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'Atta-boy' out of there as new questions arise

BY CRAIG GORDON | WASHINGTON BUREAU

September 10, 2005

WASHINGTON - In the past week, FEMA chief Michael Brown went from being a little-known bureaucrat getting an "atta-boy" from the president to a man who was the embodiment of his agency's ills, in the eyes of his critics.

Cronyism? Brown got his job through a pal of President George W. Bush. Experience? Brown's background as an official of an Arabian-horse association became fodder for late-night comics.

So by the time charges surfaced that Brown inflated his past work experiences, even some Republicans couldn't argue with Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff's decision Friday to relieve Brown of Hurricane Katrina duties.

Brown was pulled from his post overseeing FEMA's hurricane response and ordered sent back to Washington just one week after Bush told him, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

For his part, Brown told the Associated Press in an interview that he doesn't know why he was being sent back to Washington, but angrily denied charges in Newsday and Time magazine that he had inflated his prior experiences, saying the White House and FEMA had mistakenly described his jobs.

"This story's not about me. This story's about the worst disaster of the history of our country that stretched every government to its limit and now we have to help these victims," Brown said. "That's all I've wanted to do."

But Brown's problem in many ways was that the story did become about him - and it's a truism in Washington that if reporters have started fact-checking your resume, that's a sign of trouble.

"Chertoff probably felt that, rightly or wrongly, Brown was getting the blame, and as long as he was there, it was hard for the operation to go forward," said Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), who sits on the House Homeland Security Committee. "I'm not going to second-guess Chertoff."

Yet Brown's departure from Louisiana seemed unlikely to quell the criticism of FEMA's handling of Katrina, or criticism of Bush over his handling of the disaster. Already, Senate Democrats issued a letter Friday demanding that Brown be removed as the head of FEMA, a job he continues to hold.

But two White House officials said the decision to remove Brown was made by Chertoff without pressure from the White House. Chertoff first broached the topic of removing Brown in a meeting with Bush on Wednesday, and Bush told him that he would support his decision, one senior administration official said.

As late as Thursday night, a FEMA spokesman was pointing toward Brown's biography, saying his work as an assistant city manager in Oklahoma overseeing emergency services gave him experience in that area.

But by Friday, Edmond, Okla., city officials said records showed Brown was only an assistant to the city manager, not what his FEMA biography said.

Randel Shadid, a former Edmond mayor, said Brown worked on the city's emergency plan, but added, "I don't see how running an emergency program in a city back then of 40,000, 45,000 people, could ever prepare you for what FEMA has to address."