President Bush on Iraq, Katrina, the economy

Brian Williams Anchor & “Nightly News” managing editor • Profile

Katrina, of course, and the federal response to the storm, was on our list of topics to discuss with the President today. That conversation took place during the flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Philadelphia. We sat down in the President's office in the front section of Air Force One.

Williams: Mr. President, thank you again for having us up here. I know that Senator Specter and Senator Santorum are on board. Have you had any substantive words exchanged with Senator Specter? I know you have a big nomination before his committee.

President Bush: Well, I see them quite often. And of course, I'm talking to him about Judge Alito's confirmation. And I suspect that on the way back to Washington, if he's on the plane, that we'll have a good chance to visit. But I also talked to him about the renewal of the Patriot Act. He is involved in conferencing the bill. I told him we want it passed and most Americans want it passed and it needs to be passed in order to help protect the homeland.

Williams: Mr. President, this is the first chance we've had to talk to you since Katrina. And I want to go back to that first weekend. It was said that a lot of — it was a holiday weekend — a lot of your staff were scattered about different places. There was a wedding in Europe. Did you have the people around you that you needed? Along with everyone else it took time to realize the scale of the disaster.

President Bush: You're talking about before the storm hit? Yeah, we anticipated a big storm. I don’t think anybody anticipated a category 5 initially. It came across the Gulf and started to pick up speed. But, you bet, we started pre-positioning equipment. I was on the phone to Governor Blanco, Governor Barbour, Governor Riley, asking them if they had all they needed.

I urged at one point in time, as I recall, over the weekend, I urged that there be an evacuation of New Orleans at the recommendation of Secretary Chertoff.

No, we were in touch and thought we were pretty well prepared for the storm. But as your broadcast accurately noted, the federal government and other levels of the government fell down on the job. I — like you and like the pictures you showed — I was appalled that a nation as wealthy as ours was not able to respond as effectively as we should have and took blame for it.

I mean, to the extent that the federal government was ineffective, I'm responsible. And I understand that. And now the question is how do we learn lessons from the response and how do we effectively help the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana rebuild?

Williams: Were you watching the coverage? Were you seeing the same pictures that Americans were seeing?

President Bush: I was. I was. I was disturbed by the fact that there's, I guess my reaction was, "Where's the communications?" I mean, we had news people able to really be the fact witness on the ground when, in fact, it should have been government officials at all levels gathering the information, sending it back to headquarters so there could be an appropriate response. I was amazed that our communication system was basically down to a certain extent. And the reason why it's troubling not only for the people on the ground affected by the storm, but imagine an attack or a pandemic of avian flu. And those are the lessons that we need to learn from Katrina and better prepare this nation.

Williams: We have three out of four people in the area out of their homes, 100,000 uninhabitable structures. It's a mess down in the region. You said when you were there you can't imagine America without New Orleans. A newspaper headline though yesterday said, "Death of American City, We're About to Lose New Orleans." Could that ever happen on your watch, Mr. President?

President Bush: I certainly hope not. I meant what I said. New Orleans is a great city. It needs to be helped so it can rise.

Part of the strategy's got to be to do something with these levees. Look, New Orleans isn't coming back unless people are assured that any investment or risk taken will be mitigated as best as possible by a modern day levee system. And one of the things we've learned about the levees, Brian, is that they call the levees a certain category, but they weren't up to standards. And so we're now in the process of working with local folks to get the standards of the levees up to where they should have been prior to the storm and even better. And hopefully we'll have the capacity to announce that relatively quickly.

That'll start to change the mindset of people for New Orleans. It's that, look, "Now, I feel comfortable about rebuilding my home." Or, "Now, I feel comfortable about making an investment that will create jobs."

Secondly, we've got to deal with housing. New Orleans is different from the Gulf Coast and Mississippi. Gulf Coast and Mississippi's got lands and the trailers are being moved in at the request of the Governor and local officials. People are beginning to resettle there. New Orleans doesn't have as much land, as you know from your travels. And so we're in the process of making sure people do not get booted out of hotel rooms but are given the information necessary about the money available for relocation expenses.

Williams: After the tragedy, I heard someone ask rhetorically, "What if this had been Nantucket, Massachusetts, or Inner Harbor, Baltimore or Chicago or Houston?" Are you convinced the response would have been the same? Was there any social or class or race aspect to the response?

President Bush: Somebody I heard — you know, a couple of people said — you know, said, "Bush didn't respond because of race, because he's a racist." That is absolutely wrong. And I reject that. Frankly, that's the kind of thing that — you can call me anything you want — but do not call me a racist. Secondly, this storm hit all up and down. It hit New Orleans. It hit down in Mississippi too. And people should not forget the damage done in Mississippi.

Williams: Biloxi was hit terribly hard.

President Bush: Absolutely, and Pascagoula and Waveland. You know it. You saw it first hand what it's like. We had people from all walks of life affected by that storm.

I remember saying that, when I thanked those chopper drivers from the Coast Guard who performed brilliantly, they didn't lower those booms to pick up people saying, "What color skin do you have?" They said, "A fellow American's in jeopardy. And I'm going to do my best to rescue that person."

Williams: What about this widely held perception in New Orleans that the federal government somehow played a role in the blowing of the levees? So many people believe that now. Does that break your heart that that exists?

President Bush: Yeah, I've heard that. And when I went to one of the shelters, I remember one of the ladies saying to me and Governor Blanco, "You know, why did the federal government, or why did government, blow this up?" And I said, "Ma'am, I really can assure you it didn't happen." But yet there's a perception, particularly in the Ninth Ward, that that's the case.

Williams: What do you do about that?

President Bush: You just try to tell the truth. You know, it was really interesting. If you read the book about the great flood in the late '20s, the levees were breached in order to save New Orleans. And so maybe that's part of why people are thinking that way. It just didn't happen. And I'm so sorry people feel that way, because one of the things that's important is for people to trust, you know, the government. And if they thought that the government had helped destroy their lives, then obviously there would be no trust.

Williams: It's been two months since your last visit to the region. Was there any notion of making it a domestic Marshall Plan of your administration, of saying, "Let's get together and rebuild this area?"

President Bush: Well, we're doing that. We've got $62 billion dollars on the table. That's a significant amount to begin with. And the key thing is to make sure that we fulfill these milestones that we've laid out.

Step one — particularly in Mississippi and eventually in New Orleans — is get rid of all the debris. You cannot rebuild with stacks and piles of debris. And so they're in the process of removing thousands of tons of debris.

And secondly, is to pass proper law that will encourage people to make investments and encourage small businesses to invest.

And thirdly, is to get the SBA loan process more streamlined. And one thing we're working on is to have the local banks be the lead lender with the SBA as a backup and not vice versa.

The initial response was to make sure people got cash in hand to help them adjust to these terrible circumstances they found themselves in. So, you can call it what you want to call it. But there's a massive operation underway. And Brian, as you know, the devastation is so big it's going to take a while to rebuild. And what people need to know down there is that there is a commitment at all levels of the government to help.

Williams: Any regret where Michael Brown is concerned?

President Bush: You know, Michael, resigned. And I, you know, I had worked with him during the four hurricanes that hit Florida. He got pretty good marks. And in this case, for whatever reason, the system overwhelmed the whole process. And Michael said, "I'm responsible." And he left.

Williams: Do you see the blame as being shared? Governor, Mayor, that kind of thing?

President Bush: I hope we're beyond that. As I said, I'll take the blame for the federal response. And I genuinely mean that. But think it's very important for people to not focus on politics, but focus on how we work together to achieve what we all want, which is a Louisiana that's vibrant and a New Orleans that's a shining light down there and a Gulf Coast of Mississippi that's been rebuilt and is vibrant and thriving.

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