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.being integral to the article rather than a buried lede!
But just as important to the administration were worries about the message that would have been sent by a president ousting a Southern governor of another party from command of her National Guard, according to administration, Pentagon and Justice Department officials.
"Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had pre-emptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?" asked one senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the talks were confidential.
WHOOPS. (HT WND)
And US News has an article claiming that this should have been easier to deal with than a large scale WMD event. Umm, not exactly. In fact the size of the affected area is much larger than that of most conceivable WMD scenarios -- including use of nukes. The only good news with Katrina is that the death toll is likely lower than we would see from a nuke -- but might have been fairly comparable if Bush hadn't prevailed to have Nagin and Blanco at least call for a (busless) evacuation.
More Tinfoil thoughts to come...
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