By Bruce Alpert, New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 11, 2007

11 May 2007 // WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday when nine recommendations from a White House report will be implemented to ensure better use of foreign contributions during a major disaster such as Hurricane Katrina.

Some were supposed to be in place 11 months ago, Landrieu said.

Rice, appearing before a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, was on the hot seat after Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington released records and e-mail messages recently indicating that most offers of assistance from abroad following Hurricane Katrina never made it the victims.

Only a small fraction of the $854 million in assistance, including fuel, communications equipment, cruise ships to house emergency workers and displaced residents, and even specially trained rescue dogs from Poland, were used, according to the records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Landrieu said that the "people I represent were not able to take advantage of this aid because there are obviously some major problems in how we receive aid" when people are in "their most desperate need" of help.

Rice conceded problems in responding to the unprecedented donations from foreign nations to meet what she termed an unprecedented tragedy. But she added that the foreign donors and victims of Hurricane Katrina should know that many of the donations were put to good use.

About $66 million went to finance social service programs, $60 million to the Department of Education for Gulf Coast schools struggling to reopen and many cash donations were funneled to private charities, including the Katrina relief fund overseen by former presidents Bush and Clinton, the secretary of state said.

Landrieu said she finds it perplexing that recommendations made by White House aide Frances Townsend in her "lessons learned" report about the government's slow initial response to Hurricane Katrina apparently haven't been implemented. At times, Landrieu interrupted Rice's responses, saying her constituents are entitled to a status report on the Townsend recommendations.

Rice said the State Department and other federal agencies are in the process of implementing the recommendations. Asked for specifics, Rice promised to detail the efforts in a letter to Landrieu.

Among Townsend's recommendations: The State Department and Department of Homeland Security should develop procedures to "review, accept or reject" offers of international assistance during a catastrophic event like Hurricane Katrina; Homeland Security should develop a prioritized list of anticipated disaster needs; and the State Department should establish the best use for financial contributions.

In her testimony before the Foreign Appropriations Subcommittee, Rice said some of the donations, such as offers of volunteer medical teams, ran into problems because the volunteers weren't licensed to practice medicine in the United States. Some of the food and medical supplies, she said, weren't consistent with U.S. standards.

Landrieu said that most disturbing were reports that the government turned down offers of generators and communications equipment, including satellite phones, when so many first-responders and government officials were handicapped because cell phone towers and land lines had been destroyed by the hurricane.

In testimony to a House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee hearing on lingering Katrina problems, Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, said that the federal government needs clear procedures to handle foreign aid donations during a disaster.

"We must increase our storage network's capabilities and establish a streamlined process by which donations in kind can be accepted and distributed," Jefferson said. "The U.S. government should never again be in a position to turn down the generosity of other nations due to our own logistical problems."