9/11 panel heads rue Katrina errors

9/11 panel heads rue Katrina errors (emphasis mine):

America's response to Hurricane Katrina was hamstrung by well-known system-wide problems that could have been fixed but went unattended and wound up costing lives, the two men who led an inquiry into the September 11, 2001, attacks said.

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, the moderate Republican who led the independent panel known informally as the September 11 commission, and his Democratic vice-chairman Lee Hamilton said the response was undermined largely by a lack of command.

They also cited emergency communications problems and a failure to target resources at communities facing the greatest risk of natural or man-made disaster.

'The same mistakes made on 9/11 were made over again, in some cases worse,' Kean said. 'Those are system-wide failures that can be fixed and should have been fixed right away.'

Added Hamilton: 'I'm surprised, I'm disappointed and maybe even a little depressed that we did not do better four years after 9/11. It says we're still very vulnerable.'

[...]

Kean said the Department of Homeland Security, a sprawling bureaucracy set up after the 2001 attacks, failed to produce two mandated risk assessments to U.S. transportation and infrastructure including levees such as the ones that failed after Katrina, swamping New Orleans.

"One report was due April 1. The other was due in early summer. Neither report has been done," he said. Homeland Security officials were not immediately available to comment.

Kean and Hamilton both said communications problems occurred between New Orleans emergency crews because of congressional failure to give first-responders nationwide their own segment of the U.S. broadcasting band.

"It is a glaring error four years after 9/11. Still exists. Not resolved. There are bills pending in Congress but they're far from enactment," Hamilton said.

So, there you have it. BushCo has done nothing. The Rethuglican congress has done nothing. All that talk about being tough on terrorism, and making us safer has been nothing but Rove-inspired bullshit.

Feel safer yet?