From The Village Voice
Why the White House Won’t Release Its Katrina Papers

By James Ridgeway

The reason for the government not turning over documents and making available top officials to testify about the Hurricane Katrina debacle before Congress is not just that the documents and testimony would reveal incompetence in evacuating the stranded, bringing in relief supplies, and cleaning up the mess. No, the paper trail is bound to demonstrate in detail that the federal government knew a good 48 hours before the storm hit what was bound to happen, but did virtually nothing to protect lives and property.

There is no secret about any of this. The Washington Post last week said it had obtained a copy of a 41-page report on the hurricane distributed by the Department of Homeland Security before the storm hit. According to the Post, an e-mail containing this report reached the White House Situation Room at 1:47 a.m. on August 29, hours before the full force of the storm raked the Gulf Coast.

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