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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Police Chief of New Orleans Announces Resignation; Oil Industry Benefiting From Hurricanes?
Aired September 27, 2005 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again, everyone.
Hurricane Rita and Katrina are both generating headlines tonight along the Gulf Coast and in Washington.
Anderson back in New Orleans, where the chief of police abruptly announced his retirement today. He didn't give a reason, though there is no shortage of theories. More on that in a moment -- Anderson.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, especially among the police officers here you talk to.
I just want to show you a little bit where we are. We are in the Lakeview section of New Orleans. Behind me, these are the kind of things you see just about on any street you go down in this area. There is a car that has been slammed into a house, also into a tree. And if you look at this from the -- I mean, it just -- it's a dash of color on this otherwise beige street. This entire street is devoid of color, because everything is, except for this car, is coated in just this layer of grime and dirt and residue from the water that has dried up, Aaron. You see street after treat like this here, especially in the Lakeview section.
We will show you more a little bit later on, Aaron.
A. BROWN: Anderson, thank you. We will get back to that in a minute.
First, a quick look at the some of the headlines that made news in the Gulf today.
Texas officials reported two more deaths from Hurricane Rita, a collapsed house the cause. The death toll from Rita stands at nine tonight.
President Bush said today that victims of Rita will be eligible for $2,000 per household in emergency aid, the same as victims of Katrina. And they will need it. In Texas, an emergency official said today that many of storm's victims are living like cavemen, without electricity, water, gasoline or other relief, some blaming red tape for the delays.
The political fallout from Katrina. Those who are out of work for political reasons now stands at two. Mike Brown, who ran FEMA and today stoutly defended himself before Congress, was the first to go. And today, the New Orleans police superintendent, Eddie Compass, made it number two. We will hear from Mr. Brown in a bit, Mr. Compass first.
And while Katrina must have played some part in his decision to quit, there were signs before Katrina, too.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (voice-over): For weeks, he's been the face and the often emotional voice of city's besieged police department. While most of his cops performed well, a fair number deserted. Some may have broken the law.
EDDIE COMPASS, SUPERINTENDENT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: We were fighting odds that you couldn't imagine. We had no food. We had no water. We ran out of ammunition. We had no vehicles. We were fighting in waist-deep water that was infected and pollute.
A. BROWN: And, sometimes, he was flat-out wrong.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "OPRAH")
COMPASS: We have little babies in there, little babies getting raped.
OPRAH WINFREY, HOST: No, no, no, no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
A. BROWN: But today's resignation may well have its roots not only in the chaos of Katrina, but also in the simmering friction between the police chief and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin. They were longtime friends who wound up at the top of the city's power elite.
MICHAEL PERLSTEIN, "THE NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE": They were certainly warm and had a great working business relationship. That's become strained, not just by Katrina, but, in recent months, by a stubborn murder rate.
BROWN: In fact, New Orleans business leaders who backed Mr. Nagin in his bid to win the mayor's job in the first place are said to have been livid over the fact that the city's murder rate has skyrocketed and that corruption, most of it low-level, was rampant.
So, Superintendent Compass was in the line of fire even before the perfect storm.
PERLSTEIN: The murder rate stayed persistently high. And that's the one crime category that everyone reads about. That scares off investment, business leaders. And it became quite a very troublesome public-relations problem for the city, in addition to just a general state of unease among citizens.
BROWN: Add to that some criticism from some of his own officers, like this one, who did not want to be identified on camera.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had nothing to work with in advance. The chief, I'm sure -- I have met the man many times. And he's a hardworking, very committed man. But no matter how hardworking and committed any of the people were beforehand or during, our poor planning really, really broke us down and I think cost some lives.
BROWN: When he took over as police chief three years ago, Mr. Compass said he wanted to be -- quote -- "an agent of change." Today, he said, he would go in the direction "God has planned for me."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
A. BROWN: There was this as well from the chief today. In an interview with the "Times-Picayune" newspaper, he gave some detail about the tribunals that will hear the cases of the nearly 250 police officers, roughly 15 percent of the force, who left their posts without permission during Katrina and its aftermath. Four of his assistant chiefs will sit on the tribunal. They will decide which officers were outright deserters and which had legitimate reasons for not showing up for work. The officers will have the right to appeal the decisions.
Katrina did what many disasters do. It brought out the best in people and it brought out the worst, the police no exception. Last week, we reported on accusations of looting by some of the very officers who were supposed to be keeping New Orleans safe from looters.
Tonight, new details to report, again, correspondent Drew Griffin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): His account last week was shocking, eight New Orleans police officers holed up on the 10th floor of his Canal Street hotel, drinking and eating by day, looting by night.
OSMAN KHAN, HOTEL MANAGER: Oh, yes. They would probably leave around 9:00, 10:00 at night and come back around 4:30 in the morning.
GRIFFIN (on camera): And what did you see them come back with?
KHAN: Oh, everything from Adidas shoes to Rolex watches.
GRIFFIN: Just lots of it?
KHAN: Oh, lots of it.
GRIFFIN: After six days, Osman Khan says the officers left.
KHAN: In their cop cars, they put so much stuff that barely -- the truck was almost hitting the ground. So, when they drove off, when they drove off, you could see like the car hitting the ground. That's how much stuff they had.
GRIFFIN: CNN has now obtained this videotape backing up parts of Khan's story. It is video taken on the Sunday after the storm, when the hotel was surrounded by water and the hotel engineer was telling a reporter about a threatening police officer on the 10th floor.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have been the biggest problem. They -- right now, it seems like we're being held hostage.
GRIFFIN: The reporter from WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge and a photographer from WAFF-TV in Huntsville, Alabama, decided to confront the officers. They climbed 10 stories up the fire escape. This is what happens next.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excuse me. I'm the engineer of the building.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm (INAUDIBLE) Excuse me, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you a New Orleans police officer?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir. Excuse me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have a badge?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Keith (ph). Keith!
I am going to ask you one more time to move.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am going to ask you one more time to move.
GRIFFIN (on camera): That confrontation took place here on the 10th floor fire escape at this door. Osman Khan says, while they were here, an officer armed with a gun stood watch right at this fire escape.
(voice-over): Take another look. The man who identifies himself as a New Orleans police officer reaches down, grabs a gun and then pulls the door shut. Last week, New Orleans Police Captain Marlon Defillo called what happened misunderstanding.
CAPT. MARLON DEFILLO, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: The officers are saying that they were on the 10th floor, that this gentleman was on the second floor, that -- the officers are alleging that this person was taking food and taking other essential items for his own personal gain with people that he was staying with. So, there's two sides to every story.
GRIFFIN: Captain Defillo also told CNN the hotel owner failed to file a report, even after he was asked.
DEFILLO: And I spoke to him personally. And I asked him if he wanted to file a complaint against any police officer. And he said no.
GRIFFIN: That is not Osman Khan's recollection of what happened. In fact, the video taken that Sunday matches Khan's account that he did report the looting to this commander with the New Orleans police, but Khan said no one wrote anything down.
(on camera): And did you file a report with the state police?
KHAN: With the state police, I did.
GRIFFIN: And what happened?
KHAN: They told me they were not going to get into a hostile situation with the New Orleans police.
GRIFFIN (voice-over): Khan says, within an hour, the renegade police officers were leaving his hotel with their loot in two. Today, Osman Khan is standing by everything he said. He wants justice. And he says the good cops of the New Orleans police are on his side.
KHAN: The police officers that I know, that I'm friends with, they have -- they have told me, Osman, get these guys. These are the guys that just -- that deserted them, that they -- you know, they did the opposite of what they should have been doing.
GRIFFIN (on camera): An official with the New Orleans Police Department confirms to CNN that the man seen in the video holding a gun on that 10th floor fire escape is indeed a New Orleans police officer, though the official declined to name him.
CNN has no reason to believe the alleged police looting in this city is widespread. Even Mr. Khan admits most of the police officers he observed during this disaster did the right thing, even more reason to find those, he says, who did not.
Drew Griffin, CNN, New Orleans.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
A. BROWN: More on the cops and the chief today.
Douglas Brinkley, the historian and author, lives and teaches in New Orleans -- or, at least he did, until he was displaced by Katrina. He joins us tonight from San Francisco.
I want to get to the chief in a second. But, first, on the police, do they have a reputation of investigating themselves fairly and honorably?
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: No, they don't.
The New Orleans Police Department has been a disaster zone for as long as anybody can remember. They're used to be a man named Chief Pennington who improved it, under former Mayor Marc Morial, who is now head of the Urban League. But in the last -- and -- and I have to say, Ray Nagin's police force started getting a grip on some of the corruption within the police department.
But as of June and July of this summer, the police department was in disarray. There were a lot of different fiefdoms within the police department, including cases also of police officers raping people, of stealing. Your looting story you just ran, Aaron, it's not surprising, even pre-Katrina.
And then the Wild West, the lawlessness began after Katrina. And while there a lot of good policemen you talked about, it's a -- I think 15 percent is going to be not enough. It's more like 20 percent of the policemen left. And then there's probably another 20 percent that have been corrupt. So, you're dealing with 60 percent good cops, 40 percent bad.
A. BROWN: That's not a great ratio. You have a theory on why the chief decided to walk away from it?
BRINKLEY: Yes.
First off, Eddie Compass is a good man. And he's been one of the heroic faces of this tragedy. He was always close to Mayor Nagin. But -- and the police officers I have talked to, they call it Nagin land in New Orleans, where nobody is accountable for nothing, as one of them said.
And the feeling that Nagin is constantly trying to cover his own political backside, inviting people in -- the police, as you know, or Anderson Cooper or anybody knows, they are stretched to the limit. They're getting help from all over. And here, for the last weeks, every day, Nagin seems to want to bring in more people, tell the New Orleanians to come home.
The mayor is in Chamber of Commerce booster mode, when the police are frazzled and in disarray and unable to deal with basic problems. Hence, there is no 911. There is no police help. And the inside-the- police-department thought is that Eddie Compass is just fed up with Nagin and kind of broke and left.
A. BROWN: Do you have a sense that the mayor has gotten, I would not say a free pass, but perhaps more a free pass than he ought to be getting?
BRINKLEY: I believe that to be the case. I think that there -- the evacuation -- the evacuation plan was a disaster, as we know.
He has never stepped to the plate, Mayor Nagin, to take personal responsibility. Just to come clean to build the new New Orleans, he has got to say, we had a horrible hurricane evacuation plan. I screwed up. I screwed up at the Convention Center. We screwed up at the Superdome. I'm sorry, but I want to take part in the rebuild.
Instead, he's constantly blaming everybody else but himself. And it's a kind of conceited and arrogant way to be handling himself. And Eddie Compass is somebody who has been on the front line, basically covering for the mayor. And I think he just got -- grew tired of it.
A. BROWN: Doug, good to see you. Thanks for your time tonight, Douglas Brinkley.
BRINKLEY: Thanks, Aaron.
A. BROWN: Thank you. The mayor of New Orleans, Mr. Nagin named Mr. Compass' deputy, Warren Riley, today as acting superintendent of the police department. His job is to now steer the force, for the short term anyway, through a rough patch. The "Times-Picayune" describes Mr. Riley as a City Hall favorite who Mayor Nagin supported in an unsuccessful bid for criminal sheriff last year.
As attention shifts in New Orleans on to how to rebuild the city and especially how to protect it from another disaster, some lessons can be learned from what went wrong in the past.
Reporting for us tonight, CNN's Chris Lawrence.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Katrina wasn't the first hurricane to submerge entire neighborhoods in New Orleans. Betsy flooded those same streets 40 years ago this month.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
SEN. RUSSELL LONG, LOUISIANA: Mr. President, we have really had it down there and we need your help.
LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All right. You got it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAWRENCE: President Lyndon Johnson promised federal protection. And the Army Corps of Engineers designed a hurricane barrier, something to shield the city with floodgates. But it was never finished. An environmental group sued, arguing the government did not fully investigate how the barrier would affect the environment.
DARRYL MALEK-WILEY, SIERRA CLUB: The lawsuit was a good lawsuit. And here we are 30 years after that and why are we bringing this up now?
LAWRENCE: Darryl Malek-Wiley says it would have harmed fisheries and wetlands. Instead of completing the study, the Army gave up on the barrier and reinforced the levee system. Some are now blaming environmentalists for that levee system that failed so completely during Hurricane Katrina. Environmentalists say, no so.
MALEK-WILEY: The Corps of Engineers is part of problem and they're part of the solution. And we're not sure which part they're playing right now.
HASSAN MASHRIQUI, LSU HURRICANE CENTER: The clock is again ticking for the city of New Orleans and the Lower Ninth Ward.
LAWRENCE: Dr. Hassan Mashriqui says a barrier could have helped during Katrina's incredible storm surge. He says there's no substitute for flood gates to stop the water. MASHRIQUI: When you block it, then you might create a wetland that slows down water coming in. But it's like, in plain English, if you create a hole, you plug that hole, no other way of saying it.
DR. JOHN W. DAY, LSU DEPARTMENT OF OCEANOGRAPHY: There's not a smoking gun here. There's a whole bunch of smoking guns.
LAWRENCE: Dr. John Day says the proposed barrier didn't account for Katrina's flooding along the Mississippi River.
DAY: There was massive overtopping of those levees.
LAWRENCE (on camera): But that barrier would have blocked the water from going into Lake Pontchartrain.
(CROSSTALK)
DAY: It would have, but there was no overtopping of the lakefront levees. There was a failure of these internal levees. And to the extent the barrier would have lessened that, I think that's something we don't know at this point.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAWRENCE: Yes, he is saying that the flooding problem had more to do with the river down here than the lake up top.
Now, that barrier would have run about 25 miles with massive locks that snapped shut during a hurricane. In today's dollars, it would have cost about $500 million. Katrina's reconstruction costs will be in the billions -- Anderson.
COOPER: Amazing, Chris.
Thanks very much for that.
The mayor of New Orleans told the City Council tonight that he's going to release a timeline tomorrow for repopulating the city. He indicated that the focus will be on the areas that barely -- that were barely flooded or didn't flood at all. Much different story in the Ninth Ward, which has felt the brunt of the damage.
Aaron, it was interesting. You were talking to Douglas Brinkley a moment ago about the mayor and whether he sort of dodged a bullet in all this. There are so many questions that he has not really come forward and answered yet. I spoke to him about a week-and-a-half ago and asked him about this train.
A. BROWN: Yes.
COOPER: Amtrak had offered a train, a 1,000-seat empty train, on Saturday, before the storm. And they could fill it up, if the city wanted. The city passed on it.
Mayor Nagin, when he was asked about this on "Meet the Press," he said, well, I never heard about that. No one ever told me about it. And I don't -- I still to this day know who Amtrak called. We called Amtrak, talked to them. They told us that they talked to this guy Matthews, who runs the mayor's office of emergency preparedness. When I asked the mayor, he said the exact same thing, had the same response.
And I said, well, Mr. Mayor, I know it's Matthews. I -- we talked to Amtrak about it. And he said, well, I'm glad you told me. I will look into it. I will check it out.
We have yet to hear any explanation about why a train with 1,000 seats was allowed to leave empty from New Orleans on Saturday, when people could have been on that -- Aaron.
A. BROWN: Well, just it's -- it's a good reminder, on a day when Mike Brown -- and we will get to Mr. Brown shortly -- was smacked around pretty good in Congress, that, when all is said and done, there will be plenty of blame to go around and some of it will reside in the city of New Orleans.
In a moment, when does paying more at the pump mean profiteering, gouging?
But, first, a little past a quarter past the hour, time for some of the other news on this day. Erica Hill joins us from Atlanta.
Good evening, Ms. Hill.
ERICA HILL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And good evening to you, Mr. Brown.
We start off on the other side of the world, nearly 300,000 people forced to evacuate after a powerful typhoon hit Vietnam today. Typhoon Damrey, with winds of up to 63 miles an hour, breached sea dikes and injured several people.
Meantime, Lynndie England, back in this country, sentenced to three years in prison for posing for photographs with abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The military jury also gave her a dishonorable discharge. The soldier apologized for her behavior and said she did it because she was influenced by her boyfriend, Private Charles Graner.
The family of the Brazilian man killed because the London police thought he was a terror suspect has arrived in Britain now, demanding justice. The Metropolitan Police paid the relatives of Jean Charles de Menezes to come to London, so they can be kept up to date on the inquiry into his death.
And Ashley Smith, the woman who says she persuaded a suspected gunman to release her by talking about God, now says she also gave her captor methamphetamine. In a new book, Smith says Brian Nichols asked her for marijuana, but all she had, Aaron, was crystal meth.
A. BROWN: Well, I guess that can happen sometimes. I don't know. HILL: Yes.
A. BROWN: Yes. Thank you.
Hmm. Well, it's one of those stories there's probably more to that, too.
Still ahead tonight, who is getting rich while you're filling up your tank? There seems in our office some dispute about that. And we will get to it.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
A. BROWN (voice-over): Think it was bad in Houston?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is going to mass chaos, mass confusion?
A. BROWN: Would it have been any better where you live? Might it even have been worse?
And what about gasoline? You're paying a lot more. Whose fault is it? What's the reason? A hint: It's not just the hurricane.
REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R), CONNECTICUT: And that's why I'm happy you left.
A. BROWN: He's getting grilled...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?
A. BROWN: Because he ran FEMA. Now he's answering for it. Is he ever.
Also, land's end before Katrina under water now.
From New Orleans and New York, a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
A. BROWN: Oh, here's a shocker. The price of gasoline is creeping back up today, just north of $2.81, on average, more in some places, much, much more where I fill up. Also today, Amtrak announced fare hikes due to the higher prices. Things are so crazy that Exxon ran an ad asking people to use less gas.
We understand the concept of supply and demand. We wonder if another concept is at play here, however. Opportunity only knocks once. Have hurricanes been a big-time opportunity for the oil industry?
CNN's Ali Velshi joins us now.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can sort of sense that you have got something to say about the people making money off of oil. So, let's talk about how much they're selling gas for. Let's get a sense of how much gas has gone up in the last year.
A. BROWN: OK.
VELSHI: Let's go back a year, about $1.89 for a gallon gas a year ago.
Fast-forward to just before Hurricane Katrina. And we are looking at $2.60. We have gone from $1.89 to $2.60. August 27, $2.60. Hurricane Katrina hits September 5. It goes to $3.06. That's the highest gas has been throughout this whole endeavor. There's some dispute as to whether that's the highest every because of how you calculate inflation. Some say yes. Some says it's a few cents shy. Today, down to $2.81.
A. BROWN: First of all, I think there's a great investigative story in trying to find someone who is only paying that.
VELSHI: I agree.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: As you said, as you said yesterday, somebody in the country is paying $1.25 if the average is $2.81.
A. BROWN: Right.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Because I don't know anybody who is paying that.
A. BROWN: I pay $3.47.
VELSHI: Now, all through history, gas and oil have sort of moved in tandem, because you need oil to make gas. I brought my own crude oil. I carry it with me now for safety.
(CROSSTALK)
A. BROWN: Thank you.
VELSHI: You need this.
But what has happened now? Let's look at the price of oil a year ago. One year ago, oil was trading at $49.64, 50 bucks, today, 65 bucks. That's a 30 percent increase in a year. Gas, gasoline, has had a 50 percent increase over the last year. Why?
A. BROWN: Why. Because ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, Standard Oil are making money hand over fist. They can't run to the bank fast enough. Exxon made, what, $6 billion last quarter.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Yes. A. BROWN: Last quarter.
VELSHI: Right. And if you're on the investing side of that, you have been very, very happy with everything to do with the oil industry.
A. BROWN: Yes. Everything you made, you spent to fill your car up.
VELSHI: Particularly if you invested in a refinery.
What has happened is, we have not built a new refinery in 30 years. So, our gas capacity, our capacity to produce gasoline out of oil is steady. As the need for gas went up, we crossed this line. And we have just crossed that line. We're right at the point where, if we need more gas, we need more refineries.
A. BROWN: All well and good, but that existed prior to Katrina and Rita. That problem didn't happen on Labor Day.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: That's correct.
A. BROWN: So, I'm -- all I'm suggesting here -- I don't want to get into gouging. Gouging has legal implications. A story today about some guys in New Jersey who run a gas station changing their prices twice a day, three times a day. They can't move fast enough.
This is an opportunity that the industry sees at every level, at the retail level, the refining level. And they see, hey, we can get $3.47.
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: They sell a product that we continue to buy.
A. BROWN: And we continue to buy it. And they're looking for the point at which people can't or won't buy it anymore.
VELSHI: And, arguably, we're getting -- some say -- some economists say we're getting close to that.
As you get past $3 and maybe approach $3.50, if you get around there, that really does make people think about changing the way they consumer.
A. BROWN: OK. Here's -- here's the last question in this. Do I want to be really annoyed at the guy that runs the gas station on the corner?
LAWRENCE: Sadly, he's the one guy who is not making a ton of money out of this.
The margins for the retailer are very small. They used to make their money by fixing your car around back or getting you into the store to buy stuff. Now people come in. They swipe their credit card. Even those sales are not getting made right now. The guy at the gas station is not the one, in fact, to get angry at.
A. BROWN: This was about a dollar's worth of gas?
VELSHI: Well, it was a dollar's worth of gas when we started this discussion. It's probably a little bit more.
A. BROWN: A buck twenty now, right?
Just ahead, the man -- thank you -- who ran FEMA now handling a disaster of his own before Congress. You will hear from Mike Brown.
And, later, a place where the disaster still isn't being handled at all weeks after the storm.
We will take a break first. From New Orleans and New York, this is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ANNOUNCER: You're watching a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency," with Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper.
A. BROWN: Well, as we said, it's fair to say that, when the history of Hurricane Katrina is written, there will be many chapters devoted to what went wrong and who is to blame. For now, however, the onus seems to falls squarely on Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA.
He went before a congressional committee today and was asked precisely those two questions. A lot went wrong, he said, mainly due to others, namely the governor of Louisiana, the mayor of New Orleans. He got into a little argument about the first part and a grilling about the rest.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SHAYS: I want to know who you asked for help.
MICHAEL BROWN, FORMER FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY DIRECTOR: On Saturday and Sunday, I started talking to the White House.
SHAYS: So, give us specifics. I'm not asking about conversations yet. I want to know who you contacted.
M. BROWN: I exchanged e-mails and phone calls with Joe Hagen, and Andy Card and the president.
SHAYS: And what was their reaction and what was their suggestions on how you should deal with this issue?
M. BROWN: They offered to do whatever they could do and were going to start making phone calls.
SHAYS: and what did you ask them to do?
M. BROWN: I'm being advised by counsel that I can't discuss with you my conversations with the president's chief of staff and the president.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Brown -- excuse me, Mr. Brown, you discussed it with "The New York Times."
M. BROWN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I think at least what you shared with "The New York times" I think you could share with this committee.
BROWN: I told them we needed help.
SHAYS: FEMA is supposed to be aware of the plan on how you evacuate. I want to know how the plan to evacuate, how you were helping to organize the plan to evacuate. Because you are a coordinator. I did listen to that and you were very clear that your job is to coordinate. I want to know how you coordinated the evacuation.
BROWN: By urging the governor and the mayor to order the mandatory evacuation.
SHAYS: And that's coordinating?
BROWN: What would you like for me to do, Congressman?
SHAYS: Well, that's why I'm happy you left. Because that kind of, you know, look in the lights like a deer tells me that you weren't capable to do the job.
BROWN: I take great umbrage to that comment, Congressman.
SHAYS: Why?
BROWN: Because FEMA did -- what people are missing in this entire conversation is the fact that FEMA did more in Hurricane Katrina than it did in Charley and Florida and the others.
SHAYS: Why is that relevant?
BROWN: We moved all of those in there.
SHAYS: Why is that relevant?
BROWN: We did all those things and things were working in Mississippi and things were working in Alabama.
SHAYS: No, but see, why I don't...
BROWN: And so I guess you want me to be this superhero that is going to step in there and suddenly take everybody out of New Orleans.
SHAYS: I can't help but wonder how different the answers would be -- excuse me you're blocking me. I can't -- if someone like Rudy Giuliani had been in your position instead of you, I think he would have done things differently and I think his answers to us would have been very different.
BROWN: Never thought I'd sit here and be berated because I'm not Rudy Giuliani.
My biggest mistake was not recognizes by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional. I had numerous conversations with Governor Blanco, specifically asking mandatory evacuations and whether she was going to order those or not. I never understood what the reticence was in not ordering those mandatory evacuations.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
A. BROWN: Governor Blanco fired back today, weighing in this with, saying, "Such falsehoods and misleading statements made under oath before Congress are shocking." This was a written statement. "It clearly demonstrates the appalling degree to which Mr. Brown is either out of touch with the truth or reality."
She goes on to say, "Today's hearing only supports the need for a thorough, non-partisan investigation of this event."
Though a number of Democrats did take part of the proceedings today, most Democrats decided to boycott the hearings preferring an independent investigation.
Mr. Brown now famously used to run the Arabian Horse Group and some say he didn't do that very well. But their isn't much connection, in any case, between Arabian horses and federal disaster relief, and it wasn't his resume that landed him the job.
Fair or not, right or wrong, Mike Brown was just one of dozens of employees who landed their jobs because of who they knew. He was a pure political appointment. Republicans do it. Democrats do it. Occasionally it blows up in a president's face, as this one did.
Here's CNN's Candy Crowley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Michael Brown is friends with Joe Allbaugh, who is campaign director for George Bush and put him in the top job at FEMA. Eventually, Allbaugh resigned and Democrats say the rest of the story is a disaster spelled with a capital "C."
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MINORITY LEADER: We still have a here in the White House the aura of cronyism.
CROWLEY: Brown is exhibit A but not the whole case. This is the plum book. It's not about the color. It's about the jobs.
PAUL LIGHT, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: You can go through it and select the position and the title that you might like to have. Like the associated deputy under secretary of interior. Now that's a nice title, isn't it? Or chief of staff to the assistant secretary of education. That has a nice ring to it for my resume.
CROWLEY: If you helped the president get elected or know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody we did, then the plum book is a must-read of 3,000 political appointment slots.
LARRY NOBLE, CENTER FOR RELIGION AND POLITICS: These are jobs in the government that basically bypass the civil service rules and that the president and White House can make appointments too, without having to worry about all the civil service rules about exams, qualifications, or seniority and those types of things. They are -- they are the spoils of war, if you will. They are the spoils of the election.
CROWLEY: Was he ever thus. JFK made his brother attorney general. Bill Clinton put his wife in charge of a health care plan. The difference may be that George Bush is very, very good at it.
NOBLE: I have never seen an administration, I've never studied an administration that has used its political appointees more effectively, as an extension of the president's value system.
CROWLEY: David Safavian once partner with Grover Norquist, a political ally of President Bush. So Safavian became the administration's chief procurement officer overseeing $300 bill a year in government contracts.
NOBLE: Oh, my God, you know, on the top ten lists of bad appointments.
CROWLEY: "TIME" magazine investigating interviewed 12 federal procurement officers who called Safavian the most unqualified person to ever hold the job.
(on camera) The head of administration personnel told "TIME" magazine Safavian was by far the most qualified person for the job. Meantime Safavian quit his job earlier this month and was arrested on charges of obstructing and lying in a criminal investigation unrelated to his job. He's lawyer said he will fight the charges vigorously.
(voice-over) The former ambassador to Canada, a former state lawmaker and Bush fund-raiser, said prior to his confirmation that he has seen Canada once 30 years ago.
The appointments of both men and Brown's appointment as deputy FEMA director were all approved by Congress.
Bush critics, armed with similar cases, say this is not about giving jobs to friends. It's about giving jobs to unqualified friends. The head of Bush administration personnel declined to be interviewed for this story, but recently, he denied anyone has gotten a job in this town by knowing somebody who knows somebody.
Candy Crowley, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: I'm sure that couldn't happen. Still to come, on the program, the problems faces emergency services in Biloxi, Mississippi, and Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The first pictures back from ground level. We'll take a break first. From New Orleans and New York, a special edition of NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: And welcome back. We're live in the Lakeview region in New Orleans. The president today was back in the gulf, back for the seventh time. This time, surveying the damage from Hurricane Katrina. He toured Lake Charles, Louisiana, meeting with the governor and promising it is residents there $2,000 each in immediate aid from FEMA, the same as victims of Katrina.
Also today, he flew over a flooded refinery in Beaumont, Texas. That city is still largely without power and water and still off limits to people trying to return.
Michael Brown took his share of heat today for what happened or didn't happen in places like Biloxi, Mississippi. Steve Dell, who is the medical officer for Harrison County, Mississippi. Steve, thanks for being with us. You have -- is it true that there are no helicopters right now in the gulf, the Mississippi to take out medical emergencies?
STEVE DELAHOUSEY, VICE PRESIDENT, AMBULANCE SERVICE: HARRISON ONLY. That was true up until today. We do have a medical -- medevac helicopter that is available to serve South Mississippi.
COOPER: How long has it been -- I mean, today is the first day you've got to. How long have you been without one?
DELAHOUSEY: Well, we initially avenue the hurricane we had a lot of resources primarily from the military that were doing medevac missions but those resources dried up after a couple of weeks. And we've been requesting medevac helicopter. And thanks to the efforts of the Department of Health, we do have a helicopter that is available for temporary news us for 30 days or so.
BROWN: So without that, had there been cases in the last week or two, that you would have wanted to medevac people out of but you couldn't because you didn't have a chopper?
DELAHOUSEY: I don't think anyone's perished as a result of not having the medevac helicopter. Certainly, taking patients from some of the rural, some of the hospitals. And I don't think anyone was perished as a result of not having the medevac helicopter, certainly taking patients from some of the rural areas of some of the hospitals that were damaged to trauma centers. There would be a great benefit there and it's a benefit we do have restored now in south Mississippi.
COOPER: You also have a shortage of ambulances, and you've been trying to get those ambulances and sort of jumping through hoops in paperwork, I guess, from FEMA. How is that working out? How long has it taken you to reach someone at FEMA who can actually, you know, pull the trigger on that?
DELAHOUSEY: Let me clarify first of all, I ban to thank all the mute all ambulances that have helped up. Connecticut, Georgia, Florida, Oregon, Washington, hundreds of ambulances have been brought here and the Department of Health also through contract ambulance services, 40 services in the state that have come to help us.
But you know, these people are tired. Some of them have been working for 25 days without any relief. And our resources in Mississippi are becoming exhausted and so we're seeking assistance from the federal government.
And let me just point out that FEMA has been extremely helpful once we have established contact with them. They've been very cooperative. The process of activating these federally contracted ambulances has been rather slow.
We do have 28 ambulances that under contract with FEMA that were brought in today to provide some of the local providers and some of the other ones from around the country, to provide them some much- needed relief.
COOPER: Well, that is very good news given, I know, the lack of the ambulances you've had and the calls you've been making to try to get them. Good to see you. Good talking to you, Steve Delahousey in Gulfport tonight.
Coming up, learning from the gridlock in Houston. Is your city ready to evacuate?
This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT from New Orleans and New York, "State of Emergency."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Coming up on the program, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, where little remains but water.
First, at about a quarter till the hour, time once gain to check on some of the other stories that made news today. Erica Hill again in Atlanta -- Erica.
ERICA HILL, ANCHOR: Aaron, we start off with some health news at this hour. The manufacturer of Lipitor says the Food and Drug Administration has approved the cholesterol lowering drug's use for diabetics for risk of heart attacks. Pfizer said the FDA has also OK'd Lipitor for those who are at risk of a stroke.
The Israeli army says it launched attacks against Gaza in retaliation for dozens of rocket attacks of Palestinian militants on Israeli citizens. No casualties were reported from the attacks which took out the power in Gaza City.
And Florida prosecutors want to question Rush Limbaugh's doctors about the possibility he tricked several of them into getting overlapping prescriptions for pain killers. A criminal investigation into the conservative radio host's drug use has been going on for two years.
And that's the latest from Headline News at this hour. Aaron, back over to you.
BROWN: Erica, we'll see you tomorrow.
Just ahead, the evacuation next time, could it be even worse? We take a break first. This is a special edition of NEWSNIGHT, "State of Emergency."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Think of what we've seen lately. In less than a month one city emptied and most of southeastern Texas evacuated, more than two million people hitting the road. Neither went especially well, even though people had at least some warning in both cases.
So what happens next time when there's less warning or no warning at all? The government is studying the problem, they say, and that's the good news. It may also be the only good news.
CNN's Tom Foreman investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Talk about evacuating any major city by automobile and Mantill Williams can tell you what to expect.
MANTILL WILLIAMS, AAA SPOKESMAN: It's going to be mass chaos and mass confusion and we are definitely going to be sitting in gridlock. I mean, that's just a fact.
FOREMAN: As a AAA spokesperson, he says for ten years road construction has been falling behind.
(on camera) What do you mean?
WILLIAMS: Our population has increased by over 14 percent. The number of licensed drivers also has increased by that amount. But the actual capacity, the number of lane miles that we have has only increased by six percent. So those numbers just don't add up.
In New Orleans and Houston, as thousands fled the water, massive traffic jams filled the roads. But analysts say not one major city has enough pavement for a rapid evacuation. Even the best would take 36 hours.
ANDY BALLARD, TEXAS TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE: You've got enough time you've got enough geography, you can evacuate a big city. If you're short on either of those, you may not get them all out.
FOREMAN: Some cities have developed contra-flow plans, turning inbound lanes of traffic into outbound lanes in emergencies. They also plan to use more public transit to ship people out. Others plan to adjust the timing of highway lights and open highway shoulders. And virtually no city knows what to do about cars running out of gas when an evacuation drags on.
BALLARD: Ideally it's not necessary because people are moving. But in reality, we have to expect the possibility, as we saw with Rita, of large numbers of vehicles running out of fuel.
FOREMAN: No plan would survive a catastrophe, such as a nuclear strike by terrorists.
For years, the government labs at Los Alamos. Labs have been refining computer models for traffic behavior, which they hope can be used to better evacuation problems.
But for now, advice for big city folks is simple, grab water, food, first aid kits and fuel up.
WILLIAMS: If you have to evacuate, you might be in that vehicle for 10, 13, 14 hours.
FOREMAN: No, that's pretty daunting, isn't it?
WILLIAMS: Yes. And unfortunately, that's the situation we're in.
FOREMAN: Heading for the hills could be a rough trip.
Tom foreman, CNN Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Listening to that piece, that's one of the reasons we continue to stay here and focus on this story. People will tell you unless what happened here is studied and understood and autopsied, it could very easily happen again. If everyone just moves on and forgets about what happens here and what happened here, it could very easily happen again.
Coming up tonight, weeks where Katrina leveled it, a place where little has changed and hope is a hard thing to find. From New York and New Orleans, this is NEWSNIGHT: "State of Emergency."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Drive about an hour south of New Orleans and you'll come to lower Plaquemines Parish, except you can't get there anymore, not by car at least. in fact, until tonight, we've only seen pictures of the parish from above. Now for the first time, a view from the ground. That is, where you can still find it.
Here's CNN's Ted Rowlands.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The occasional bird and creaking boats are all you hear. There is no rebuilding, no Red Cross shelters, no people sifting through debris. This part of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, has been virtually sealed off since hurricane Katrina.
After traveling two hours by boat, we arrive in the town of Empire. Boats are littered along the shore, some mangled together, others resting in spots that showed the horrible strength of the two hurricanes.
On shore, St. Ann's Church is one of the few buildings still standing. Scattered headstones from the adjacent graveyard are sitting in water. Most everything else here is flattened.
(on camera) We're now entering the town of Buress (ph). This wall used to keep the water out of the town. Hurricane Katrina took care of this wall and allowed all of the water to come in. As you can see, you never know it but right now we're actually on top of Highway 23, which connects all of these small towns together.
(voice-over) Farther south, near the city of Venice, there's a black bull stranded on a small strip of what used to be a levee. It is unclear how he got there and or how he'll survive.
Venice is the lifelong home of David Mills and Carl Halloway. It's David's boat that we're using to get here. Both men fish for a living, and both lost their homes.
CARL HALLOWAY, VENICE RESIDENT: I have nothing. Nothing at all. I have two kids and a wife, plenty of bills. You know? Starting over. Scary feeling.
ROWLANDS: Twenty-eight thousand people were living in Plaquemines Parish, many fishing or working in oil for a living. Only one of the oil rigs we passed had any sign of life. It will be awhile before production gets back to normal.
GEORGE MOSS, HILLCORP OIL: We've got some tank barriers (ph) that are completely destroyed. We've got to pull them out and start over. It will be about a year, time to get back up and running.
ROWLANDS: The prognosis is worse for the fishing industry. Oil spills have polluted the oyster beds. Some estimate it may take up to four years to get them back. Most of the boats here are destroyed, and the processing plant has been wiped out.
Everywhere you look is another image of destruction. The devastation here is as bad as anywhere we've been. The difference is that this place seems dead with no sign of coming back to life.
David and Carl hope their home isn't lost forever.
HALLOWAY: We're no different than everybody else, you know? It had the same effect.
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