Flooded With Help, But Still Flailing

James Carafano / June 24, 2010

“We were not prepared to make the best use of foreign support. Some foreign governments sought to contribute aid that the United States could not accept or did not require. In other cases, needed resources were tied up by bureaucratic red tape. But more broadly, we lacked the capability to prioritize and integrate such a large quantity of foreign assistance into the ongoing response.”

This quote from the previous Administration’s Hurricane Katrina lessons learned report is (unfortunately) equally applicable to the current oil spill disaster.

Prior to Katrina, the U.S. had never accepted aid from foreign countries. As a result of the lessons learned from Katrina, the Federal government revised its response plan and developed an interagency process to coordinate offers of foreign assistance for a domestic response. Further, the State Department developed procedures specifically addressing the issue of present concern: (more…)