[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 115 (Wednesday, September 14, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Page S9999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I come to the floor to make a brief 
statement on something I know the majority leader and also the 
Democratic leader, Senator Reid, have been speaking about in recent 
days, and that is the issue of the creation of an independent 
commission to evaluate exactly what kind of preparedness exists in this 
country and to evaluate this country's response to a natural disaster 
or to a terrorist attack.
  It is important, it seems to me, in this case, to stare truth in the 
eye. We don't do that with fiscal policy. We don't stare truth in the 
eye with respect to trade policy. Both have the highest deficits in the 
history of the country at this point. There are many areas where we try 
to ignore what is going on, and we do so successfully, regrettably, 
much to the detriment of the future of this country. The question of 
what we do with disaster relief and disaster preparedness, preparedness 
to try to deal with a terrorist attack, is a different issue.
  I noticed today in the newspapers and on television, the folks in New 
Orleans are beginning to clean up. Even as there remains the search for 
bodies and survivors, and so on, there are folks out sweeping the 
sidewalks in front of businesses, those businesses that have not been 
inundated with water. There are folks hauling away trash. There is a 
resiliency, a spirit that is irrepressible. Already people are starting 
to talk about their future, to clean up. So must we. So must we clean 
up and begin to repair.
  None of this discussion should ever be about Republicans or 
Democrats. It is about success or failure. All of us looking truth in 
the eye must understand that the response by this country to what 
happened in the Gulf was a failure. Whose failure? I don't know. 
Perhaps the failure of all of us: Congress, the President, State and 
local officials--perhaps all of us. But I believe we ought to get to 
the bottom of it and evaluate how we change that which failed so 
miserably.
  When you wake up this morning to the news that 34 people were left to 
die in a nursing home--yes, in the United States of America 34 people 
were left to die in a nursing home at the advent of an oncoming 
hurricane and breached dike and flood--you ask the question, Is this 
really the United States? What on Earth could have happened? We need to 
find out.

  I know some of the Members of Congress have talked about creating a 
special committee in Congress to look at it. All right. It doesn't 
substitute for an independent commission, in my judgment. The President 
talked about his investigation, and, that is fine. What we need, most 
of all--what we did with respect to 9/11 is an independent commission 
with the kind of authority and power to get to the bottom of what 
happened. Why? Because if we do not fix what went wrong and make it 
right, we will remain unprepared in the advent of a terrorist attack or 
another natural disaster.
  This was, we think, the worst natural disaster in this country's 
history. It can happen again. But we know terrorists will want to 
commit a terrorist attack in this country. We know there are thousands 
of nuclear weapons that exist in this world. We know there are people 
worried about terrorists acquiring a nuclear weapon, detonating it in a 
trunk in a rusty Yugo sitting on a dock in one of America's major 
cities. What kind of response, what kind of disaster preparedness 
exists to deal with a terrorist attack?
  I know why there are some who do not like independent commissions: 
you can't control them. You can't control information. You can't 
control direction. You lose control with an independent commission.
  But we need an independent commission to investigate exactly what has 
happened, what went wrong at all levels, and try to evaluate how we put 
together a process that really does work, that represents the best of 
this country.
  We know this country works. It has great ingenuity, great capability, 
but something happened that went wrong in a very significant way. This 
was a mess. It is not about blame, it is about accountability. Who is 
accountable? How are they accountable? How do we make them accountable?
  So I believe we have a desperate need at this point to move quickly 
to put together an independent commission that can begin putting the 
pieces together. Even as the folks in New Orleans begin putting their 
city back together and cleaning up, so, too, should the President and 
Congress begin putting this together and cleaning up and evaluating it 
through the best work of some of the best minds in our country, some of 
the best people we can call on to serve on an independent commission to 
evaluate and investigate what went wrong and how do we, as a country, 
fix it.

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