The Smoking Katrina Video

Crooks and Liars has posted a video supplied by the AP which clearly shows that Bush was warned about the levee problems in New Orleans before Katrina hit.

But what's even more interesting is how the White House, Press and Blogosphere have already begun to respond to the revelations.

(AP) Video-WMP Video-QT

Yahoo News has the story. It's currently on the Homepage for AOL and CNN. From the Washington Post we already have video Mayor Nagin's response to the tape..."Shocked, just Shocked...They seemed that they were aware of everything."

And various bloggers and sites have been having a field day with this...

Federal officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief of possible devastation just before Hurricane Katrina struck. Six days of video footage from briefings and transcripts were obtained by The Associated Press. The warnings were that the storm could breach levees, risk lives in the New Orleans Superdome and overwhelm rescuers.A-P reports Bush didn't ask any questions during the final government-wide briefing the day before Katrina struck on August 29th....read on"

AmericaBlog has more...

DarkSyde has more: The video shows both FEMA Director Mike "Heckuva job" Brownie saying he had a gut feeling this would be the "big one" and storm meteorologist Max Mayfield standing in front of a radar image indicating a breach in the levees, specifically from Lake Pontchartrain driven by high winds, was a concern:

"I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern," Mayfield told the briefing."

Technically speaking I have to point out that what Mr. Mayfield says isn't that the levee could or would be breached, he says that they might be "topped" - which is significantly different. Topping of the levee is more like have waves crash over a storm wall, but what occured was the failure of a levee wall - or breach. So although many have already been pointing at Max Mayfields comments and saying this proves that "Bush is a liar" -- I think this may be technically untrue, but only if you listen to just Mr. Mayfield.

More from MSNBC on the additional transcripts that were provided by the AP.

Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly floodwaters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility -- and Bush was worried too.

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

So although Maxfield didn't specifically say "breach" it's clear that the issue was in fact discussed - and anticipated. This is in additional to the dire warning email that was sent to the White House situation room by the Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC) 48 hours before the landfall of Katrina that said based their Hurricane Pam simulations they predicted "breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property."

An additional email sent on the day of landfall warned that a storm of Katrina's size would "likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching" and specifically noted the potential for levee failures along Lake Pontchartrain. This is a fact that has already been sternly addressed by John Kerry.

"How is it that the White House Situation Room received detailed warnings 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit, that the National Hurricane Center was warning CNN and the world that Katrina could be The Big One, that FEMA reported two days before landfall that Katrina's surge `could greatly overtop levees and protective systems,' destroy nearly 90 percent of city structures, require `incredible search and rescue needs (60,000-plus),' and displace more than a million people - and the President days later still insisted on national television, `I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees' that left 1,300 dead and thousands more homeless?

It's almost comical that now that we have it on Video from the AP, people are suddenly starting to be outraged. I noticed tonight that neither the O'Reilly Factor or Hannity and Colmes bother to address this story (although it may have broken too late in the day for them to cover) - while Keith Olbermann opened his show with it. In his report he noted that these video tapes were released to the media the day they were shot, and it's quite ironic and coincidental that these details were noticed exactly 6-months after Katrina hit New Orleans.

Another fact noted by Olberman is the almost immediate pushback that came out of the White House just an hour after tapes hit the AP wire. A fact that Jane Hamsher at Firedog also noticed.

FireDogLake:

"Hoping to counteract the damage of the story, the White House leaked Newsweek transcripts from daily noon FEMA conference calls during and after Katrina to show how engaged and concerned Dubya was. Trouble is, these are transcripts that they had initially refused to provide to congressional investigators...read on

So they wouldn't give this information to Congress, but when the prospect of having these tapes repeatedly broadcast like the Rodney King Beating on the Network News over and over again arises -- they suddenly find a way share the information?

On Tuesday President Bush was interviewed on ABC News by Elizabeth Vargas. During that interview Bush continued to claim that they simply didn't have "situational awareness" of things happening on the ground in New Orleans. But the pushback transcripts that were just released to Newsweek seem to contradict that arguement.

Some congressional investigators say it now seems somewhat ironic that having belatedly found the Aug. 29 conference-call transcript, the administration is now touting it as evidence of deep presidential--and White House--involvement in the crisis. White House spokesman Scott McClellan on Aug. 31 told reporters on Air Force One that the president was still deeply engaged in responding to Katrina. McClellan said Bush participated in a conference call that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Brown of FEMA, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, White House Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend, chief of staff Andy Card, deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, deputy national-security adviser J. D. Crouch, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett and others.

Congressional investigators say they can't recall seeing a transcript of this Aug. 31 conference call. An administration official said the White House is withholding the Aug. 31 transcript in order to protect the confidentiality of communications between the president and his advisers. Brown now says that after initially being deeply immersed in the crisis, "I think the president assumed, despite my warnings about FEMA's marginalization, that it could handle a catastrophic disaster, too. Clearly that was not the case because of budget and personnel cuts imposed by Homeland Security."

In their report on Katrina delivered just last week the House Investigators found that...

Contrary to Bush's claim that the White House failed to get "good, solid information from people who were on the ground," the House report [page 141] found that, at the White House, "[f]ailure to resolve conflicts in information and the 'fog of war,' not a lack of information, caused confusion," and that "[t]he White House did not suffer from a lack of information."

Instead the report found that the White House suffered from a failure of initiative.

To those who've been following this story for some time, it should come as no surprise that Bush knew damn well what was going on the entire time and simpy sat on his hands and let New Orleans drown. Since that time he's done nothing but pass the buck, used Brownie as a scapegoat and tried to cover for himself and Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff's obvious failures.

It should be humorous watching Bush and his supporters try to dance their way out of this one, because from what I can tell the Fit has just Finally Hit the Shan on the Bush Administration.

Impeachment's too good for 'em.

Vyan