Norm Mineta: Last THURSDAY, we were told to get 455 buses to Superdome!

[flpoljunkie]

And he got them there the next day! Why did FEMA wait until Thursday to direct Mineta to get the buses to the SuperDome to rescue those who were dying of dehydration. Why were these people left abandoned?

BLITZER: I'll let you take a sip of that water, Mr. Secretary.

And while you do that, we got some live pictures coming in. We'll show our viewers some of those live picture right now. This is -- speaking about transportation, look at, I don't know if you have access to CNN over there, but this, clearly, is a destroyed bridge that they're going to have to do a lot of work with.

As we see these pictures, Mr. Secretary, I want to read to you a quote from the former secretary of state, your friend Colin Powell, who was on ABC. He said this. And I want to get your thoughts. Quote, "When you hook at those who weren't able to get out, it should have been a blinding flash of the obvious to everybody that when you order a mandatory evacuation, you can't expect everybody to evacuate on their own. These are people who don't have credit cards. Only one in 10 families at that economic level in New Orleans have a car."

Looking back, the Department of Transportation, was there more that you and your department could have done to help in that evacuation?

MINETA: Under the National Response Plan, we're responsible for what's called the emergency support function. And that is that we will respond to the requirements of the Department of Homeland Security through FEMA in terms of what their needs are. They tell us whether to preposition tarps or water, MREs, whatever.

And we did all of that in response to what requirements were laid on us.

Now, there are other things that we were doing on our own, based on making sure that the economy did not falter. One of those things was to get the pipelines up and running. And our Office of Pipeline Safety, working with the pipelines, commandeering some generators to critical places where they have their pumping stations, we got all of those up and running. And, by Friday, 40 percent of the fuel was in. And by Monday night, 100 percent of one line and, last night, the other 100 percent.

So there were things that we did on our own. But under the, again, the National Response Plan, our function is to be -- to respond to whatever the requirements that are laid on us. Last Thursday, we were told, get 455 buses to the Superdome. So we had 450 buses. The next day, we were told, have 1,100 buses there. And so we got those there.

But at the same time, we knew that there was going to have to be air evacuation of these folks, and we started with the conference call after the conversation with DHS. And we worked out a voluntary agreement with the Air Transport Association, where 15 airlines just stepped forward to provide the a airplanes for us to do the largest aerial airlift in our history.

So there are certain things that we do in response...

BLITZER: All right.

[whistle]

1. Wolf Blitzer and CNN seem to be working as propaganda agents

...for the Federal Government departments and the Bush Administration. Shouldn't the be registered as lobbyists?

[flpoljunkie]

4. Mineta sent in buses in on Thursday, the day after FEMA asked him.

Question is why did FEMA wait until Thursday, the day before Dubya came for his "I care" photo-op, to direct Mineta, Secreatary of Transportation, to send in the first 455 buses. Mineta works under the direction of FEMA and cannot make these decisions himself.

This is glaring evidence of FEMA incompetence and neglect.

[flpoljunkie]

7. Wolfie asked the right question here, but there was no follow-up, like...

Did you just say that you FEMA did not ask you to bring in buses to the Superdome until Thursday, the day before Bush arrived in New Orleans?

[flpoljunkie]

2. Busses finally sent in day Dubya arrived for his photo-op. Disgraceful!

[NoQuarter]

3. And how many times did we see

those trucks of supplies arriving on the split screen with *?

[flpoljunkie]

5. Edited to add CNN transcript link.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/09/sitroom.03.html

[flpoljunkie]

6. Nagin was screaming for help, yet FEMA didn't ask Mineta for buses til day

before Dubya arrived in New Orleans for his photo-op, Friday, September 2nd!

That FEMA could have sat by and watched people dying and already dead in front of the Superdome is inexcusable. That FEMA was unaware of their desperate need, does not pass the smell test.