Kate Heneroty
Federal government tried legal takeover of Katrina operation
Sun Sep 4, 2005 18:01
67.14.222.248
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Federal government tried legal takeover of Katrina operations: state official
Kate Heneroty at 11:15 AM ET
[JURIST] The Washington Post reported Sunday that Bush administration officials sent a draft legal memorandum to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco just before midnight Friday asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, according to a source within the state's emergency operations center. Administration officials had been seeking direct unified control over local police and National Guard units that would otherwise be under the Governor's jurisdiction. According to a senior Bush official, the President has the power (by state request or unilaterally) to federalize National Guard troops and put down civil unrest under the Insurrection Act [text; 2001 Congressional testimony on potential legal and other problems with federalizing the Guard during state emergencies, PDF]. Suspecting a political motive, however, state officials refused to make the request, recognizing its implications for state authority over a state emergency and arguing it would be analogous to a federal declaration of martial law, a legal condition that both the US military [JURIST report] and state authorities [JURIST report] had previously been at public pains to avoid. The next day Blanco shored up her authority over the situation by setting up a state relief fund and calling in former Clinton administration FEMA director James Lee Witt to advise on the state relief effort. Federal officials all the way up to President have suggested that state and local governments were overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster and were slow to respond, but that they themselves could not have moved more quickly because, in the words of Homeland Secutity Secretary Michael Chertoff, "our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor." The Post quotes its state source as saying "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," The Washington Post has more.
3:25 PM ET - In an article posted on its website Sunday, Newsweek magazine notes that legal wrangling was also going on within the Bush administration as the situation in New Orleans deteriorated:
President Bush could have "federalized" the National Guard in an instant. That's what his father, President George H.W. Bush, did after the Los Angeles riots in 1992.... But after Katrina, a strange paralysis set in. For days, Bush's top advisers argued over legal niceties about who was in charge, according to three White House officials who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. Beginning early in the week, Justice Department lawyers presented arguments for federalizing the Guard, but Defense Department lawyers fretted about untrained 19-year-olds trying to enforce local laws, according to a senior law-enforcement official who requested anonymity citing the delicate nature of the discussions.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/09/federal-government-tried-legal.php
----
Provocateur forces in New Orleans? The case builds
On Thursday, there was a report on the net Delta Force had just dropped into New Orleans. This was at about the same time this website noticed a couple helicopters full of unidentified troops being dropped off the helipad at the Superdome. If the "Delta Force" story is true (and even Army Times says forces are engaging in combat in New Orleans), or another small special ops force were dropped into New Orleans, they would be well placed, for provocateuring more than anything else. Such as laying down sniper fire on boats evacuating patients from a hospital or setting fires, or sniping at firefighters.
This item is from the LiveJournal blog of someone holed up in a functioning datacenter on Canal St. at 1pm CDT Saturday:
"The Riverwalk may be on fire (shopping mall at the river at end of CBD/Quarter). Everytime we talk to the police, we hear about sniper fire at the fire scenes. I cannot confirm that there is any. This is all hearsay, but it's coming from the police. The police we talk to, while consistent about claiming there is sniper fire, are conflicted about whether it's police sniper fire trying to take out arsonists or criminal sniper fire trying to take out police and fire rescue teams. Again, this is rumor for now, but we're hearing a lot of this rumor.
Delta Force is a criminal organization, having previously engaged in the murder of Americans at Waco, so any fire from them would by definition be sniper fire.
It seems like someone is going up and down the river, setting things on fire and making sure they burn down. First the warehouses, now the Riverwalk shopping mall, a structure orginally constructed for the 1984 World's Fair.
Are there other special forces teams out there that could take out these provocteurs? Anyone that gives a damn about America or New Orleans? Could someone call France and ask for a hand?
http://www.total411.info/2005/09/provacateur-forces-in-new-orleans-case.html
September 02, 2005
Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
By Joseph R. Chenelly
Times staff writer
NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”
Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy.
Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging area just after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.
“We’re here to do whatever they need us to do,” Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard’s 1345th Transportation Company. “We packed to stay as long as it takes.”
While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.
Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and police helicopters filled the city sky Friday morning. Most had armed soldiers manning the doors. According to Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeremy Grishamn, a spokesman for the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the vessel kept its helicopters at sea Thursday night after several military helicopters reported being shot at from the ground.
Numerous soldiers also told Army Times that they have been shot at by armed civilians in New Orleans. Spokesmen for the Joint Task Force Headquarters at the Superdome were unaware of any servicemen being wounded in the streets, although one soldier is recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during a struggle with a civilian in the dome Wednesday night.
“I never thought that at a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans,” said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. “And I never thought I’d have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace.”
Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.
“This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.” Ferguson said. “You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.”
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php
September 3, 2005 latimes.com : National News Single
KATRINA'S AFTERMATH
Met by Despair, Not Violence
As they begin to patrol the chaotic city, troops are
surprised by what they don't find.
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
NEW ORLEANS — Forty-four troops pressed together in
their truck, swaying as one at every bump and turn
like reeds in a river.
As they plunged into the dark water engulfing the
business district of New Orleans, their wake pushed
the body of a woman onto the steps of the Superdome.
The floodwater had ripped her pants down to her knees.
She was facedown in the muck, a red ribbon still tied
neatly around her graying hair.
The troops, members of an elite Special Response Team
from the Louisiana Army National Guard, were the first
convoy out of what was rapidly becoming a massive
military staging ground.
Their mission, simply, is to turn New Orleans into a
police state — to "regain the city," 1st Sgt. John
Jewell said.
The truck lurched through the streets, past buildings
burning unabated and MPs in gun turrets. When they
stopped to gear up for their arrival at the New
Orleans Convention Center, where more than 15,000
people had been living in squalor since Katrina, these
words echoed — for the first time, one would imagine —
through the intersection of Poydras Avenue and
Carondelet Street: "Lock and load!"
"Sixteen in the clip!" one Guardsman shouted, a common
refrain used to indicate that rifles are fully loaded.
But when they arrived, they did not find marauding
mobs. They did not come under fire. They found people
who had lost everything in the storm and, since then,
their dignity.
The troops were part of the Superdome team that came
to town before the hurricane. For days, they had been
cut off from news reports, sleeping and working among
the refugees and the vicious rumor mill at the
Superdome.
Their Superdome duties left them with a terrible image
of the city. They knew that out on the streets, a
police officer had been shot in the head, that looting
was widespread, that snipers were taking shots even at
boaters trying to rescue victims from rooftops and
attics.
Now assigned to patrol the streets, they headed for
the New Orleans Convention Center, in the city's
central business district. Many had wads of tobacco in
their bottom lip and emitted long, dense streams of
spittle into the streets below.
Their mission was to establish a command post at the
center, which officials have increasingly turned their
attention to, particularly as the evacuation of the
Superdome nears its end. They would then build a
staging area to bring in food and water. Finally, they
would send in teams to seize control of a massive and
lawless facility.
The troops braced for the worst.
"Is this the calm before the storm?" one asked as they
rolled through the streets.
"There are a lot of gangs out here in the water," said
Sgt. 1st Class Maris Pichon, a 26-year veteran of the
National Guard who served in Afghanistan last year.
"This is not going to be a cakewalk."
Two trucks pulled beside them, one carrying water and
one a massive pile of ready-to-eat military meals in
boxes.
"Tell me they're not letting the food go in before the
troops," one Guardsman said.
"That's called bait," another said.
They pulled into a parking lot next to the convention
center in full battle mode. They spilled over the
sides of the truck, formed a tight circle and began
walking outward, stepping over the detritus of the
refugees. Dirty underwear. A CD that included the song
"Thank God I'm a Country Boy."
A troop carrier rolled over an empty water bottle,
popping it like a balloon. The troops yanked their
weapons to a firing position before realizing what it
was.
"No civilians in this parking lot!" a sergeant
shouted. "Hold your perimeter!"
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-troops3sep03,1,3550798.story?coll=la-headlinesnation
Federal government tried legal takeover of Katrina operations: state official
Kate Heneroty at 11:15 AM ET
[JURIST] The Washington Post reported Sunday that Bush administration officials sent a draft legal memorandum to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco just before midnight Friday asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, according to a source within the state's emergency operations center. Administration officials had been seeking direct unified control over local police and National Guard units that would otherwise be under the Governor's jurisdiction. According to a senior Bush official, the President has the power (by state request or unilaterally) to federalize National Guard troops and put down civil unrest under the Insurrection Act [text; 2001 Congressional testimony on potential legal and other problems with federalizing the Guard during state emergencies, PDF]. Suspecting a political motive, however, state officials refused to make the request, recognizing its implications for state authority over a state emergency and arguing it would be analogous to a federal declaration of martial law, a legal condition that both the US military [JURIST report] and state authorities [JURIST report] had previously been at public pains to avoid. The next day Blanco shored up her authority over the situation by setting up a state relief fund and calling in former Clinton administration FEMA director James Lee Witt to advise on the state relief effort. Federal officials all the way up to President have suggested that state and local governments were overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster and were slow to respond, but that they themselves could not have moved more quickly because, in the words of Homeland Secutity Secretary Michael Chertoff, "our constitutional system really places the primary authority in each state with the governor." The Post quotes its state source as saying "Quite frankly, if they'd been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals," The Washington Post has more.
3:25 PM ET - In an article posted on its website Sunday, Newsweek magazine notes that legal wrangling was also going on within the Bush administration as the situation in New Orleans deteriorated:
President Bush could have "federalized" the National Guard in an instant. That's what his father, President George H.W. Bush, did after the Los Angeles riots in 1992.... But after Katrina, a strange paralysis set in. For days, Bush's top advisers argued over legal niceties about who was in charge, according to three White House officials who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations. Beginning early in the week, Justice Department lawyers presented arguments for federalizing the Guard, but Defense Department lawyers fretted about untrained 19-year-olds trying to enforce local laws, according to a senior law-enforcement official who requested anonymity citing the delicate nature of the discussions.
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2005/09/federal-government-tried-legal.php
----
Provocateur forces in New Orleans? The case builds
On Thursday, there was a report on the net Delta Force had just dropped into New Orleans. This was at about the same time this website noticed a couple helicopters full of unidentified troops being dropped off the helipad at the Superdome. If the "Delta Force" story is true (and even Army Times says forces are engaging in combat in New Orleans), or another small special ops force were dropped into New Orleans, they would be well placed, for provocateuring more than anything else. Such as laying down sniper fire on boats evacuating patients from a hospital or setting fires, or sniping at firefighters.
This item is from the LiveJournal blog of someone holed up in a functioning datacenter on Canal St. at 1pm CDT Saturday:
"The Riverwalk may be on fire (shopping mall at the river at end of CBD/Quarter). Everytime we talk to the police, we hear about sniper fire at the fire scenes. I cannot confirm that there is any. This is all hearsay, but it's coming from the police. The police we talk to, while consistent about claiming there is sniper fire, are conflicted about whether it's police sniper fire trying to take out arsonists or criminal sniper fire trying to take out police and fire rescue teams. Again, this is rumor for now, but we're hearing a lot of this rumor.
Delta Force is a criminal organization, having previously engaged in the murder of Americans at Waco, so any fire from them would by definition be sniper fire.
It seems like someone is going up and down the river, setting things on fire and making sure they burn down. First the warehouses, now the Riverwalk shopping mall, a structure orginally constructed for the 1984 World's Fair.
Are there other special forces teams out there that could take out these provocteurs? Anyone that gives a damn about America or New Orleans? Could someone call France and ask for a hand?
http://www.total411.info/2005/09/provacateur-forces-in-new-orleans-case.html
September 02, 2005
Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans
By Joseph R. Chenelly
Times staff writer
NEW ORLEANS — Combat operations are underway on the streets “to take this city back” in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, commander of the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force told Army Times Friday as hundreds of armed troops under his charge prepared to launch a massive citywide security mission from a staging area outside the Louisiana Superdome. “We’re going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.”
Jones said the military first needs to establish security throughout the city. Military and police officials have said there are several large areas of the city are in a full state of anarchy.
Dozens of military trucks and up-armored Humvees left the staging area just after 11 a.m. Friday, while hundreds more troops arrived at the same staging area in the city via Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters.
“We’re here to do whatever they need us to do,” Sgt. 1st Class Ron Dixon, of the Oklahoma National Guard’s 1345th Transportation Company. “We packed to stay as long as it takes.”
While some fight the insurgency in the city, other carry on with rescue and evacuation operations. Helicopters are still pulling hundreds of stranded people from rooftops of flooded homes.
Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and police helicopters filled the city sky Friday morning. Most had armed soldiers manning the doors. According to Petty Officer 3rd Class Jeremy Grishamn, a spokesman for the amphibious assault ship Bataan, the vessel kept its helicopters at sea Thursday night after several military helicopters reported being shot at from the ground.
Numerous soldiers also told Army Times that they have been shot at by armed civilians in New Orleans. Spokesmen for the Joint Task Force Headquarters at the Superdome were unaware of any servicemen being wounded in the streets, although one soldier is recovering from a gunshot wound sustained during a struggle with a civilian in the dome Wednesday night.
“I never thought that at a National Guardsman I would be shot at by other Americans,” said Spc. Philip Baccus of the 527th Engineer Battalion. “And I never thought I’d have to carry a rifle when on a hurricane relief mission. This is a disgrace.”
Spc. Cliff Ferguson of the 527th Engineer Battalion pointed out that he knows there are plenty of decent people in New Orleans, but he said it is hard to stay motivated considering the circumstances.
“This is making a lot of us think about not reenlisting.” Ferguson said. “You have to think about whether it is worth risking your neck for someone who will turn around and shoot at you. We didn’t come here to fight a war. We came here to help.”
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1077495.php
September 3, 2005 latimes.com : National News Single
KATRINA'S AFTERMATH
Met by Despair, Not Violence
As they begin to patrol the chaotic city, troops are
surprised by what they don't find.
By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer
NEW ORLEANS — Forty-four troops pressed together in
their truck, swaying as one at every bump and turn
like reeds in a river.
As they plunged into the dark water engulfing the
business district of New Orleans, their wake pushed
the body of a woman onto the steps of the Superdome.
The floodwater had ripped her pants down to her knees.
She was facedown in the muck, a red ribbon still tied
neatly around her graying hair.
The troops, members of an elite Special Response Team
from the Louisiana Army National Guard, were the first
convoy out of what was rapidly becoming a massive
military staging ground.
Their mission, simply, is to turn New Orleans into a
police state — to "regain the city," 1st Sgt. John
Jewell said.
The truck lurched through the streets, past buildings
burning unabated and MPs in gun turrets. When they
stopped to gear up for their arrival at the New
Orleans Convention Center, where more than 15,000
people had been living in squalor since Katrina, these
words echoed — for the first time, one would imagine —
through the intersection of Poydras Avenue and
Carondelet Street: "Lock and load!"
"Sixteen in the clip!" one Guardsman shouted, a common
refrain used to indicate that rifles are fully loaded.
But when they arrived, they did not find marauding
mobs. They did not come under fire. They found people
who had lost everything in the storm and, since then,
their dignity.
The troops were part of the Superdome team that came
to town before the hurricane. For days, they had been
cut off from news reports, sleeping and working among
the refugees and the vicious rumor mill at the
Superdome.
Their Superdome duties left them with a terrible image
of the city. They knew that out on the streets, a
police officer had been shot in the head, that looting
was widespread, that snipers were taking shots even at
boaters trying to rescue victims from rooftops and
attics.
Now assigned to patrol the streets, they headed for
the New Orleans Convention Center, in the city's
central business district. Many had wads of tobacco in
their bottom lip and emitted long, dense streams of
spittle into the streets below.
Their mission was to establish a command post at the
center, which officials have increasingly turned their
attention to, particularly as the evacuation of the
Superdome nears its end. They would then build a
staging area to bring in food and water. Finally, they
would send in teams to seize control of a massive and
lawless facility.
The troops braced for the worst.
"Is this the calm before the storm?" one asked as they
rolled through the streets.
"There are a lot of gangs out here in the water," said
Sgt. 1st Class Maris Pichon, a 26-year veteran of the
National Guard who served in Afghanistan last year.
"This is not going to be a cakewalk."
Two trucks pulled beside them, one carrying water and
one a massive pile of ready-to-eat military meals in
boxes.
"Tell me they're not letting the food go in before the
troops," one Guardsman said.
"That's called bait," another said.
They pulled into a parking lot next to the convention
center in full battle mode. They spilled over the
sides of the truck, formed a tight circle and began
walking outward, stepping over the detritus of the
refugees. Dirty underwear. A CD that included the song
"Thank God I'm a Country Boy."
A troop carrier rolled over an empty water bottle,
popping it like a balloon. The troops yanked their
weapons to a firing position before realizing what it
was.
"No civilians in this parking lot!" a sergeant
shouted. "Hold your perimeter!"
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-troops3sep03,1,3550798.story?coll=la-headlinesnation
- MR. RUSSERT: Now, let's turn to Hurricane Katrina —MEET THE PRESS - Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005, Mon Sep 5 01:21
- We Have Been Abandoned By Our Own Country —Tom Feeley, Sun Sep 4 18:56
- The perils of punditry: A Death Threat —Justin Raimondo, Mon Sep 5 03:04
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