Rebuffing aid took arrogance, ineptitude

1 May 2007 // The latest headline was stunning, yet at the same time, utterly predictable.

When Katrina struck, the mighty United States, beacon to the world, the kind of country that is used to delivering foreign aid rather than receiving, could not figure out how to accept the generosity of others.

The figures are mind-boggling: of $854 million in cash (and oil to be sold for cash) offered, just $40 million has been used so far for disaster relief or reconstruction, according to documents obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Of $60 million set aside for schools, colleges and universities, only $10.4 million has found its way into the intended hands. Fifty-four of 77 aid offers from close allies Canada, England and Israel were rejected. Donations of search and rescue teams, cruise ships for housing, medical teams and all manner of supplies were nixed, bound up in red tape or just left hanging.

The documents paint a picture of a federal bureaucracy paralyzed by the potential influx and people and things, and at a loss over how to manage the logistics. The dysfunction left American officials who deal with foreign governments scrambling to save face.

"It is getting downright embarrassing here not to have a response to the Estonians on food relief -- everyone at FEMA is swamped, but at this point even a 'thanks but no thanks' is better than deafening silence," one State Department e-mail writer said.

In several other e-mails, officials discussed what to do about medical supplies, including gauze from Italy that was damaged after being "exposed to the elements."

"I think we need to come clean with the Italians, tell them we blew it, deeply appreciate and regret handling of this and let them know about disposal," a State Department official wrote a colleague in October 2005. "The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I'm willing to be persuaded. Thoughts?"

And items that were rejected outright, according to CREW, included a charter flight full of MREs from the Republic of Korea -- which were deemed unlikely to meet American tastes -- water purification units from Finland, canned fish from Namibia and troops from NATO.

Eventually, Karen Hughes, who built her career crafting President Bush's message and who now plies her trade at the State Department, issued a memo that seemed aimed at damage control, offering talking points to show that the American people really were grateful.

As unsettling as it is to learn that the same government that failed its own people also failed to get out of the way for good Samaritans from abroad, the revelations are in line with what we already knew: FEMA and many other government agencies also bungled offers of aid by American cities and states, as well as private citizens.

Tales of doctors being barred from treating patients, truckloads of ice melting on the highways, and emergency workers forced to undergo sexual harassment training before being deployed quickly became the stuff of Katrina lore. In some ways, this is just more of the same.

But it's also different.

To read the nine-page list of international aid offers is to be reminded once more that the world responded to the Gulf Coast's pain with compassion, and to be touched all over again by how many people wanted to help. Some governments offered what they could, even if the totals amounted to petty cash for the U.S. government: $100,000 from Afghanistan actually made it through, as did $20,000 from Cambodia, $25,000 from Nepal $25,000 and $10,000 from the Palestinian Authority.

What a positive message the United States could have sent by graciously accepting all such gifts, by allowing the very same people this country has so often helped to return the favor. In public relations terms, a little humility can go an awfully long way.

Instead, as in so many instances since Katrina, the government managed to be both arrogant and inept. And once more, the whole world was watching.