The underlying reasons for the bureaucratic disaster are in several areas. First the failure of leadership through the appointment of politically connected incompetents such as Michael Brown to head FEMA and his chief of staff Patrick James Rhode. Brown had almost no experience in responding to disasters while Rhode had absolutely no experience what so ever and he was running the day to day activities of FEMA. Michael Chertoff head of Homeland Security a former appeals court judge who helped write anti-terrorists laws after 9-11escaped many of the criticisms leveled at brown for being out of touch with the problem. This does not speak well for Chertoff because he has demonstrated that he is not a hands-on-responder the very type of person that you don’t want leading homeland Security in case of a terrorist attack. The real bright star that emerged from this disaster was Vice-Admiral Thad Allen of the US Coast Guard which has the duel “Responding Mission” and “Service Mission”, more on this later. He is the ideal candidate for the Head of Homeland Security. He was the take-charge leader who brought together all of the stake-holding parties Mayor Ray Nagin, Governor Kathleen Blanco and Lt. General Russel Honore who successfully lead the 20.000 national guard troops. Note that this was an on-the-scene team of leaders the way that all disasters need to be handled. This is not the normal way that bureaucracies are organized. You will also note that while Thad Allen was leading the recovery Michael Chertoff the person who is the head of Homeland Security was nowhere to be found this does not make me feel secure for future disasters.

Second the problems of combining of two bureaucracies with different missions is not understood by this administration and by Congress. FEMA has a “Responding Mission” much like that of fire fighters who respond to fires while Homeland Security has a “Service Mission” like the FBI and US Army. Leaders in the US Coast Guard have experience in both missions and in my opinion could be our best hope in successfully responding to any disaster. Michael Brown made a point of the differing missions before Congress but the point may have been lost in his vitriolic blaming of others and not himself.

The third failure is in the Bureaucratic organization of Homeland Security itself. The inherent nature of all bureaucracies is that they require approval (read tape) before any action can be taken at the site of the disaster. While bureaucrats wait miles away from the disaster site to give approval or disapprove to these requests. The resulting slow reaction can take weeks and even months. This the primary reason why Vice Admiral Thad Allen’s team on the scene was successful in bringing the disaster under control. Its not clear that FEMA or Homeland Security or even Congress understands the critical nature of an on the scene team lead by the Homeland Security Director.