Rumsfeld’s memos from Katrina subpoenaed

updated 7:26 p.m. ET Dec. 15, 2005

WASHINGTON - A House committee investigating the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina issued a subpoena Wednesday to force Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to turn over documents but stopped short of sending a similar legal demand to the White House.

The subpoena commands Rumsfeld to produce internal records and communications about the Pentagon’s response to the Aug. 29 storm, including efforts to send supplies to victims, stabilize public safety and mobilize active duty forces along the Gulf Coast. It requires the Pentagon to deliver the documents, spanning from Aug. 23 to Sept. 15, from Rumsfeld and eight other top military officials by Dec. 30.

Separately, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it would comply with a judge’s ruling that FEMA keep paying for hotel rooms for hurricane evacuees until Feb. 7. The agency also agreed to extend the program for eligible storm victims who have not been helped by that deadline.

The subpoenas were one focus of a House hearing that was marked by angry barbs between Gov. Kathleen Blanco, D-La., and Republicans who challenged her about why a mandatory evacuation for New Orleans was not ordered until the morning before Katrina hit. Mandatory evacuations were ordered for coastal parishes south and east of New Orleans before then.

Blanco under attack
“We had mandatory evacuations,” Blanco said. “We got 1.2 million people out. We ended up saving another 100,000 people and we lost 1,100. That’s the whole story. We got people out.”

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said Blanco’s explanation was “a story that’s not acceptable because 1,100 people is one half of the men and women we have lost in Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

“You lost that many on one day,” Miller said.

Shot back Blanco: “Then it’s not acceptable for us to lose ... soldiers, either.”

Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky., asked Blanco why New Orleans’ emergency management and evacuation plans were not followed.

“It’s detailed,” Rogers said of the plan. “All it needed was for the mayor and/or the governor to say ‘Let’s go.”’

“We did that, sir. Don’t pretend that we didn’t do that,” Blanco responded tersely.

Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers said they were frustrated by the administration’s failures to provide the House investigation with internal memos, e-mails and other documents before and after the storm hit.

Pentagon spokesman Army Maj. Paul Swiergosz said the panel’s requests for information have been “very far-reaching and very broad, and we’re doing everything we can to answer them as quickly as we can.

“We’re going to provide the documents as fast as we can,” Swiergosz said. “No one has been dragging their feet on these things.”

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