the FEMA assignment. So, did the bureaucracy
as it existed mean that this request from FEMA went to the Army
for the rapid needs assessment helicopters? And it did take a
couple of days; it went on Sunday and the helicopters didn't
arrive until Tuesday night--am I right that FEMA didn't turn to
the other side and ask the Guard if they could help with that
task? And I don't know whether you had helicopters that could
have fulfilled that function or the personnel who were trained
in it.
Those are the facts as I understand them. And just to make
sure the next time around we're organized to get assets in as
quickly as possible, particularly if they're already around the
area, I wanted you to give me your response to that fact
scenario, which is as best I understand it.
General Honore, did you want to start?
General Honore. That's a good question, and I know you're
interested in those helicopters. But that is standard operating
procedure that I've seen for my 6 years dealing with storms.
Before a storm makes landfall, FEMA has a standing request with
DOD for helicopters to do assessments. Generally speaking, we
provide those helicopters in a timely manner.
The effect of this storm--we've got to remember, this was
one big, bad storm, was to create 45 mile an hour winds at a
sustained level. One might say, well, why didn't we use the
Coast Guard helicopters? Those helicopters are dedicated to
search and rescue, saving peoples' lives. These two helicopters
are for FEMA personnel to fly around the area and assess the
damage.
Senator Lieberman. What the needs are. Rapid needs
assessment.
General Honore. Right, sir. They'd fly in to see the mayor.
They'd go see a parish president.
Senator Lieberman. Yes.
General Honore. Those helicopters did arrive, and we've got
a timeline on their arrival. They got there on Tuesday, August
30----
Senator Lieberman. Right.
General Honore [continuing]. And were prepared for action,
as well as the helicopters on the U.S.S. Bataan and the U.S.
Air Force 920th Rescue Wing. So we had assets coming in on
August 30. The storm happened on August 29. They arrived, sir,
the day after. Remember that the Coast Guard helicopters came
in by sea----
Senator Lieberman. Right.
General Honore [continuing]. And their primary focus was on
search and rescue. They immediately came in from the sea and
started to work, followed by the U.S.S. Bataan helicopters. But
the two Army helicopters that you speak of were tasked to FEMA.
It's a standing operating procedure.
Senator Lieberman. Right.
General Honore. We always know they're going to ask for
them, and we get them there as soon as we can.
Senator Lieberman. I appreciate the answer. And obviously,
we'd all say, I presume, that the search and rescue function
and the helicopters to do it was more important and urgent----
General Honore. Yes, sir.
Senator Lieberman [continuing]. Than the rapid needs
assessment. But that had some high level of importance, too.
And I guess the question that I'll ask you, General
Landreneau, in your responses, did you have Guard helicopters
present on the scene that could have fulfilled that rapid needs
function earlier, on Monday?
General Landreneau. No, sir. On the normal hurricane
situation, it's very common for the National Guard to provide
helicopters to FEMA to do this function. But in this
catastrophic event, all of our aviation assets were committed
to the search and rescue.
Senator Lieberman. Got you.
General Landreneau. Every Louisiana helicopter--in fact, we
had coordinated EMAC agreements prior to the hurricane, so we
had helicopter units in from Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, and
Texas, augmenting our resources. But all of our resources were
totally committed to the search and rescue effort.
General Honore. May I come back on this, sir? This clearly
wasn't occurring on Monday, there was a long period of time on
Monday where you could not fly helicopters.
Senator Lieberman. Understood.
General Honore. The storm had winds exceeding 45 miles per
hour over 200 miles from the eye. The storm moved through New
Orleans in the morning but did not clear the Gulf Coast area
until Monday night, to the extent that it killed two people as
it moved through Georgia.
Due to the effects of the winds, most of Monday you could
not fly a helicopter from Fort Polk to New Orleans. It was
impossible because of the high winds. The only reason the Coast
Guard flew in early was because they came from behind the
storm.
Those winds were still affecting flight operations, and I
think the records will show from the National Weather Service,
through most of Monday because I tried to fly from Atlanta on
Monday evening to Mississippi and could not because runways
were not open and you could not fly light jets into the storm.
As late as midnight Monday night we could not move.
Senator Lieberman. I appreciate those answers. And I guess
the question I'm left with is: If you had had additional
helicopter capacity that you were not using for search and
rescue, would FEMA have broken through the normal chain and
come to you with the helicopters there instead of waiting for
them to come in from other sites?
We can come back to that. I thank you very much, both of
you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Warner.
Senator Warner. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
And I welcome our two distinguished professional officers
here today, and I had the privilege of getting to know you,
General Honore, in the course of this really remarkable chapter
in how our military, both regular, Reserve, and Guard, came to
the aid of its follow citizens.
I really meant what I said to the previous panel. I think
the heart of America is very grateful for their services and
has a sense of pride in how our military, which we think is
operating primarily beyond our shores, can here in our homeland
come to the aid of our citizens. So I commend you for that.
And I accompanied the distinguished Chairman of the
Committee down to Louisiana, where I first met you. But I guess
I first met you, frankly, on television. And you exhibited to
me that remarkable quality that some military individuals have,
and that is called command presence.
Just your presence there was very reassuring to citizens
and those in uniform who you, I presume jointly, instructed
together with your counterpart General Landreneau. I did not
get to meet you, but I again thank you for your service, too.
General Landreneau. Thank you, sir.
Senator Warner. The question that I have has somewhat been
answered, but I'd like to put it once again on the record and
let each of you address it.
While the National Guard and the Federal forces clearly
mounted a monumental effort, and the facts record that, and you
also recognize that there could have been a higher degree and a
better coordination. And there were some areas which, if you
had the authority to de-conflict, you would have stepped in and
done so. Some of the results were some resources arriving to
perform a mission, and in some instances they really weren't
needed. And in others, there was a shortage. The facts all bear
this out--not by way of criticism, but those things happen.
How well you know, General Honore, and perhaps I looked at
your record. You've seen situations in actual combat. Combat is
often a state of confusion, and the question of success is
enabling those who are best able to de-conflict that confusion
succeed.
And we can sit down and do all the preplanning and all of
the orders and all the instructions. And that's important and
will be done. But it really gets down to the individual
officers and men who are on the scene and their ability to
utilize and draw upon their professional training and their own
judgment and common sense to make it work.
So can you provide us with some examples of how to improve
unity of effort between the Title 32 and the Title 10 forces?
We'll start with you, General Honore.
General Honore. Yes, sir. The art of command is to take the
situation as you find it, sir, and un-confuse people.
Senator Warner. That's right.
General Honore. That's what General Landreneau and I did by
standing outside the same tent outside the Superdome, working
together in collaboration to achieve a unity of effort--not
through a staff, not by long distance, but the most personal
way that can happen, face to face and collaborated decisions.
Many people associate unity of effort and unity command
with the two headquarters being in the same place. That's not
required. This storm set back technology 80 years. The American
people need to understand that this storm beat us. I've been
beat before, but not this bad. This storm beat everything that
we pride ourselves in--our transportation system, our airline
system, our ability to communicate, our ability to take care of
Americans with the proper healthcare. This storm beat us.
Senator Warner. But not the will to survive.
General Honore. Not the will to survive. But it beat us. As
a result of that, it created a crisis and a disaster with the
number of Americans who were trapped in the waters in and
around Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes.
In the middle of that type of crisis, how can we achieve
better unity of effort? I think we need to look to the future,
and not just along the Gulf Coast because these storms don't
just come along the Gulf Coast. The storm approached the entire
Eastern shore as well as the Caribbean. We need to establish
some common command and control locations in which we will put
our respective response force. Our authority under the National
Response Plan is to prepare and to respond and to mitigate.
The Department of Defense worked with the Department of
Homeland Security and FEMA primarily in the preparation and the
response. We don't necessarily do a lot of recovery work.
Looking to the future, I look forward to working with and
advising those in my higher headquarters at NORTHCOM and the
Department of Homeland Security in establishing those locations
where we can practice establishing satellite communications
because the normal communications systems are going to come
down. If they don't come down, you're not needed.
You get a lot of hurricanes where the communications
systems stay operational, water systems stay up, roads stay
open, and you are not needed. So you're going to establish and
use some resources in preparation that you would normally wait
for the governor to ask for.
In order to truly be prepared and ensure we never have
another Katrina, you have to invest resources up front. One of
the things you can do, and we can do, is establish in each
State and region a unified headquarters and exercise them
periodically before hurricane season.
But that will only solve the hurricane issue. There are
other disturbances on the earth that require us to actively
engage in each State and region and practice how we would
respond to them.
Senator Warner. Thank you, General Honore. But I have to
observe that you were able to do your role professionally
because of your force of personality and the willingness to
work with your counterparts. You overcame the absence of a
unity of command, which is so essential to military operations,
by the force of your own personality and your background and
knowledge of the culture of the people. But the next situation
may not have a General Honore----
General Honore. Yes, sir.
Senator Warner [continuing]. With that background and that
understanding. And that's why I turn to you, General, when
you----
General Honore. Sir, may I come back on that for one
second?
Senator Warner. Yes.
General Honore. As an observation. You gave us Goldwater-
Nichols, and it was a bitter pill to swallow.
Senator Warner. Oh, I remember it well.
General Honore. You've got a joint dependent interagency,
knock-'em-down Department of Defense. You don't have that in
the interagency.
Senator Warner. I realize that.
General Honore. So the observation to you, our friends in
the interagency don't approach the joint interdependence the
same way you forced us down that road.
Senator Warner. Right.
General Honore. And we have seen the goodness of that. I
think if we are going to get a unified unity of effort, it's
not just a department. You tell us what to do, and we do it,
the Department of Defense.
Senator Warner. The Department of Defense.
General Honore. How do we get all the other agencies in
unity of effort? Because in most cases, it's their capability
that's going to carry the day, not the Department. We do the
search and rescue, and we're out of there. It's what happens
during the preparation and the recovery that has longstanding
impact on the American people.
Senator Warner. Well, General, I don't wish to take this
time. But I'm pushing that same concept as it relates to Iraq
today.
General Honore. Yes, sir.
Senator Warner. I think our military are performing their
mission extraordinarily well, but other departments and
agencies of our Federal Government have not brought to bear
their resources to the same degree as the Department of
Defense. And I think--I said those words yesterday to the
National Security Advisor, ``I think it's time to look at a
Goldwater-Nichols for this type of situation.'' And our
Committee will undertake to look at that.
I'd best return to this subject, though, and give you an
opportunity, General Landreneau, to talk about how you would
hope to work the Title 32 and Title 10 forces together in
future operations with greater efficiency.
General Landreneau. Thank you, Senator Warner. To obtain
unity of effort, the first component is to have very clear
command guidance. We had very clear command guidance in the
form of the governor. Governor Blanco gave very clear, explicit
direction.
We understood what her command guidance was. It was then my
responsibility to empower junior leaders--because in the fog of
this--of a catastrophic event, not unlike the fog of war, it is
very important when you have communication breakdown, when
lines of communication are disrupted and you have the confusion
that goes with dealing with a major catastrophic event, you
have to empower your soldiers, empower your officers, your
commanders at each level down to the squad leader level, to
clearly understand the commander's intent, be able to
articulate it, and be able to independently carry it out.
And that's how we achieved unity of effort. And I assure
you, sir, that when the Title 10 forces arrived in Louisiana
and General Honore and I discussed how we would integrate them
into--and it was a reinforcement or, if you will, it was adding
depth to the National Guard formations that were already in
place.
We discussed the importance of embedding National Guard
troops in each of those active duty formations so that you had
not only the liaison connection between the National Guard and
the active duty units, but you also had that additional
component of being able to deal with law enforcement in the
event that you needed to.
So we obtained unity of effort by good commander's
guidance, good communication, and empowering junior officers.
Senator Warner. And strength of personalities.
You mentioned the law enforcement aspect. I'm hopeful that
our government carefully analyzes the doctrine of Posse
Comitatus, which you understand full well. Do you have any
views as to whether or not we should provide for means by
which, say, the President, if necessary--it's a very important
doctrine--could have the discretion to give waivers for the
traditional prohibition against the utilization of active
forces to participate in law enforcement?
Do you think that's something that should be studied, and
do you feel that this tragic chapter of our history showed
instances where, had there been such authority, we might have
avoided some of the looting and other infractions of law?
General Landreneau. Senator Warner, it's my personal
opinion that it is not necessary to make any changes to the
current Posse Comitatus provisions. I lived the situation. I
saw it. But I also communicated with General Honore about this
and with other active commanders to see if they had witnessed
or had any issues with it. And we saw none. We saw no problems.
There is a tremendous--when you bring in the Title 10
forces, when the Title 10 forces come in to augment and add
depth to the existing National Guard formations that are in
place in a catastrophic event, just as Katrina, there are just
critical--just large numbers of critical missions that can be
accomplished by those active duty troops. And that law
enforcement piece can be handled by the National Guard troops
that are in place.
Senator Warner. All right. General Honore, you and I have
discussed this. Do you have anything further to add on your
thoughts about Posse Comitatus and the need to study it?
General Honore. I think we ought to always review how we're
doing business. We owe that to the American people because the
disturbances I spoke to earlier, that could happen, that are
not natural disasters, that are tied to a pandemic, that are
tied to the possibility of a contaminant moving across State
lines.
I think the conditions that are in the law now are
substantial enough to have us do our job and gives authority to
the Executive Branch to execute that, if needed, in
collaboration with the governor or on top of a governor's
concern.
I think what we need to continue to work on in that regard
is a common understanding of it, and decision points and
triggers that when you're dealing with a storm is a lot
different. And sometimes the news reports are going to tell you
things that would give the impression that you need to pull
that tool out of the box. And a lot of those reports gave rise
to that during this storm.
But most of them, as we've looked back at it and talked to
people, were not accurate. While there were trying times inside
the City of New Orleans as far as law enforcement, it in no way
met the threshold of executing or using that option. But I do
think we need make sure that it's not a discussion that we must
have before we put ground troops on the ground.
It should not be an automatic discussion that we've got to
have, particularly if the mission is to do search and rescue
and save lives. That could be a problem if, every time, every
lawyer in the room put that on the table because they always
want to talk about it.
Senator Warner. Well, well done to you and all those under
your respective commands. And I thank the Chairman for the
indulgence.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
I want to thank you both for your testimony today and your
service. General Honore, I was saying to my colleague and
partner in this endeavor, Senator Lieberman, that your
testimony reinforces my belief that we should create regionally
based task forces that have representatives from every agency
that would be involved in providing services or rescue or
recovery operations in the event of a catastrophe, whether it's
a manmade catastrophe such as a terrorist attack or a natural
one such as Katrina.
I think one reason that you were able to be so successful
was your understanding of the region to which you deployed. And
I thank you. You summed it up well when you said you shouldn't
be exchanging business cards in the middle of a crisis.
And if we can get people representing all the different
players, at all levels of government, also, to meet, to
exercise together, to train, to plan, I think it is the single
greatest step we could take to improve the effectiveness of
response.
General Honore. And I would really give some incentive to
industry to play because they can make a lot of difference in
the response if we engage them up-front during the preparation
phase as a part of these regional endeavors, ma'am.
Chairman Collins. Excellent point, Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Madam Chairman, I agree with everything
you just said. It's the take-away that I have from this hearing
today. You've both been extremely helpful in your testimony and
the constructive suggestions that you made on your behalf, and
I include Admiral Allen. This is real lessons learned.
And we'll try to do in our work now whatever we can, either
legislatively or by recommendation for administrative action to
carry that out. And boy, that's the line that stuck with me,
too, about not having a situation where, in the middle of a
disaster, the key people are exchanging business cards.
Did you two know each other before the----
General Honore. Yes, sir.
Senator Lieberman. You did? That helped?
General Landreneau. Yes, sir.
General Honore. We speak the same language.
Senator Lieberman. I noticed. [Laughter.]
Well, I don't want to get too personal. But when Senator
Breaux was here, we were members of a very small caucus of two
Senators, which Senator Breaux referred to as the Cajun Kosher
Caucus. [Laughter.]
So I understand the language.
General Landreneau. I might add that General Honore's son
is in the Louisiana National Guard, served in Iraq, and
returned during Katrina. He was able to welcome his son home.
Senator Lieberman. Isn't that great? I'm not surprised to
hear that, but it's a pleasure to hear it and an honor to hear.
Thank you both very much for your continuing service to our
country.
Chairman Collins. This hearing is now adjourned. The
hearing record will remain open for 15 days for additional
materials. Thank you for your testimony.
[Whereupon, at 1:26 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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