Calm Before The Storm

Remember when we went to war with Iraq because of faulty intelligence? We were told that there were links to al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction and we were all going to be home for Christmas with a nice new Democracy and ensconced in Mesopotamia. Turns out that wasn't exactly the case.
Six months ago we were told what a good job "Brownie" was doing with the post-Katrina relief effort. Interesting point here: Apparently in the days leading up to the hurricane making landfall on the Gulf Coast, Michael Brown gave George P.W. Bush a full briefing detailing the potential for massive damage and casualties. This briefing included speculation on the possibility of the failing of the levees in New Orleans as well as the "shelter of last resort," the Superdome. "The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level.... I don't know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane," Brown said.
Does any of this excuse Brownie from his own mismanagement of the situation? Not really. What it does do is open yet another can of worms for this now sadly unpopular president (a recent CBS poll had his approval rating at just 34%) to have to sort through - Fear Factor style. Bush declared four days after the storm, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees" that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. He later clarified, saying officials believed, wrongly, after the storm passed that the levees had survived. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm — and Bush was worried too. Not worried enough to move more proactively to have the resources available when disaster struck. That was Brownie's job, after all. In this case the intelligence was all there before the actual event, it just went missing afterward.