Critical elements of the National Response Plan were executed late, ineffectively, or not at all
 It does not appear the President received adequate advice and counsel from a senior disaster professional.
 Given the well-known consequences of a major hurricane striking New Orleans, the Secretary should have designated an Incident of National Significance no later than Saturday, two days prior to landfall, when the National Weather Service predicted New Orleans would be struck by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane and President Bush declared a federal emergency.
 The Secretary should have convened the Interagency Incident Management Group on Saturday, two days prior to landfall, or earlier to analyze Katrinas potential consequences and anticipate what the federal response would need to accomplish.
 The Secretary should have designated the Principal Federal Official on Saturday, two days prior to landfall, from the roster of PFOs who had successfully completed the required training, unlike then-FEMA Director Michael Brown. Considerable confusion was caused by the Secretarys PFO decisions.
 A proactive federal response, or push system, is not a new concept, but it is rarely utilized.
 The Secretary should have invoked the Catastrophic Incident Annex to direct the federal response posture to fully switch from a reactive to proactive mode of operations.
 Absent the Secretaryfs invocation of the Catastrophic Incident Annex, the federal response evolved into a push system over several days.
 The Homeland Security Operations Center failed to provide valuable situational information to the White House and key operational officials during the disaster.
 The White House failed to de-conflict varying
damage assessments and discounted information that ultimately proved accurate.
 Federal agencies, including DHS, had varying degrees of unfamiliarity with their roles and responsibilities under the National Response Plan and National Incident Management System.
 Once activated, the Emergency Management Assistance Compact enabled an unprecedented level of mutual aid assistance to reach the disaster area in a timely and effective manner.
 Earlier presidential involvement might have resulted in a more effective response.

DHS and the states were not prepared for this catastrophic event
 While a majority of state and local preparedness grants are required to have a terrorism purpose, this does not preclude a dual use application.
 Despite extensive preparedness initiatives, DHS was not prepared to respond to the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Katrina.
 DHS and FEMA lacked adequate trained and experienced staff for the Katrina response.
 The readiness of FEMAs national emergency response teams was inadequate and reduced the effectiveness of the federal response.

Command and control was impaired at all levels, delaying relief
 Lack of communications and situational awareness paralyzed command and control.
 A lack of personnel, training, and funding also
weakened command and control.
 Ineffective command and control delayed many relief efforts. The military played an invaluable role, but coordination was lacking
 The National Response Planfs Catastrophic Incident Annex as written would have delayed the active duty military response, even if it had been implemented.
 DOD/DHS coordination was not effective during Hurricane Katrina.
 DOD, FEMA, and the state of Louisiana had difficulty coordinating with each other, which slowed the response.
 National Guard and DOD response operations were comprehensive, but perceived as slow.
 The Coast Guards response saved many lives, but coordination with other responders could improve.
 The Army Corps of Engineers provided critical resources to Katrina victims, but pre-landfall contracts were not adequate.
 DOD has not yet incorporated or implemented lessons learned from joint exercises in military
assistance to civil authorities that would have allowed for a more effective response to Katrina.
 The lack of integration of National Guard and active duty forces hampered the military response.
 Northern Command does not have adequate insight into state response capabilities or adequate interface with governors, which contributed to a lack of mutual understanding and trust during the Katrina response.
 Even DOD lacked situational awareness of postlandfall conditions, which contributed to a slower response.
 DOD lacked an information sharing protocol that
would have enhanced joint situational awareness and communications between all military components.
 Joint Task Force Katrina command staff lacked joint training, which contributed to the lack of coordination between active duty components.
 Joint Task Force Katrina, the National Guard, Louisiana, and Mississippi lacked needed communications equipment and the interoperability required for seamless on-the-ground coordination.
 EMAC processing, pre-arranged state compacts, and Guard equipment packages need improvement.
 Equipment, personnel, and training shortfalls affected the National Guard response.
 Search and rescue operations were a tremendous success, but coordination and integration between the military services, the National Guard, the Coast Guard, and other rescue organizations was lacking.

...

First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he "thought" might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear that he considered it especially suited for my column.

An accurate depiction of what Armitage actually said deepens the irony of his being my source.

...

Duberstein told me Armitage wanted to know whether he was my source. I did not reply because I was sure that Armitage knew he was the source.

...

Armitage's silence for the next 2 1/2 years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source. When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's request, that does not explain his silent three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald's appointment on Dec. 30, 2003. Armitage's tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive.

But on Jan. 12, two days before my meeting with Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor informed Hamilton that he would be bringing to the Swidler Berlin offices only two waivers. One was by my principal source in the Valerie Wilson column, a source whose name has not yet been revealed. The other was by presidential adviser Karl Rove, whom I interpret as confirming my primary source's information. In other words, the special prosecutor knew the names of my sources.

When Fitzgerald arrived, he had a third waiver in hand -- from Bill Harlow, the CIA public information officer who was my CIA source for the column confirming Mrs. Wilson's identity. I answered questions using the names of Rove, Harlow and my primary source.

...

...

Then, in the last week of June 2003, Armitage's office called to agree unexpectedly to my request and set up the appointment for July 8.

Neither of us set ground rules.

It is important to note that Armitage reached out to me before Joe Wilson went public on the New York Times op-ed page and on "Meet the Press" ** with an account of his Niger report that he said contradicted 16 words in Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address: ("The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.")

I was ushered into Armitage's big State Department inner office promptly at 3 p.m. Neither of us set ground rules for my visit. I assumed, however, that what Armitage said would not be attributed to him but would not be off the record. That is, I could write about information he gave me but would not identify him by name. During a long career, I had come to appreciate that sort of thing in countless interviews without putting it into so many words. I viewed what Armitage told me to be just as privileged as if he had made me swear a blood oath.

Armitage was giving me high-level insider gossip, unusual in a first meeting. About halfway through our session, I brought up Bush's sixteen words. What Armitage told me generally confirmed what I had learned from sources the previous day while I was reporting for the Fran Townsend column.

I then asked Armitage a question that had been puzzling me but, for the sake of my future peace of mind, would better have been left unasked.

Why would the CIA send Joseph Wilson, not an expert in nuclear proliferation and with no intelligence experience, on the mission to Niger?

"Well," Armitage replied, "you know his wife works at CIA, and she suggested that he be sent to Niger." "His wife works at CIA?" I asked. "Yeah, in counterproliferation."

He mentioned her first name, Valerie. Armitage smiled and said: "That's real Evans and Novak, isn't it?" I believe he meant that was the kind of inside information that my late partner, Rowland Evans, and I had featured in our column for so long. I interpreted that as meaning Armitage expected to see the item published in my column.

The exchange about Wilson's wife lasted no more than sixty seconds.

I never spoke to Armitage again about Wilson. But he acknowledged to me nearly three months later through his political adviser, lobbyist Ken Duberstein, that he was indeed the primary source for my information about Wilson's wife. *** Shortly thereafter, he secretly revealed his role to federal authorities investigating the leak of Mrs. Wilson's name but did not inform White House officials, apparently including the president.

...

...

At the same time, from the perspective of the White House, Armitage's "admission" would get Rove and Libby off the hook. If the investigation had focused solely on the genesis of the disclosures that led to Novak's column, as the Bush administration obviously thought it would, Libby would not have been at risk at all and Armitage's story would have absolved Rove as well. Armitage claimed he had acted inadvertently and Rove, on his part, was merely confirming a rumor to a trusted columnist. This is, in fact, just what Rove and Libby have been saying all along.

Coincidentally, this MO for the two leaks to Novak precisely mirrors the information-laundering technique Rove is famous for using, especially with Novak. As Corn and Isikoff explain, Rove will frequently give information to Novak off the record, suggesting that Novak call someone else to confirm it, thereby using "Novak to play political brushback without leaving any fingerprints."

...