Hurricane Katrina

HURRICANE KATRINA

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, last Friday, I joined 13 of my colleagues and went to view the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, LA, and Mississippi, It was a sight which I will never forget. This great bustling city of New Orleans is now a ghost town with hardly any activity other than a few people returning to their homes trying to retrieve lost treasures left behind from the flood--trying to put their lives back together by gathering all of this water-laden debris and tossing it outside in the hopes they might save their structures.

We then went over to Mississippi where it was a stunning scene in village and community and town after town--to see subdivisions that have been wiped away, to look down at what appeared to be 50 concrete slabs and to see no evidence of debris but evidence of destruction, all gone, scoured from the Earth by these horrible hurricane winds and waves which consumed some of these communities.

A man in Pass Christian in Mississippi told us of the panic that set in when the remaining villagers went to the library with hurricane-proof windows, believing they might be safe, and then, as a 28-foot wave hit this library, thinking they all might drown right there in that building at that moment. I can't imagine what that was like. I can't imagine what it was like for so many who went through this devastating experience. Some are trying to come to grips with their future and there lives.

The President came to the American people last week at Jackson Square in New Orleans and made a speech which I think will be important for generations to come. I was asked to react to it, and I said I think the President has given us an agenda that we have to follow--to rebuild the gulf coast, to rebuild the lives and the communities. But I believed then, and I believe now, that the President's call for this unity as a nation and this community of caring also has to be called for fiscal responsibility and accountability. We have to rebuild the gulf coast and help Katrina victims rebuild their lives. It is in our national interest. It is part of our national character. We rally as Americans to help our fellow Americans.

But I have a real concern. Instead of the ``Big Easy,'' people are getting a big uneasy feeling about where Katrina reconstruction effort is headed and who is in charge. Several published reports say the person heading up the administration's Katrina rebuilding project is none other than Karl Rove, the President's long-time political director. That is an incredible suggestion--that Karl Rove will have responsibility for the Katrina reconstruction effort, the No. 1 politician, the No. 1 political operative in the White House. Have we learned nothing?

Consider what happened when Katrina struck. FEMA was not there. Michael Brown is now gone. But how did he get in a position to be in charge of FEMA? It was because of political connections. He didn't have the experience. He didn't have the resume. He didn't have the skills needed when he faced the greatest natural disaster in our history. What was his claim to this job to head FEMA? His claim was he was a college roommate of Joe Allbaugh, who happened to be the President's Chief of Staff and campaign director in Texas who, when he left the FEMA agency to become a consultant, turned it over to Michael Brown, his college roommate, to take over--this little daisy chain of politicians who played out with disastrous incompetence when Katrina struck.

Now this administration, instead of moving away from the politicians to the professionals when it comes to rebuilding, has decided that Karl Rove is going to be in charge--the same Karl Rove who, just a few weeks ago in a political speech, said the Democrats didn't share the Republicans' zeal for stopping the war on terrorism; the same Karl Rove who won't give us straight answers when it comes to his role in revealing the identity of Valarie Plame, an undercover CIA operative, which disclosure of her identity not only endangered her life but the lives of many other career employees; the same Karl Rove who incidentally will take his mind off of the Katrina reconstruction effort long enough to go to North Dakota on this Saturday night for a big political rally.

Is this the person we want in charge of $60 billion or $100 billion in reconstruction funds? I hope not. I hope the President reconsiders.

This is a troubling admission--that this administration doesn't have leadership to turn to in time of crisis, if the best the President can find is his political adviser, Karl Rove, to deal with the disaster of Katrina.

What have we seen so far? The Wall Street Journal said last week:

The Bush administration is importing many of the contract practices blamed for spending abuses in Iraq as it begins the largest and costliest rebuilding effort in United States history.

We know what happened in Iraq--no-bid contracts to Halliburton and the buddies of this administration, contracts that have never been investigated by this Congress. And here they go again with Katrina and with Karl Rove keeping his watchful eye on what is being done.

The Wall Street Journal article went on to say:

The first large-scale contracts awarded to Hurricane Katrina, as in Iraq, were awarded without competitive bidding, using so-called ``cost-plus'' provisions that guarantee contractors certain profits regardless of how much they spend.

It turns out that not only are there no-bid contracts, but coincidentally they happen to be going to the clients of Joe Allbaugh. Remember that name? I mentioned him earlier. He was the President's political campaign director in Texas who became the head of FEMA and who left to be a consultant, and is now making certain that his clients get $100 million no-bid contracts.

When is this going to end? When are we going to have true accountability? Once again, we see the same names coming out of Hurricane Katrina--Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown & Root--the names of Joe Allbaugh's clients who are, once again, coming up with these contracts.

If it wasn't bad enough, this morning's Washington Post, on the front page, tells the story of a Bush official arrested in a corruption probe. It says:

The Bush administration's top Federal procurement official resigned Friday and was arrested yesterday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the Federal Government. It was the first criminal complaint filed against a government official in the ongoing corruption probe related to Abramoff's activities in Washington.

The complaint, filed by the FBI, alleges that David H. Safavian, 38, a White House procurement official involved until last week in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, made repeated false statements to government officials and investigators about a golf trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002.

The top official in the White House that was in charge of procurement involved in the Katrina effort not only resigned but was arrested for misleading the Federal Government in terms of his involvement with the Republican lobbyists.

Now the administration comes out and says they found just the person to look into the mistakes of Hurricane Katrina. It is a woman by the name of Frances Townsend. I do not know her. She may be a very competent individual. But how in the world can we get to the truth of the question as to what went wrong with Hurricane Katrina? How can we really hope to discover the incompetence that led to all of this human suffering and devastation if the administration is going to investigate itself?

We know from 9/11 that the only way we got to the heart of the matter, the critical questions about what went wrong on 9/11, was with an independent, nonpartisan commission. Yet this administration resisted the efforts of that 9/11 commission being created and today resists the efforts of an independent, nonpartisan commission to look into what went wrong with Hurricane Katrina.

I will conclude by saying this: We owe it to the victims and their families and to the American people and the American taxpayers to get honest answers about what went wrong with Katrina, and to put people in charge to make certain that we don't waste the billions of dollars that are going to be spent in this reconstruction effort. Putting Karl Rove in charge makes no sense whatsoever. He has no resume and no skills other than running political campaigns. If he is being put in place to protect the President politically, that decision does not serve the best interests of the American people nor the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

It is time to get to the bottom of this. If Congress will not have an honest investigation of what happened with Hurricane Katrina, we need to have this nonpartisan, independent commission like the 9/11 Commission to answer the questions about what went wrong and to make certain that we don't replicate those mistakes in the expenditure of these funds in the future.

I yield the floor.

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