KEATING OF NORTHERN COMMAND ON CNN NOW! He said

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

he was ready before Katrina hit Florida to take action!!!!

[magellan]

1. Yep, NorthComm were just waiting for authorization from Bush**

He gave it, what -- 4 days after Katrina hit LA/MS?

[xchrom]

2. lol

he must be a lonely guy with this administration in power.

[lindisfarne]

3. The BBC interviewed Sean Kelly; it's been posted before but here's the

transcript.

This BBC Interview shows George Bush directly responsible for no action

You might want to interview this man or reprint the article:
Sat Sep-03-05 11:14 AM

Original message
On BBC: Northern Command was in position, before the hurricane hit,
waiting for Presidential orders, that didn't come, apparently until he returned to the WH on Thursday evening .It seems he only began to act on Thursday, after he got back from his fund-raising,cake-eating, guitar playing trip to California on Thursday. PAPERWORK NEEDED TO GET THE TROOPS EN ROUTE DIDN'T COME FROM WASHINGTON UNTIL LATE THURSDAY.

This was on the episode of BBC World News which played on a local
(Philadelphia area) PBS station at 6:00 am this morning. . The BBC
announcer was interviewing Lieutenant Commander Sean Kelly whom she
referred to as Leftenant Commander. This is the entire interview with no missing context.

Announcer: The relief operation is the largest ever conducted in America. It's being coordinated by the US Northern Command in Colorado. Leftenant Commander Sean Kelly explains how the relief effort is being organized.

Kelly: US Northern Command is the command that coordinates the military support for our federal and state agencies. They call up and request a capability and we try and provide that capability, whether it's medical resources, search and rescue helicopters, food, water, transportation, communications; that's what we provide.

A: So it sounds like you're providing a bit of everything. I mean, do you know how much you're actually providing?

K: Right now we've got 4,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marine and
coast guardsmen supporting this. They've delivered more than 9 million meals, I can't remember how many millions of liters of water.

A: 9 million meals? Do you actually have 9 million meals?

K: It's those "meals ready to eat". The packaged meals that the Army takes out with them out in the field. We have 9 million of 'em ready. I know at least 100,000 went to the Superdome the other night to help the people out there in New Orleans. So they're staged at various places throughout Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana.

A: Now I'm sure you're aware of the criticism that the authorities have been slow to respond to this. When did you get the order to start relief work?

K: NorthCom started planning before the storm even hit. We were ready for the storm when it hit Florida because, as you remember, it crossed the bottom part of Florida, and then we were planning, you know, once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast. So what we did was we activated what we call defense coordinating officers to work with the state to say okay, what do you think you'll need, and we set up staging bases that could be started. We had the USS Baton sailing almost behind the hurricane so that after the hurricane made landfall it's search and rescue helicopters would be available almost immediately. So we had things ready. The only caveat is, we have to wait until the President authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion, we have to wait for the President to give us permission.

A: Now I gather that your engineers are also involved in pumping some of that flood water out of the areas.

K: Yes, our military personnel are helping to reconstruct the levees which frees up the engineers to start pumping out the waters so that hopefully New Orleans can be high and dry soon enough.
___________
So apparently everything was in position, waiting for Bush's order, which didn^Òt come until Thursday evening.

You might want to make sure your republican AND democrat representatives and senators receive a copy of it, ESPECIALLY those on the Judiciary Committee where articles of impeachment must start.

This was posted at sensiblyeclectic.com on Sept. 3; the trackback address below doesn't work any more.

Trackback address for this post:
http://sensiblyeclectic.com/b2evolution/blogs/htsrv/trackback.php/3500

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

5. Here is a link to the video for this, and this interview was referred

to twice this past week. The first during one of the WH Press briefings and Scottie danced around the question, and the second by Keith Olbermann. Asa Hutchinson was his guest, and he couldn't really respond to this. Kelly went into much more detail than Keating did.

Video

http://leftandrightfight.com/SeanKellyVid.html

[Beaverhausen]

4. what show?

for those of us at work- thanks!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

6. Transcript.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/09/lt.02.html

KAGAN: Well, my instructions right now are to go a military briefing right now, Northern Command. I'm going to ask you to stick around because not often do I have you by my side to listen. And this is Admiral Tim Keating, the latest on Northern Command. Let's listen in.

ADM. TIMOTHY KEATING, COMMANDER, U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND: ... as they continue to work the area looking for survivors. The United States Naval Ship Comfort, the hospital ship, is proceeding to go pier-side in Pascagoula, Mississippi, as we speak.

We're conducting house-to-house searches in support of local authorities. And we're always responding as quickly as we can to FEMA's request for assistance. I think we're providing -- I know we're providing relief and support to the region's first responders who are putting forth monumental effort.

We think we're bringing stability and security to the disaster zone. And I need to emphasize one more time that we're not taking our eyes off the larger mission of deterring and preventing and defeating attacks on those who would threaten the United States of America. I'd be happy to take your questions.

Hi, Laurie (ph), good morning.

QUESTION: (inaudible) and this is the first really big disaster that NorthCom has ever responded to since you guys (inaudible). How do you guys think you responded overall?

KEATING: We responded well. We have lessons to learn, to be sure. Before Katrina got to be a big storm, before she got to Florida, the Thursday, Wednesday, Thursday before she hit New Orleans and Mississippi, we had defense coordinating officers in Florida and in Alabama so as to be ready should Katrina develop to be a bigger storm than she did before Florida.

Remember, Katrina got into the Gulf, kind of unsure about where she was going, and then it took a hard right and really began to pack some wallop Saturday and Sunday. I was in communication with the secretary of defense and was given vocal, verbal authority to begin moving forces as I would see necessary, should this storm continue to develop. And we had defense coordinating officers in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana before the storm even hit.

That is not to say that there aren't lessons to be learned. We have almost 50 folks in the region now talking to federal, state, local officials across the spectrum in coordination with our friends at the joint forces command, to compile an exhaustive critical lessons learned report, which we will then use so we just don't just have lessons observed, but we have lessons learned.

I think we did a good job anticipating the response we would provide. We did a better job of actually putting those forces into place. We have lessons to learn and we are going to study them hard.

QUESTION: (inaudible)

KEATING: We did not have any communication problem. Pam?

QUESTION: (inaudible)

KEATING: Yes, I had the opportunity to go to the disaster region Sunday. Secretary of defense and the chairman of joint chiefs came down Sunday from Washington. A couple of us flew over from Colorado Springs.

And while we were in the Louis Armstrong Airport, I found myself standing next to a guy in a green smock, he was a doctor. I introduced myself to him, he was from Massachusetts. He got in his car and drove down as soon as Katrina cleared because he knew that they were going to need help.

So that sort of outpouring from just our citizens, not to mention the offers of relief that are coming in, as I said, a hundred countries, many of whom have already moved stuff forward. Integrating these is a bit of a challenge, to be sure. The individual contributions...

KAGAN: We've been listening in to the briefing today from U.S. Northern Command Admiral Tim Keating. And as we listen in, I'm lucky enough to have our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr by my side, passing through from hurricane duty and who knows where.

[John Doe II]

7. Thanks

important info!
Too bad the questions are inaudible.
CNN and BBC journalist didn't really react in a shocked way.
I'd more say
:wtf:

[Lori Price CLG]

8. Kick. n/t