FRESH charges of incompetence and dissembling were laid at the door of the White House yesterday after the release of tapes which show George Bush being warned about Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact before the storm hit New Orleans. The disclosure contradicts the President’s subsequent claim that “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” which flooded the city.

A Democrat senator, Joseph Lieberman, said that the tape “demonstrates that government at all levels was forewarned of the catastrophic nature of the storm and did little to be ready to evacuate, search, rescue and relieve”.

More than 1,300 people were killed by Katrina in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. But six months on, the issue is refusing to disappear any more than the wreckage of broken homes that still litters much of the Gulf Coast.

A House of Representatives committee concluded last month that the response to Katrina at all levels of government was poorly planned and badly co-ordinated.

Tapes and transcripts of briefings last August show Mr Bush being told in detail about Katrina’s potential deadly impact and hearing an expert express “grave concerns” about the ability of the levees to withstand the hurricane. They also show that the President asked no questions.

“My gut tells me . . . this is a bad one,” Michael Brown, then chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), told a government briefing the day before Katrina struck the Gulf Coast. He cautioned that there might not be enough disaster teams on the ground to help evacuees.

Mr Bush, who appears in a video from a narrow, windowless room at his Texas ranch, is shown saying: “I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm but . . . after the storm. And we pray for no loss of life.”

Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security, makes a cameo appearance shortly before he left for a conference on bird flu in Atlanta.

Last night, in a sign of White House anxiety on the subject, officials travelling with Mr Bush in India released a lengthy rebuttal about the pre-Katrina videoconference.

Trent Duffy, the President’s spokesman, said that the transcripts were made available to the Congressional inquiry last autumn. “President Bush participated in briefings, phone calls and conversations throughout this process,” he said. “He has made clear as recently as Tuesday that he was not satisfied with the Federal response. That is why he ordered a comprehensive ‘lessons learned’ report and plans to work aggressively to implement improvements to our disaster response plans.”

Homeland Security officials have said that the “fog of war” blinded them early on to the scale of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show they discussed threats, reviewed long-standing plans and understood that Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. “I’m sure it will be the top ten or fifteen when all is said and done,” Max Mayfield, of the National Hurricane Centre, predicted on the day the storm hit the Gulf Coast.

Mr Brown, who was forced to quit in the aftermath of the disaster, said: “I don’t buy the ‘fog of war’ defence. It was a fog of bureaucracy.” He added: “I don’t know how [Bush] couldn’t understand how bad it was or bad it could be.”

Senior Republicans fear that the disclosure will further damage the President, as well as Republicans before congressional elections in November.

Missed messages

“I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm . . . but we will move in whatever resources we have after the storm to help you deal with the loss of property. And we pray for no loss of life, of course”
Mr Bush the day before Katrina struck

“My gut tells me . . . this is a bad one and a big one”
Michael D. Brown, then director of FEMA

“They’re not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they’re leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I’m very concerned about that”
Mr Brown

“I’m concerned about the medical and mortuary resources and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe”
Mr Brown

“I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a grave concern”
Max Mayfield, National Hurricane Centre

“I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees”
Mr Bush, four days after Katrina struck

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