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Lou Dobbs Tonight
FEMA Director Recalled; Coast Guard Admiral in Charge of Katrina Relief Operation
Aired September 09, 2005 - 18:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LOU DOBBS, HOST: Thank you, Wolf. Good evening, everybody.
Tonight, FEMA director Michael Brown has been recalled to Washington. His recall follows scathing criticism. A Coast Guard admiral is now in charge of the entire Hurricane Katrina relief operation. We'll have the full report.
New charges tonight that the federal government is making it easy for corporate America to make big profits from the massive hurricane recovery effort, at the expense of middle class Americans and taxpayers, and at the same time cutting the pay of those who will be rebuilding the Gulf Coast.
Three hundred thousand children are among the million who have fled the disaster zone. Tonight, we tip our hat to the state of Texas and the Texans who have achieved the impossible in helping those students get back to school.
One week after President Bush declared FEMA director Michael Brown is doing, quote, "a heck of a job," Brown has been recalled to Washington and removed from direct responsibility for hurricane relief operations.
Brown's removal comes amid rising outrage about Brown's performance and new questions about his qualifications for the job in the first place.
The Coast Guard chief of staff, Vice Admiral Thad Allen, replaces Brown as director of the huge relief effort along the Gulf Coast. The relief operation continues.
And there was some good news today. Rescue workers say they are finding fewer bodies than had been expected. The number of dead in the city could be significantly below earlier projections of 10,000.
New Orleans police are also concerned tonight about hurricane survivors, survivors who still refuse to leave that city. Between 5,000 and 10,000 survivors remain in the city, but officials say law enforcement agencies will only use force to remove those people as a last resort.
Jeff Koinange, in New Orleans, reports on the developing plans to force people from their homes. Drew Griffith will report on one group of residents who refuse to leave the city. Ed Lavandera in Alexandria, Louisiana, reports tonight on the return of Louisiana National Guard troops from Iraq. They now face destroyed homes and missing family members.
We begin our coverage tonight with Jeff Koinange -- Jeff.
JEFF KOINANGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Lou. And we spent most of this day with various law enforcement agencies and also volunteers from across the country, trying to gently persuade New Orleanians to leave the city.
As you well know, the water has become more stagnant. The threat of an outbreak of disease is imminent, but I'll tell you, a lot of people not wanting to leave their city. And there's two basic reasons: one, a lot of them have pets. They don't know whether to leave their pets behind or wherever it is they end up, will their pets be allowed?
Two, a lot of them have valuables in their homes, and they don't know whether their homes will be secure once they leave the city, despite the fact that there are over 19,000 military and police personnel spread across the city. The city is basically secure.
In fact, we ran into the commander of the Joint Task Force Katrina, Lieutenant General Russell Honore, and he told us basically his mission is twofold. One, he's not going to force anyone to leave this city.
Two, he's going to make sure that when it's time to retrieve the bodies, the remains of those who are dead, he doesn't want the media around. Why? He doesn't want their family and friends to see their bodies for the first time on television without them being there.
So what he's saying basically is, Lou, he's treating this entire situation with a lot of sensitivity.
DOBBS: A lot of sensitivity, Jeff, but as you well know and everyone in the television news business knows, the way in which photographs and video is taken of the recovery of those bodies can be done so that they are not identifiable. Why this clamp-down, and is the media resisting it?
KOINANGE: Well, the thing is, up until now, 12 days later, people have freely been going and filming bodies. And I'm sure there's been a lot of backlash, people calling radio stations, TV stations and saying, "Hey, I just saw my loved one on television for the first time."
And now, can you just imagine, 12 days later, what state those corpses are in? Because for the most part, this has been a search and rescue mission. It's now going to become a search and recovery mission. It's going to be a lot worse conditions of those corpses, Lou.
DOBBS: And Jeffrey, we want to tell our audience that CNN has filed suit in federal court to resist any agency that attempts to constrain our coverage in any way of this search and rescue and recovery operation in the Gulf Coast.
Jeff, thank you very much.
Officials in New Orleans say nearly everyone who is prepared to leave the city voluntary has already left. Those residents who remain are declaring they will resist any efforts to remove them.
Drew Griffin has our report tonight -- Drew.
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm going to show you why, Lou. We haven't shown a lot of this on TV, but there are really two sides of New Orleans, the one that was flooded and the other that really wasn't hit that bad at all.
We have been driving for the past six days through many parts of this city, the French Quarter, the lower Central Business District, all through the Garden District, and these areas have tree limbs down, a little bit of wind damage, but no flooding, never any flooding in many of these areas.
And some of the residents, like a fellow we ran into, James McLaurin, says he's got four weeks worth of water. He actually has water pressure in his home, so he can flush his toilet. And he has phone lines. He says the city is just trying to scare him out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES MCLAURIN, NEW ORLEANS RESIDENT: See, what they're doing is coming around trying to brainwash you to go for you to go and leave your place so when you come back you won't have anything to come back to.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GRIFFIN: He says the soldiers keep coming around asking him what size he is, what size body bag he's going to need. He says if he needs a body bag, it's going to be when he dies from old age and he knew that anyway.
They are staying put. He says he has plenty of food.
What these people would really like is for the city, or anyone, or maybe some of these soldiers, to just come in and clean the place up and get the power back on. He sees no reason why he should go.
DOBBS: And he obviously is a man of considerable strength and character, and it's easy to understand and to sympathize with his view.
How soon will we see, do you believe, and best do you understand, Drew, that power return to that area?
GRIFFIN: Lou, every night we have to leave here through the barricade set up and through the curfew zone. And each night that power creeps closer and closer in.
Really, on the western side of New Orleans, it is the kind of hurricane recovery that I've seen in so many hurricanes. Two or three days after the hurricane, the power trucks come in. They start rebuilding the system. It's really not that bad.
I would guesstimate, not being a power company official, I would guesstimate he's going to have power four or five days from now.
DOBBS: Let's hope that your guesstimate is accurate. Thank you very much, Drew Griffin.
As emergency workers and troops continue their search and recovery operation, hundreds of Louisiana National Guardsmen have begun to return from combat duty in Iraq.
Those National Guardsmen are returning, of course, to an uncertain future. Many of them have lost their homes in this flood disaster. Some have lost contact with their families.
Ed Lavandera reports from Alexandria, Louisiana -- Ed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Lou.
Well, this isn't the homecoming that many of these soldiers expected to receive when they deployed from here a year ago. The 256th Brigade Combat Team had been in Iraq patrolling the Baghdad Airport for the last year, dangerous duty.
And in the last couple weeks, they've been doing that job, all the while in the back of their mind trying to get as much news as possible to what happened to their families.
So about 500 of the 3,000 reservists that will be coming back -- started coming back today and will be coming back over the next couple days, 500 or so of those have been directly affected by the hurricane, either loss their homes. It could even go higher. Officials say many other soldiers -- these are reservists we're talking about -- work in the oil industry. Many of those jobs just don't exist right now, so that number could go higher as to how many were affected.
An emotional homecoming. We saw one soldier break down after he learning that a cousin had been killed in the hurricane flooding. Other soldiers learning that their homes were destroyed, their personal property destroyed.
And of these many soldiers coming home to learn that their families are spread out all over the country now. And that's why some family members are saying that the turnout for their homecoming wasn't as high -- as big as they -- the departure when they left here a year ago. An emotional day for them.
DOBBS: Ed, thank you very much indeed. Ed Lavandera.
Tropical Storm Ophelia has strengthened into a hurricane once again tonight. Ophelia, which is packing winds now of 75 miles an hour, is slowly moving away from the eastern Florida coast, but forecasters say the storm could still pose a threat to the coast next week. They say Ophelia could change direction and make landfall in Georgia or the Carolinas, but obviously, it is difficult to forecast that far ahead. Still ahead, a special report on the recall to Washington of FEMA director Michael Brown.
Also, uproar in Congress over the failure of leadership in this hurricane disaster at all levels of government. We'll be examining this unprecedented partisan bickering in the midst of a national crisis.
Also tonight, charges that the federal government is making it easy for corporate America to pay low wages to Americans who will be rebuilding the Gulf Coast. We'll have that special report.
And chaos and disorder in Louisiana's judicial system. We'll report on the immense challenges facing Louisianans after the destruction of their courts and the dislocation of thousands of prisoners. That story and a great deal more coming right up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: There's a new man in charge of the huge relief operation along the Gulf Coast tonight. He is Vice Admiral Thad Allen of the U.S. Coast Guard. He has taken over from FEMA director Michael Brown, who was recalled to Washington.
Jeanne Meserve reports now from the nation's capitol -- Jeanne.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Lou, the thundering criticism of the federal response to Katrina not costing Michael Brown his job, the director of FEMA, at least not at this point, but he is being sent back to Washington, and someone else is being put in charge on the ground.
There has been a torrent of criticism relating to the speed, quality and quantity of FEMA's relief effort and about Brown, his understanding of the situation and even his qualifications for his job.
Officials say it was Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, who decided change was necessary, and he made the announcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Hurricane Katrina will go down as the largest national disaster in American history. Mike Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal responsibilities to this unprecedented challenge. I appreciate his work, as does everybody here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MESERVE: Replacing Brown as principal federal official is Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen, who had been acting as Brown's deputy in the response. Chertoff says Allen will help foster a seamless interaction with the military, which is playing a large part in the hurricane recovery. Those who know Allen say he is a no-nonsense individual who can get things done -- Lou.
DOBBS: Jeanne, Michael Chertoff sounded almost as though he was promoting Michael Brown in those terms that he used. What is his likely future?
MESERVE: Well, that's a big question at this point in time. I just talked to an official from the Department of Homeland Security, who says, as far as he knows at this point in time, no letter of resignation has been submitted.
He also told me a little bit of the back story about Chertoff's decision, which was reached last night. He told Brown this morning. He said that Chertoff talked to a lot of people and saw a lot of stuff down there in the Gulf region and was, quote, "appalled," unquote, at some of what he saw and heard, including a visit to the Superdome, where he pressed issues for answers on the food and water that was stocked in there, whether it has been distributed. Didn't get the kinds of answers he wanted.
As this official said to me, Chertoff is a results kind of guy. Apparently, he thinks that the admiral is going to give him better results than Michael Brown -- Lou.
DOBBS: Accountability in government, a remarkable concept. Thank you very much, Jeanne Meserve.
Questions about Michael Brown's confidence to lead the hurricane relief effort, just one of the reasons for his recall. There were also serious doubts about his ability to lead FEMA in any other crisis.
Elaine Quijano reports now from the White House -- Elaine.
ELAINE QUIJANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Lou.
Well, we are learning a little bit more tonight about what led up to the decision to remove Michael Brown from the disaster zone. My colleagues, Dana Bash and John King, are gathering information.
We have learned this past week at a private meeting at the White House on Wednesday, Secretary Chertoff told President Bush that he was considering removing Michael Brown as leader of the FEMA efforts on the ground there.
Now, according to a senior administration official, the president told Chertoff, quote, "I trust you as head of homeland security, and I support the decisions that you make."
Now of course, Brown has been under fire for what critics say was a sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina, but the criticisms have not been confined to Mr. Brown's past performance.
Now, when Vice President Dick Cheney toured the disaster zone on Thursday, he got an earful of criticism about Michael Brown. He heard this during meetings with state and local officials, including some Republicans, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
Now, those words reflected not only concerns about Brown's leadership immediately after the hurricane, but his ability to lead current and future efforts.
We also learned that his fate was essentially sealed last night when his boss, Secretary Chertoff, called White House chief of staff, Andy Card, to say that he was pulling the FEMA director from the disaster zone and sending him back to Washington.
Now at the same time, of course, questions continue to swirl around Brown's emergency management experience, and today, in announcing Brown's reassignment, Secretary Chertoff refused to let Brown respond to a direct question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is this the first step in Mr. Brown's resignation? Can you answer that, Mr. Brown, please? And also how do you respond to reports that you embellished your resume?
MICHAEL CHERTOFF, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Here are the ground rules. I'm going to answer the questions. I've explained what we're doing. I thought I was about as clear as I possibly could be in English as to what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. Next question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUIJANO: So the administration clearly not wanting the discussion to center on Michael Brown anymore.
Senior administration officials here insist that the president has not asked for nor has Michael Brown offered his resignation. Aides, though, emphatically pointing out, Lou, they claim that this was a decision initiated by Secretary Chertoff -- Lou.
DOBBS: Indeed they do, Secretary Chertoff taking a rather imperious tone there in not answering the questions either himself nor permitting Brown. What are the answers?
QUIJANO: Well, certainly these are the kinds of questions that the Bush administration does not necessarily want to focus on at this point. They are insistent that the president is solving problems.
And they also point out that the president essentially is holding Secretary Chertoff responsible for carrying out the decisions as he sees fit, based on his own experience, on his own assessment of the situation.
But certainly there's a major change. Of course, this administration famous for loyalty. So certainly, quite a surprising turn of events -- Lou.
DOBBS: Elaine Quijano, thank you very much from the White House.
Coming up next here, short-changing American workers, the very workers who will be rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Why critics are saying a new executive order from President Bush is unfair to those Americans who will rebuild that devastated coast. Our special report on that issue is next.
And then Texas has achieved the impossible, in helping tens of thousands of refugees rebuild their lives. We'll report on the extraordinary measures in Texas to help displaced American children feel right at home and put them back in school.
Don't mess with Texas. We'll have that story. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: There's outrage tonight over a presidential decision today that could hurt Gulf Coast workers looking to rebuild their lives and earn a living.
President Bush has waived rules that would require federally funded contractors to pay a competitive wage to workers in the cleanup and rebuilding efforts. Critics call this an unfair giveaway to big business trying to profit from the hurricane disaster.
Lisa Sylvester has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tens of thousands of Gulf Coast residents lost everything they own to Hurricane Katrina, but critics say a new executive order signed by President Bush will push down wages, making it harder for them to rebuild their lives.
RICHARD TRUMKA, AFL-CIO: Suspension of Davis-Bacon is a shameful government-sponsored wage race to the bottom for workers. It will allow workers to be exploited at a time whenever they need their government's help the most.
SYLVESTER: The White House is lifting part of the Davis-Bacon Act, created during the Great Depression. It requires companies receiving federal contracts to pay at least the average wage for the region.
Congressional Republicans who support the waiver argue it will save time and money.
REP. MARILYN MUSGRAVE (R), COLORADO: It's imperative that we have reconstruction start as quickly as possible, and when we're appropriating over $60 billion and more to come, that we get the very best for the money that American taxpayers have invested in this reconstruction.
SYLVESTER: Davis-Bacon has been waived before, by President Roosevelt for three weeks during the New Deal transition, by President Nixon for one month in 1971 to reduce inflationary pressure, and by President George H.W. Bush after Hurricane Andrew. It was reinstated when President Clinton took office, all short-term waivers. But this order is open-ended. For construction workers in the Gulf region, it means contractors won't even have to meet the average wage of $9 an hour, adding more hurt for the poorest of the poor.
REP. GEORGE MILLER (D), CALIFORNIA: It really is an outrageous situation, that the very same people that we saw who were left behind because of their low wages -- they didn't have money to put gas in the car to get out of town; they didn't have a car; they didn't have the means to get out of town -- those very some people now have had the wage protections taken away.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: The AFL-CIO notes that three of Florida's largest counties, Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe, are included in the president's waiver. And these counties had relatively little storm damage, but yet they're included on the list. And that will affect a number of federal contracts there -- Lou.
DOBBS: Do we know just whose idea it was? We know the president takes responsibility and signed it, which is, by any standard, highly questionable in terms of its impact on the people who have been punished so severely by Katrina. Now to rebuild it, they would have to suffer this indignity, as well?
SYLVESTER: Well, we interviewed one of the people who one of the point people on Capitol Hill. This was actually generated from Capitol Hill. A letter was sent by a number of members of Congress asking him to waive this act.
One of the members is Representative Marilyn Musgrave, who we interviewed in our piece.
DOBBS: Right.
SYLVESTER: Another Jeff Blake from Arizona, so some more questions to be asked, Lou.
DOBBS: A lot of questions, and the penalty here obviously against the very people who need the most help. Lisa Sylvester, thank you very much.
While the president is making it possible for companies to cut wages in the stricken Gulf Coast area, his administration is allowing some federal workers to spend a great deal of money.
Under the Disaster Aid Bill passed by Congress, FEMA employees working the recovery can now charge up to $250,000 on their government-issued credit cards, up sharply from the previous limit of $2,500.
Lawmakers who fought to take that provision out of that bill cite past incidents of employees charging jewelry, stereo equipment and other personal items to their government cards. That is really the issue. The Disaster Aid Bill also allows emergency workers to approve contracts worth up to $250,000 without requiring competitive bidding. That all to the good.
Coming up next, the state of Texas is making an extraordinary effort to help tens of thousands of children who have lost their homes in the Gulf Coast. How Texas is setting an example, a can-do example for the entire country. We'll have that special report.
And a legal system in chaos after the hurricane: court records that have been lost, evidence destroyed, prisoners dislocated, records lost as well. Our senior legal analyst, Jeffrey Toobin, will join me with that incredible story. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Our Deborah Feyerick is monitoring all of the very latest developments along the Gulf Coast and obviously in New Orleans. She joins us now with a report -- Deborah.
DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Lou, status alert on Jefferson Parish. The state Congressman from that district tells CNN that electricity, water and sewage are all on the way to being restored, power companies working overtime.
Some parish officials even believing that schools could be up and running as early as October 3, and that is just three weeks away. What is less clear is when the families will be able to move back into the homes because of mold or structural damage.
Another status alert: body recovery. Thailand appears to have done a better job collecting its dead after the tsunami than the United States following Hurricane Katrina.
An expert close to both recovery efforts says FEMA has yet to sign a contract with the private company that FEMA itself called on to gather the dead. A recovery expert tells CNN Kenyon International (ph) was on site, ready to send out teams and portable morgues. The company was told to go home and wait.
The governor, sources tell CNN, very frustrated by the lack of the federally coordinated effort.
That's the status report -- Lou.
DOBBS: Thank you very much, Deborah, for keeping us right up to date.
The United States Post Office today delivered the first mail to the New Orleans evacuees who are living at the Houston Astrodome. An estimated 8,600 evacuees were there. The post office designated a special ZIP code for the Astrodome: 77230. Officials have also set up a makeshift post office at the dome.
Also today, thousands of evacuees waiting in line for debit cards. Those debit cards issued by FEMA and the Red Cross. The cards are worth up to $2,000. FEMA officials say they are processing cards for 500 families each hour.
In addition to the Astrodome, the entire state of Texas is playing a critical role in helping the displaced families try to return to some sort of normalcy. Tens of thousands of children have been welcomed into the Texas school system already.
Kitty Pilgrim reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KITTY PILGRIM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dressed up, nametags on, hair done up in bows, smiles and some obvious apprehension. Katrina's kids are going back to school, and Texas is getting it done, no matter what.
Texas school administrators say 21,115 children who have escaped from the floods have started schools in Texas. Not just in Houston, but in districts big and small, from as far away as Midland.
Texas has dropped the class ratio requirements of 22 to one, and it's put through one-year emergency certification for out of state teachers. Out of work New Orleans bus drivers have even been hired to pick up the extra routes. A tough time made better by good organization and determination.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is going to be her first day of being away from me since we've been through what we've been through in New Orleans.
PILGRIM: Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has made it clear she will do whatever it takes to salvage the school year for the estimated 300,000 displaced children and is working on a plan to help states pay for the costs of absorbing new students.
It's still unclear how testing standards will be addressed.
MARGARET SPELLING, SECRETARY OF EDUCATION: We don't want to write off the school year, because we know that, you know, these kids need to get back into some sort of normalcy. It's good for them educationally, emotionally.
PILGRIM: During a visit to the region, First Lady Laura Bush, herself a librarian and teacher, this week emphasized that a stable school environment can help heal psychological scars. But in Texas, the psychological benefits for the children are already apparent, and the dreams can go on.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be a nurse. To help people.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PILGRIM: Well, on Capitol Hill this week, New Orleans administrators met with Congress to talk about money and support for their district, but Texas State Department of Education said they're working it out with their own state funds for the time being, already putting in hot lines for parents to find out where to register, another for the new teachers to find out what districts need more help. Lou, it's amazing.
DOBBS: I have to say that this is the most impressive performance by the state of government of the state of Texas. The local governments, Houston, all of the other cities, the Department of Education in Texas, but those local school districts are really showing the rest of us how it should be done.
PILGRIM: And it's statewide. It's not just big wealthy districts. The small ones, too.
DOBBS: Outstanding. Way to go Texas. Way to go Texans.
Be sure to watch "PAULA ZAHN NOW" tonight for a SPECIAL REPORT on the youngest and most innocent victims of this hurricane, the children of the storm, 8:00 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.
Rescuers stepped up their efforts today to save the hundreds, perhaps thousands of animals still trapped in New Orleans. Animal rescue groups are now going door to door to rescue abandoned pets. They say they have picked up more than 900 abandoned pets, since the storm ended. But they say time is running out as they try to save dogs, cats and other pets that remain in homes. The National Guard says it's also trying to save those pets.
Also tonight, animals that survived Katrina in the New Orleans Aquarium are being flown to other aquariums all across the country. Among those animals, a 250 pound giant sea turtle, two southern sea otters and 19 penguins.
In the midst of Hurricane Katrina's massive destruction and the chaos that has followed are court records that have been lost altogether, and prisoners dislocated, and mountains of records and evidence simply ruined by the flood. In the aftermath of the hurricane, the legal system is slowly trying to come to life. Our Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin is here now to tell us all about it -- Jeffrey.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Lou, there really is no precedent for this kind of destruction, so every possible solution is a new solution. One idea, move the New Orleans courts wholesale to another city, even another state. We've learned today that Georgia's Fulton County has volunteered, and they are in talks to bring as many as 1,000 court personnel to Atlanta.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUDY CRAMER, ADMIN., FULTON CTY. COURT: The idea would be to get them on their feet in our courthouse. They don't have offices, they don't have telephones, they don't have a support system. We could double up. We could bring them in and let them start putting their court back together from here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TOOBIN: But even if judges and courts move, it's not clear what would happen even in a new location. Jury trials with non-Louisiana juries. Criminals trials if evidence has been lost. Civil trials if witnesses have moved or died or can't be found. It's a new legal world on the Gulf Coast, Lou, and no one knows what the rules are yet.
DOBBS: It is just one of those things that not many of us have been focusing on. The prisoners -- one instance, the Greyhound Bus Station used as temporary quarters for prisoners there in New Orleans.
TOOBIN: And they don't even know what all those prisoners are charged with. There are no records for a lot of these people.
DOBBS: And setting the civil courts aside, because at least that seems manageable, but the criminal proceedings in which, as you say, evidence, and lots of it, has been lost altogether, what happens?
TOOBIN: Well I think that the state of Louisiana is going to have to dismiss some of these cases, because if you have a piece of physical evidence, say a glass with a fingerprint on it, no defendant is going to stipulate and say, well you know it really was my fingerprint on that glass so you don't have to prove it. They are entitled to the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And if the evidence isn't there, they're going to have to dismiss or plea bargain or somehow make sure these cases aren't tried, because they can't be tried.
DOBBS: Is there any precedent for what New Orleans is experiencing?
TOOBIN: You know, I looked and I don't think so. The last time there was this kind of wholesale destruction was 1906 in the San Francisco earthquake and, you know, things have changed so much, so it really isn't a relevant comparison. So I think the simple answer is no.
DOBBS: It's fascinating. And thank you, Jeffrey. As you say, things change so much. But it's also instructive to think back to San Francisco, 1906, all of the talk about the looting that's taking place, in New Orleans, the shooting. It's easy to forget in 1906 the mayor had to bring in the Army to shut down looting and to take order over a city, within a matter of hours, was gripped by unrest, civil unrest. Jeffrey, thank you very much. Great insight.
U.S. Marines helping with relief operations today received help from an unlikely source, the Mexican Marine Corps. Nearly 200 Mexican Marines landed near Biloxi, Mississippi, from a U.S. landing craft. Their first mission is to clean up badly damaged schools. The Mexican Marines landed one day after a Mexican military convoy loaded with relief supplies arrived in Texas. This is the first time, by the way, that Mexican troops, soldiers and marines, have advanced so far into the United States, since the Mexican-American war of 1846.
Still ahead, embattled FEMA Director Michael Brown recalled to Washington. Vice Admiral Thad Allen, he takes his place as director of relief operations in the Gulf. We'll have more on the shake-up. I'll be joined by the country's top political journalists as we assess the week's developments. And two million illegal aliens in California are one step closer to obtaining U.S. driver's licenses. Tonight we'll have that SPECIAL REPORT, and we'll tell you what Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger says he will do about it. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: In New Orleans tonight, military helicopters are flying huge sandbags weighing three thousand pounds each, a ton-and-a-half, to the scene of two breached New Orleans levees. The city's Industrial and London Avenue levees remain breached tonight, and work obviously going on to shore them up.
Helicopters from across the country are arriving by the hour in New Orleans carrying supplies and emergency personnel, including this chopper from Los Angeles. More than 5 million meals ready to eat, MREs, are on their way to the Gulf Coast tonight. Twenty-one million MREs have already been delivered along with more than 31 million liters of water.
And new fires to report in New Orleans. Firefighters say water pressure is slowly returning to the city, however. And they say the threat of accidental fires will diminish once all residents are out of their homes. But the fire threat from broken underground gas lines remains, they say, very high.
Four years ago this weekend, on September 11, 2001, a united American public demanded and received strong leadership from our elected leaders. But this standard of leadership has not been met in this disaster on our Gulf Coast. Bill Schneider reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: After 9/11 there was anger.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our grief has turned to anger, an anger to resolution.
SCHNEIDER: After Katrina there's shock.
SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D), CONNECTICUT: How could this have happened in America?
SCHNEIDER: 9/11 was an attack by a foreign enemy.
BUSH: There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said "wanted, dead or alive."
SCHNEIDER: Katrina was a failure of American government.
BOB KERREY, FORMER 9/11 COMMISSIONER: The situation is so different. It looks the same, because you got loss of life and destruction, et cetera, but with 9/11, you could focus on a clear and present enemy.
SCHNEIDER: 9/11 saw leaders emerge and take charge. RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NYC MAYOR: Come with us.
SCHNEIDER: Katrina saw a vacuum of leadership at the state and local level.
DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: There's no Rudy Giuliani in this story. And we need somebody like that.
SCHNEIDER: And no George W. Bush of 9/11, either.
The country came together after 9/11 -- us versus them. The country came together after Katrina too, with an outpouring of sympathy and generosity. Politically, however, the country is divided. It's us against us; Democrats versus Republicans.
SEN. HILLARY CLINTON (D), NEW YORK: This is a government that has to be accountable to the people of our country.
SCHNEIDER: Republicans versus Democrats.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The time for bickering and blame gaming is later.
SCHNEIDER: And the most dangerous division of all -- race.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: We cannot allow it to be said by history that the difference between those who lived and those who died in this great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age, or skin color.
SCHNEIDER: Why the political division now? We asked a Democrat who served on the 9/11 Commission.
KERREY: We had an external threat. Here, it feels like an internal threat.
SCHNEIDER: Moreover, Bob Kerrey said, something happened between 9/11 and Katrina.
KERREY: The intervening event is the Iraq war, and a significant amount of distrust has occurred as a consequence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCHNEIDER: 9/11 shifted the nation's agenda to national security for the last four years. Katrina has shifted it back to domestic issues, but we don't know how long that will last. The U.S. is still in Iraq, and the terrorists are still out there -- Lou.
DOBBS: Bill, I think Bob Kerrey makes a very good point, I just -- I am not certain I would agree that it was the war in Iraq, but rather the fact that this weekend, we'll solemnly commemorate September 11th and those who died on that day. But the fact is, four years later, that we would have this kind of unacceptable response to a disaster -- obviously a natural disaster, when the Homeland Security Department has been set up, all of the organization has been put together, and billions of dollars spent, and this is the kind of response we see to what happens to our fellow citizens? The subtext here is, we're no better prepared today than we were four years ago to deal -- to respond to disaster.
SCHNEIDER: And we see that in the polling, Lou. We asked Americans -- CBS News asked Americans this week if they feel confident the government can protect them from a terrorist threat, and the number who say yes has dropped very sharply over the past few months.
DOBBS: Bill Schneider, thank you very much.
SCHNEIDER: Sure.
DOBBS: First lady Laura Bush says remarks by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean on race and the hurricane disaster are, in her words, "disgusting." The first lady says Dean and rapper Kanye West are wrong to blame President Bush for the large number of African-Americans hurt by this disaster. Howard Dean said in an interview today on our SITUATION ROOM, that he stands by his comments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD DEAN, DNC CHAIRMAN: I do not think that this president cares about everybody in America. It's one -- I'm sure the president is a nice man on a personal level. His policies have been devastating to middle class and poor people in this country -- white, black, and brown.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Dean also said the Senate should reject the nomination of Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John Roberts; Dean saying he doubts Roberts cares about the American people.
Tonight in "Newsmakers," three of the country's best political journalists join me with their insight. From Washington, "Time" magazine national political correspondent Karen Tumulty. Ron Brownstein, senior Washington correspondent, "Los Angeles Times," From San Francisco tonight, Roger Simon, the political editor of "U.S. News & World Report." Good to have you all here.
Let's start with, let's start right now, Karen, moving out Michael Brown. Does that solve the issue for President Bush?
KAREN TUMULTY, "TIME" MAGAZINE: Oh, I think it solves an issue for President Bush, because Michael Brown really had become the sort of face of incompetent in this crisis. But the fact is that there are a lot of structural problems in this system that have really prevented aid from getting where it needs to go when it needs to get there, and so I think this is not going to be even close to the end of the questions of this administration.
DOBBS: The stories, even anecdotally, Ron, FEMA's performance here, from initial response to actually obstruction and outright negligence in some cases, are simply unbelievable. RON BROWNSTEIN, LOS ANGELES TIMES: They are astounding, and as you mentioned, they're especially astounding four years after 9/11, after we spent billions of dollars, undergone the largest restructuring of the national security bureaucracy since World War II, to create the Department of Homeland Security, and I think the subtext of all of this is the shock that Americans feel, that after four years of being told that we were on war footing, we turned out to be on the wrong foot here.
And so, I agree with Karen, that this is the first step in what is going to be a long debate about what FEMA should look like, and indeed, on a whole series of fronts, what the federal response should be to catastrophic events of this magnitude.
DOBBS: Roger, as a political editor, let me ask you. The focus on Mayor Nagin, Governor Blanco. The removal of Brown from this equation is going to put the focus squarely on them and for what has been their at best clumsy and ineffectual response as well.
ROGER SIMON, "U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT": I think there's plenty of blame to go around, and I think they are going to take some blame. But I think at the end of the day, people are going to wonder why the federal government didn't do better.
I understand that presidents put political cronies and political hacks in political jobs. They used to dump them in the Post Office Department. But surely, someone somewhere in the Bush administration should have paused at some point and said, you don't put cronies and hacks in the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
DOBBS: You know, I guess I would ask all three of you, why not? I mean, we're in a global war on terror, yet we have 3 million illegal aliens crossing our borders. There's no border security in this country. There's just a lot of talk and PR scam. We have just approaching a $40 billion budget for Homeland Security, and our first responders are not adequately provided for. And everybody sort of winks and nods and says, this is just the way it is. There's an apathy, not only in terms of the critical national media, but a broader apathy on the part of the American people.
BROWNSTEIN: Well, there is a lot of dimensions to the homeland security challenge, Lou. And I think what we have seen here is that there are, I think as Karen said, I mean, there are real sort of structural holes in the way that the response is put together, and there are real questions -- there were questions at the time of whether aggregating all of these agencies together under one roof, in Department of Homeland Security, would increase coordination, or simply increase bureaucratic confusion. And right now, on the first major test with the first major agency we were looking at, I think most people are going to side with the latter, and that is going to lead I think to a lot of finger -- not only finger-pointing, but more constructive, serious questioning.
DOBBS: Karen, Howard Dean saying that race played a deadly role in this recovery effort, basically accusing the administration and the agencies of racism, in terms of the slowness and the inadequacy of the response.
TUMULTY: Well, you know, you could not have turned on your television and not notice the fact that the vast majority of people who were displaced by this disaster were not white. But I do think that the Democrats are really running some risk here, because certainly all the polling -- our own polling coming out over this weekend suggests that Americans do not want to see this crisis played politics with, and I think that in both -- in both sides, they're going to have to be very, very careful in trying to make this a political issue.
DOBBS: Roger, race in this disaster, and the bickering, the finger-pointing, the whatever you want to call it, between Republicans, the partisan, cross-counter-charges -- race, though, is both -- it seems to me absolutely wrong. Seventy percent of the city is black. There's no question that poverty played a role here, but race, Roger?
SIMON: Race and class and how much you earn for a living are all inextricably linked in America. Who did not own a car in New Orleans? Who did not have credit cards? Who did not have ATM cards...
DOBBS: No, no, but that's a different question, Roger.
(CROSSTALK)
DOBBS: But that's a different -- Roger, that's a different question.
SIMON: I don't...
DOBBS: We're talking about race, we're not talking about socioeconomic class here.
SIMON: Well, I don't...
DOBBS: The word "race" by the Howard Dean and others, that's what we have to deal with.
SIMON: But I think Howard Dean linked race and socioeconomic status together. I don't think he ever said that the federal response was slow because it was black people who were suffering the most in New Orleans. I think his answer was a little more textural than that.
And I don't believe it was slow because it was mainly black people, but I believe that those in a condition of working poverty probably could not leave the city.
DOBBS: Do you mean to tell me that we are awakening as the national media to the fact there is a disproportion number of blacks in our society, today in 2005, who are poor and disadvantaged? That it took a hurricane and a disaster like this to awaken our sensibilities?
SIMON: I think we knew it. What we weren't prepared for was to get people out of the city who couldn't get out of the city on their own.
BROWNSTEIN: Lou, the census put out its annual report on poverty and income only a few days before the hurricane, and I didn't see it leading many newspapers in America. We have sort of become inured to this...
DOBBS: We reported it here.
BROWNSTEIN: We have, I think overall as a society, we have become somewhat inured to these numbers. And this puts it in front of you --
DOBBS: OK. It's more than that. Ron, let me ask you something. Both parties have sold out to corporate supremacists and corporate America. We have just seen the president use -- roll back Davis-Bacon so that the very people are going to rebuild the Gulf Coast are going -- will not be paid the prevailing wage.
BROWNSTEIN: These are not unsolvable problems. You know, Lou, in the 1990s we had the biggest reduction in poverty that we've had since the 1960s. I believe it was about eight million fewer people in poverty.
DOBBS: We didn't do it by rolling back Davis-Bacon, partner.
BROWNSTEIN: No. But the reality is that, you know, we can make a dent on social problems in America when we focus on them. And one of the things that natural disaster do is they rearrange the debt. They force you to deal with issues that may have been submerged. Poverty we can see -- we'll see how long it lasts, could be one of them, and there will be others. But there's no doubt that the agenda after this will look a little different than the agenda before.
DOBBS: We have a different agenda, Karen, but are we going to see anything improve here, when you have the first reflex is a bureaucracy that doesn't work in the federal government, a black mayor, a black power structure in New Orleans, doesn't take care of its own, by Howard Dean's definition, a Louisiana governor can't even make a decision to call up the National Guard and get help now?
TUMULTY: I think that what you are going to see is a real focus on coordination. I mean, the fact is that in some states today the governors are absolutely overwhelmed with evacuees and there are other states today, this afternoon, where governors have thousands of beds sitting there empty waiting for people to come. It's -- coordination is a major part of this problem, and I think it's going to be one of the first things that needs to get fixed.
DOBBS: You know what I love? Big words like coordination, Latin derivatives and the state of Texas goes out and gets it done. Those kids, 300,000 of them refugees from this storm, dislocated, disadvantaged further. Texas is really doing something, and not whining about federal money or doing anything else, just getting it done, and that's a great message for all of us. And it's great to have you guys to join us for the end of this week. We thank you very much. Karen Tumulty, Ron Brownstein, Roger Simon, thank you. Still ahead, California lawmakers vote to give driver's licenses to million of illegal aliens in the state. Will Governor Schwarzenegger allow it? We'll have a Special Report coming up next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: California's legislature has just made another attempt to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. State lawmakers have also passed a bill to allow gay marriage. Neither effort is favored by a majority of voters in California. Now it's up to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to decide whether to uphold the will of the people. Casey Wian reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is again all that stands between illegal aliens and driver's licenses in California. That, after adjourning state lawmakers rushed to pass a new version of the illegal alien driver's license measure. Under the double cover of darkness and media attention focused on Hurricane Katrina.
California State Senator "One Bill" Gil Cedillo has been pushing and tinkering with his driver's license legislation for years. This time it contains so many concessions to opponents even some members of the illegal alien lobby withdrew their support, but it passed anyway. And the governor now faces a decision.
GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, (R) CALIFORNIA: One of the things that we are going to veto is the driver's license for undocumented immigrants, simply because it does not do what I asked Senator Cedillo to do, which is to make sure that we know who the people are.
WIAN: Another concern, the governor says it's premature for the state to OK driver's licenses for illegal aliens, before the federal government implements the real I.D. act. He also says the bill does not adequately address public safety concerns. What he didn't mention is his approval rating has sunk into the mid 30 percent rage. And a recent field poll shows 81 percent of Californians are either extremely or somewhat concerned about illegal immigration.
The legislature also rushed through another controversial bill sanctioning gay marriage, though the governor is sympathetic to the cause, he promises to veto that measure as well, out of what he calls respect for the will of the people.
KEITH RICHMAN, (R) CALIF. STATE ASSEMBLY: The legislature has failed to address the problems that California faces. While the legislature is passing bills for same sex marriage or driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, we're not addressing the major problems that the people of California care about.
WIAN: Five years ago California voters approved a measure defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIAN: And voters are what all of this seemingly bizarre legislative activity is all about. Democrats are trying to undermine the governor's special election in November, and the Governor is trying to go keep his reelection campaign, expected to be announced next week, alive -- Lou.
DOBBS: And Casey, the real I.D. act, this looks like a flat-out attempt to circumvent it?
WIAN: Well Gill Cedillo was trying to delay this bill, the driver's license bill he was proposing, he actually put in a provision that would have delayed the implementation of it until the real I.D. act took effect. So he tried to address those concerns, but the governor's not going to stand for it, Lou.
DOBBS: Thank you very much, Casey Wian.
Still ahead a preview of our broadcast Monday. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: Judith Miller, the Pulitzer Prize winning "New York Times" reporter has now been in prison for 65 days for protecting her confidential sources in the White House CIA leak case. Thanks for being with us tonight. Have a very good weekend. Pleas join us next week. For all of us here, good night from New York. ANDERSON COOPER 360 starts right now -- Anderson.
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