Bush takes responsibility for slow response
14/9/2005 10:34
US President George W. Bush said Tuesday that he took responsibility for
slow government response to Hurricane Katrina, which pounded southern United
States in later August causing heavy human and economic losses.
"Katrina
exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of
government," Bush said at joint news conference at the White House with visiting
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
"To the extent the federal government
didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," he said.
Bush
made the remarks in response to a question whether people should be worried
about the government's ability to handle another terrorist attack given failures
in responding to Katrina.
"Are we capable of dealing with a severe
attack? That's a very important question and it's in the national interest that
we find out what went on so we can better respond," Bush said,
The
president said he wanted to know what went right and what went wrong.
On
Monday, Bush named R. David Paulison, a career firefighter with three decades of
disaster-response experience, to replace Michael Brown, chief of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, hours after Brown's resignation.
Brown was
relieved of his responsibilities to lead ground recovery operations in the
hurricane-ravaged areas last Friday, amid growing criticism on the government's
slow response to the disaster.
Source: CRIENGLISH.com
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