GQ: Rumsfeld did not approve use of rescue choppers in wake of Katrina

[deminks]

http://men.style.com/gq/features/full?id=content_9217&pageNum=6

(snip)

A final story of Rumsfeld’s intransigence begins on Wednesday, August 31, 2005. Two days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans—and the same day that Bush viewed the damage on a flyover from his Crawford, Texas, retreat back to Washington—a White House advance team toured the devastation in an Air Force helicopter. Noticing that their chopper was outfitted with a search-and-rescue lift, one of the advance men said to the pilot, “We’re not taking you away from grabbing people off of rooftops, are we?”

“No, sir,” said the pilot. He explained that he was from Florida’s Hurlburt Field Air Force base—roughly 200 miles from New Orleans—which contained an entire fleet of search-and-rescue helicopters. “I’m just here because you’re here,” the pilot added. “My whole unit’s sitting back at Hurlburt, wondering why we’re not being used.”

The search-and-rescue helicopters were not being used because Donald Rumsfeld had not yet approved their deployment—even though, as Lieutenant General Russ Honoré, the cigar-chomping commander of Joint Task Force Katrina, would later tell me, “that Wednesday, we needed to evacuate people. The few helicopters we had in there were busy, and we were trying to deploy more.”

And three years later, when I asked a top White House official how he would characterize Rumsfeld’s assistance in the response to Hurricane Katrina, I found out why. “It was commonly known in the West Wing that there was a battle with Rumsfeld regarding this,” said the official. “I can’t imagine another defense secretary throwing up the kinds of obstacles he did.”

(end snip)

Devastating article on Rummy. Sarts here on page 1:

http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_9217

[babylonsister]

1. What a heartless man, and thank god for the Coast Guard.

Also, props to Code Pink for loudly and vocally screaming he's a war criminal, because he's much more than that.

:nuke:

[KharmaTrain]

2. And This Comes As A Surprise?

What does New Orleans have to do with killing A-rabs? Hell, Rummy needed those copters and the national guardsmen who fly them to blow away brown-skinned people, not save 'em. No profit for the defense contractors in that.

How this war criminal avoids any real scrutiny is a true obscenity.

[Catshrink]

3. God didn't tell him to help people in New Orleans.

:sarcasm:

[Doremus]

4. This is murder. Pre-meditated, cold-blooded murder.

The will of the Lord? Did they issue official rationalizations like these?

on the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. I live in Pensacola and a heli crew from NAS rescued dozens of people and were punished for it!

I read in the local paper that they put the pilot on kennel-cleaning duty for "disobeying orders":

The Navy on Wednesday denied reprimanding two Pensacola-based helicopter pilots for disobeying orders on Aug. 30 to transport supplies and instead flying to New Orleans to help with Hurricane Katrina rescue efforts.

The New York Times and other media ran stories that Lt. David Shand and Lt. Matt Udkow were "chided" for rescuing civilians when their mission that day was to transport food and water to military bases along the Gulf Coast.

According to The Times, Udkow was taken out of the base's Helicopter Support Unit flight rotation and "assigned to oversee a temporary kennel established at Pensacola to hold pets of service members evacuated from hurricane-damaged areas" as punishment.

Pensacola Naval Air Station spokesman Patrick Nichols said the pilots were not reprimanded but instead were commended for their actions, but they also were "reminded of the importance of the mission" by Navy Cmdr. Mike Holdener, who oversees all air operations at the base.

"He lauded them for helping civilians," Nichols said Wednesday. "But he felt it was necessary to remind them that the logistic mission was needed so others could perform their parts in rescue operations.

"He reminded them that the focus of the mission was to deliver water, food and medical supplies" to three destinations in Mississippi -- Stennis Space Center, Pascagoula and Gulfport -- and then return to Pensacola, Nichols said.

Nichols said Udkow's new assignment to oversee the kennel was part of his "collateral" duties -- officers in the squadron usually take on extra duties -- and that he was not taken out of the flight rotation.

"Since then, Lt. Shand and Lt. Udkow have flown eight missions in New Orleans, saved 30 people and delivered 30,000 pounds of supplies," Nichols said.

The pilots were unavailable for comment on Wednesday because "they're either flying, performing collateral duties or on crew rest," Nichols said.

Contacted at home, Shand's wife, Kerry, said she was to refer all media inquiries to the base public affairs office. A call to a telephone listing for Udkow resulted in a recording that stated the line was not accepting incoming calls.

The New York Times story was posted on the Udkow family Web site run by cousin Ben Udkow.

"Instead of being applauded as a hero, (Matt Udkow) was re-assigned to oversee a pet kennel for service members evacuated from hurricane-damaged areas," Ben Udkow wrote above the posting of the story.

In an e-mail interview, Ben Udkow wrote that he was proud of his cousin.

"I think what he did is one of many amazing stories of rescue, and that no matter what his commanding officer or the Navy says, it would be deplorable to leave people to die just because he was under orders," he wrote. Any logical and compassionate person with access to a helicopter, training, and a full crew to support him would have done the same thing."

The Times reported that the two air crews picked up a Coast Guard radio plea that any nearby helicopters were needed to transport residents trapped on their rooftops in New Orleans, where the flood waters continued to rise.

The Navy helicopters were out of radio range to Pensacola, so Shand and Udkow, who were serving as the air commanders for the mission, decided to fly the two H-3 helicopters to nearby New Orleans to help with the rescue effort. The two air crews were able to transport more than 100 residents to safety before returning to Pensacola that evening.

[Wednesdays]

6. K&R

:kick:

[Kablooie]

7. God, what an unbelievable group of monsters we had running the world. [shiver]

And most were neocons from the "New American Century" group.

Scary.