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Hillary: When FEMA was moved into the Department of Homeland Security. Its traditional mission of trying to prepare for and recover from and respond to disasters was subsumed in what became the overall mission of the war against terrorism. Obviously as a senator from New York, I care deeply about our effectiveness in battling the terrorists. But I think we also can do two things at once. And maybe we need to get back to an independent FEMA agency with leadership that's prepared and experienced in order to be sure that we never ever see anything like this again in our country.
Interviewer: But surely FEMA has to be able to respond to a terror incident as well and does the rationale for putting it in Homeland Security.
Hillary: Well...but the independence of it doesn't in any way interfere with that. But even some of the people who are in this administration have admitted that the cutbacks in funding, the cutbacks in personnel, the fact that FEMA was no longer seen as a lead agency on anything would interfere with the ability for it to do either of those functions, either in disasters or with respect to a terrorist attack. We need to be able to respond to natural disasters or man-made disasters. And I had the,you know, great doubts about whether that could happen in the department of Homeland Security. I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt but I think that you know we've seen clearly that it isn't working and I'm afraid that if it is not independent we are gonna continue to have this confusion. You know, it's one thing to be a bureaucrat and presidential appointee who is, you know, doing some job though our people's lives are not directly at stake. It is something else though when you are on the, you know the point of the arrow, you have to make the decisions and that just didn't happen.
Interviewer: Well, would you suggest then that the FEMA director Mike Brown be fired.
Hillary: Well, I don't…er…have that, you know, decision, that's up to the president but …er… certainly…
Interviewer: Do you think it is a good idea. Would you fire him?
Hillary: Well, you know right now I don't know what that mean in terms of what we are trying to get accomplish now. We don't want to make a bad situation worse. Obviously, the legislation I am introducing will require that whoever in that position have specific appropriate experience with handling disasters.
Interviewer: Now you are on record as calling for a Katrina Commission, sort of, like a 9-11 commission. Is it the time to be calling for those sorts of things right in the wake of this when there are real needs right now. I think that a lot of people watching this would say, let's, let's wait a little bit on the blame issue and we can deconstruct this later. We have people in need right now.
Hillary: You know, Miles, I've said that's why I've called for an independent commission because I don't think the government should be investigating itself and I don't think that anybody in the government should be taken away from the important tasks of dealing with the enormous challenges facing the people along the Gulf Coast. I think we do need an independent commission. You know, I am always struck when people say that, because it is commonly said. You know, after Pearl Harbor, there was an immediate investigation launched. You know I think that, we've sort of lost track of fact that this is a government that has to be accountable to the people of our country. This is not a game. This has to be a serious inquiry that people have confidence in that will help us understand what did go wrong. The sooner we know that, the better. We have no idea what Mother Nature or Heaven Forbid, you know, the terrorists have installed for us. I for one want to know what went wrong because I don't ever want to see this happen in our country and have people put at risk and have people lose their lives and have the questions that people were asking me that are so painful and poignant in Houston when I saw them, you know, go without answers for very long.
Interviewer: Is there a simple answer, senator, to who drop the ball?
Hillary: Well, on August 27, the president signed an emergency declaration at his ranch in Crawford, in which he said that it would be an emergency and the federal government would take the lead in coordinating response. I think that the bucks stopped at the federal government and so let's find out what went wrong from an independent panel of experts, people would understand what should happen, what didn't happen and let's do it as quickly as possible.
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