It was nonsense of course. By the time Katrina's winds died down the Coast Guard was on the scene followed shortly by the Navy which had ships essentially in Katrina's wake. The National Guard was quickly on the scene as well.
But Truth persisted saying that the US Army was slow to respond. The fact is that the Army response was slowed by Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco, who was reluctant to yield authority. What follows is the CNN video that nails the governor and a New York Times story detailing the legal hurdles involved in domestic deployment of combat troops.
And here are the key paragraphs from the New York Times story.
"To seize control of the mission, Mr. Bush would have had to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president in times of unrest to command active-duty forces into the states to perform law enforcement duties. But decision makers in Washington felt certain that Ms. Blanco would have resisted surrendering control, as Bush administration officials believe would have been required to deploy active-duty combat forces before law and order had been re-established.
While combat troops can conduct relief missions without the legal authority of the Insurrection Act, Pentagon and military officials say that no active-duty forces could have been sent into the chaos of New Orleans on Wednesday or Thursday without confronting law-and-order challenges."
In other words, to comply with the law, there would have had to be an insurrection in progress or, a specifically worded request from the governor. Kathleen Blanco made Ray "Schoolbus" Nagin look like a genius.
