US: US senators yesterday accused President Bush of stonewalling a congressional inquiry into the government response last year to Hurricane Katrina, despite earlier promises to co-operate.
The senators said the White House had failed to make key officials available to the inquiry or turn over documents on internal government communications in the days before, and immediately after, the storm hit New Orleans on August 29th last year.
One document leaked this week showed the White House situation room was warned the same day that Katrina would "likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching".
On September 1st, however, President Bush told reporters: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."
A few days later, he also promised to co-operate with a "thorough" congressional investigation into the relief debacle that followed the storm, in which tens of thousands of New Orleans residents were left stranded for days.
Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat senator involved in the inquiry, due to report in March, accused the administration of breaking that promise. "There has been a near-total lack of co-operation that has made it impossible, in my opinion, for us to do the thorough investigation that we have a responsibility to do," he said.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that 120 administration officials had been made available for the inquiry but that in some cases conversations between top officials had to remain classified for the presidency to function properly.
The Bush administration has refused to hand over e-mail correspondence about the storm and has prevented officials involved in the government reaction from appearing before the Senate. Those officials include the White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, and his deputy Joe Hagin.
Some senior Republicans are also dissatisfied. Senator Susan Collins said the administration had been telling other government officials outside the president's staff not to testify about communications with the White House about the storm.
Michael Brown, the former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told the inquiry on Monday he had been told not to comment on his conversations with top White House officials. - (Guardian service)