Text 1493, 74 rader
Skriven 2005-09-25 23:33:16 av Whitehouse Press (1:3634/12.0)
Ärende: Press Release (050925) for Sun, 2005 Sep 25
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President's Remarks During Hurricane Rita Briefing in Texas
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For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
September 25, 2005

President's Remarks During Hurricane Rita Briefing in Texas
Randolph Air Force Base
San Antonio, Texas

˙˙˙˙˙In Focus: Hurricane Relief

7:30 A.M. CDT

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, having said that about Katrina, there were still some
amazingly heroic efforts in pulling people off roofs. I don't know how many
sorties were flown -- there must have been thousands of sorties.

GENERAL WHITE: As I left last Wednesday, it was close to 18,000 sorties
flown. Now, sir, that includes every agency, and it's a lot of the airlift
in there, too.

THE PRESIDENT: Your point is, on a Katrina, had there been a better
coordinated effort between Guard choppers -- Coast Guard choppers, regular
army choppers, it would have been less dangerous?

GENERAL WHITE: It would have been a better orchestrated plan. You wouldn't
have seen a lot of -- for instance, one of the things that we've learned
out of that -- we had someone that needed to be rescued, and that comes up
on the net. Five helicopters show up at the same place to get one person.
That's the sort of simplistic thing we'd like to avoid, and we're not
maximizing the use of our forces to best efficiency.

Certainly, that was a train wreck that we saw in New Orleans, and I know
everybody is jumping in, trying to help at one time, and that's the right
thing to do. But if we can have a national plan that would address the
search and rescue at this magnitude, is what we're out to try to do.

GENERAL MAYES: Sir, if I might add, I would say that it wouldn't
necessarily make it less dangerous. I would tell you the professionalism
and the plan came together. I believe that all participants would agree
that with the fog that we had, and the weather that we were battling,
nighttime, all the things that went into that environment, that I'm not
sure we can make it less dangerous. There may be a factor there, but the
main point would be, with a national plan, we'll have a quicker jump-start,
and an opportunity to save more people. That would be my input there.

GENERAL CLARK: A national plan, good training against the plan, gets you to
this state faster in extremis. And that's the goal.

THE PRESIDENT: Part of the reason I've come down here, and part of the
reason I went to NORTHCOM, was to better understand how the federal
government can plan and surge equipment, to mitigate natural disasters. And
I appreciate very much, General, your briefing, because it's precisely the
kind of information that I'll take back to Washington to help all of us
understand how we can do a better job in coordinating federal, state and
local response.

The other question, of course, I asked, was, is there a circumstance in
which the Department of Defense becomes the lead agency. Clearly, in the
case of a terrorist attack, that would be the case, but is there a natural
disaster which -- of a certain size that would then enable the Defense
Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the
response effort. That's going to be a very important consideration for
Congress to think about.

END 7:36 A.M. CDT
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