FEMA: Corrupt, Negligent, Criminal and In Charge

Prison Planet
Sep. 08, 2005

Steve Watson | September 8 2005

FEMA is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars. It has more power than the President of the United States or the Congress.

It has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it can seize property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the Constitution. Not only is it the most powerful entity in the United States, but it was not even created under Constitutional law by the Congress.

We have exposed how in the aftermath of Katrina, FEMA has cut emergency communication lines and has been turning back fuel and water supplies. Even American Red Cross officials have said that FEMA authorities would not allow them to deliver aid.

Former FEMA officials have admitted that Government disaster officials had an action plan if a major hurricane hit New Orleans. They simply didn't execute it when Hurricane Katrina struck.

Furthermore, as the Florida Sun Sentinel has reported, Training for FEMA inspectors is often brief and and poor.

"With an investment of eight hours one Monday in early October, Johanna Hadik of Margate got a badge and the next day was out inspecting hurricane damage for the federal government."

FEMA also acknowledges a long history of fraud in disaster aid by applicants who call it "Christmas money" or "free money" and by inspectors who are supposed to prevent it. These inspectors consistently simply turn a blind eye because often enough they are reaping the benefits.

The Sentinel has also reported on the fact that FEMA employs as inspectors known criminals with records for embezzlement, drug dealing and robbery. These people are entrusted to enter disaster victims' homes and verify damage claims, with their histories, is it any wonder that there is consistent fraud?

One such inspector with a criminal record stated, "We're not all bad because we have criminal histories...We're just the only ones they can get who will do this."

How is it that people with criminal records are being employed by the government to manage the aftermath of disasters?

The fact is that those that are really in charge of FEMA are there through political patronage and have no ability to do the job they are supposed to.

"FEMA is widely viewed as a 'dumping ground,' a turkey farm, if you will, where large numbers of positions exist that can be conveniently and quietly filled by political appointment," the preliminary report said. "This has led to a situation where top officials, having little or no experience in disaster or emergency management, are creating substantial morale problems among careerists and professionals. "

The agency is corrupt from top to bottom, consider the aftermath of Hurricane Frances in 2004:

As Hurricane Frances made landfall 100 miles north of Miami-Dade County in September, a top official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency declared the county a major disaster area with no evidence of damage and contrary to a presidential order.

That decision allowed more than 12,000 Miami-Dade residents, many with minimal or no damage, to collect $31 million and brought unprecedented scrutiny to the federal disaster aid program. - Knight Ridder Newspapers

Also in 2004, up the Gulf Coast, FEMA was involved in a mock drill called Hurricane Pam, in which a hurricane with 120 mph winds topped the levies of New Orleans. FEMA's chief representative at the drill was its regional director at the time, Ron Castleman.

Castleman, had also been "promoted" to FEMA's top brass after serving as chief administrative officer for the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign.

When the very real Hurricane Katrina struck last month, Castleman had already moved on to a job in the private sector. Castleman has stated that the action plan for such an event was definitely NOT implemented after Katrina.

Why conduct drills of the levies breaking and then not implement the action plan when it actually happens? No one is that incompetent. AP has reported that current FEMA chief Michael Brown waited until hours after Hurricane Katrina had already struck the Gulf Coast before doing anything.

There can be no excuse of "we didn't see it coming" this time around, FEMA is criminally negligent.

Yet as the reaction of Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard shows, FEMA will be rewarded with more funding and it will gain more authority. Brousaard wept as he asserted that FEMA has deliberately withheld aid and cut communication lines but in the same breath he stated that FEMA needs to be given the funding and power to do better job. withholding aid and cutting communication lines is not "doing a bad job" it is intentionally doing the opposite of what they are supposed to be doing.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under Regan, Paul Craig Roberts has stated that FEMA have made the crisis look worse in order to empower the image of a police state emerging to "save the day". He even insinuated that the shoot to kill policy was part of the overall operation in order get an awful precedence set to aid the military industrial complex takeover of America.

"The power of the Federal Government is now greater than at any time, it'll never go back and the Posse Comitatus Act has been eroding ever since it was passed in 1878..."

FEMA is actively sabotaging the relief effort in New Orleans. Why would they do this? Because FEMA is made up at the lower levels of petty criminals and people with no training, whilst the elite infiltrators of the Federal Government watch on from afar, in control of everything, answering to no one and getting fat off the profits of their own corrupt inactivity which brought about the situation in the first instance. They like it that way, it suits them down to the ground, why should they do anything to improve the situation?

Related:

FEMA Deliberately Sabotaging Hurricane Relief Efforts

FEMA Executive Orders Paved The Way For Emerging Police State Hell

Government Sabotage Of Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts

FEMA Chief Waited Until After Storm Hit