Morning copy 9.28.2005

Mike "Brownie" Brown testified that he is no "superhero" when it comes to Emergency Management. I am left to wonder if there was a Katrina sequel DVD for President Bush to shift from "heck of a job" to resignation. And, perhaps there is a DVD box set in the works on Iraq.

Brownie

A graf from the Washington Post:

Brown admitted that FEMA's ability to move life-sustaining supplies was flawed and "easily overwhelmed" by Katrina's scale. He said that emergency communications broke down because the country made little "real progress" in learning from the 2001 terrorist attacks, and he warned that if U.S. authorities remain focused on preparing for terrorism instead of natural disasters, "then we're going to fail."

The New York Times has a scathing editorial, it concludes:

Mr. Brown, in exculpating himself, did lay one hand on the Bush administration, when he blamed unspecified superiors at the Homeland Security Department for the gradual "emaciation" of FEMA as it was subsumed by an agency preoccupied with the threat of terrorism. Scores of millions of dollars have been quietly shuffled from the FEMA budget to other needs, leaving personnel and programs stretched, he told lawmakers. But the committee was clearly unwilling to seize on this as a symptom of the need for an independent inquiry into the government's lack of preparedness.

Iraq

At the Labour conference in Brighton, Tony Blair says the UK will remain in Iraq, New York Times.

U.S. able to kill Al Qaeda in Iraq leaders with intelligence breaks, Christian Science Monitor. Of course, the iconic leaders remain and the underlying problems generating AQ recruits remain.

Fred Kaplan in Slate says that Iraqis should vote no on this constitution because "passage of this parchment will almost certainly make things worse—and for much longer still."