In the News

Brown defends himself on late FEMA response to Katrina’s convention center refugees

WASHINGTON–Embattled former FEMA director Michael Brown says he was initially unaware of desperate conditions at the New Orleans Convention Center because it was not a planned Hurricane Katrina evacuation site, according to a congressional memo.

After learning from television about the thousands of evacuees who gathered at the center, Brown ordered food and water be delivered there. But Brown, who on Tuesday faces a House inquiry into the government’s slow response to the Aug. 29 disaster, told congressional aides that “there is no reason FEMA would have known about it beforehand.”

In Katrina’s aftermath, thousands of people gathered at the convention center, where adequate food, water and other supplies were lacking and where violence was common.

The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, was written by a Republican congressional aide who attended a 90-minute briefing Monday with Brown, who resigned as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Sept. 12.

Brown announced his resignation three days after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff removed him from overseeing the onsite disaster response, and was highly criticized for being a Bush administration political appointee without deep emergency management experience. He denied accusations that he padded his resume.

Brown, who ran FEMA for more than two years, has a two-week “transition” remaining at the agency, during which he will advise the department on “some of his views on his experience with Katrina,” Homeland security spokesman Russ Knocke said. He is receiving full pay.

The congressional memo details Brown’s self-defense and attacks on other officials in managing the response to the catastrophic storm and flooding that killed more than 1,000 people in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Brown “acknowledged that he made mistakes,” said a second Republican staff member who attended the briefing.

Pfc. Lynndie England faces sentence after Abu Ghraib conviction

FORT HOOD, Texas–Army Pfc. Lynndie England, the 22-year-old reservist who appeared in photos smirking amid naked prisoners at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison, stood at attention as she was convicted of taking part in abusing detainees.

Wearing her dark green dress uniform, England showed no obvious emotion Monday after the jury foreman read the verdict. Asked for comment afterward, defense lawyer Capt. Jonathan Crisp said, “The only reaction I can say is, ‘I understand.'”

Her case now moves to the sentencing phase, which will be heard by the same jury of five male Army officers beginning Tuesday. It was unclear whether England would testify on her own behalf. She faces up to nine years in prison.

England became the most recognizable of the nine Abu Ghraib soldiers charged in the prison scandal after photos showing her with a naked detainee on a leash and pointing to detainees in other demeaning poses became public.

Her trial was the last in the scandal; two other soldiers were convicted in trials and six made plea deals. Several of those soldiers testified at England’s trial.

Prosecutors used graphic photos of England to support their contention that she was a key figure in the abuse conspiracy, a scandal that badly damaged the United States’ image in the Muslim world despite quick condemnation of the abuse by President Bush.

England was found guilty of one count of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of committing an indecent act. She was acquitted on a second conspiracy count pertaining to the leash incident.