CNN Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees - Transcript
CNN Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees - Transcript
Monday, September 5, 2005
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COOPER: Well, today, Senator Trent Lott made different comments about the efforts. He said, and I quote, "Mississippians are homeless, hungry and hurting. FEMA and MEMA need to be saying 'yes' to Mississippi's needs not 'no.' This is an emergency situation without peer, like nothing our generation has ever encountered. If suffering people along the Gulf Coast from Mobile to New Orleans are going to recover as soon as possible we need an unprecedented public and private effort that can't be hampered by a process geared toward much lesser disasters."
Senator David Vitter joins us now, a republican from Louisiana.
Senator, on Friday, you gave the federal government an "F" for their efforts. What grade do you gave them right now.
SEN. DAVID VITTER (R), LOUISIANA: Yeah, first of all, Friday, I gave all of the organized government relief effort an "F," state and federal. I think it's turned a corner, in fact, it began to turn later that day, Friday, when it essentially became an unprecedented military operation, not only National Guard, but major active duty military. Now today, we're going to have upwards of 40,000 boots on the ground in Louisiana. So that is really turning a corner, and it's getting better every day. I know what a letter grade is, but it's getting better every day, at least.
COOPER: Senator, let me put a question to you or tell you about something that a firefighter from Louisiana -- I don't want to name the town or his name, just because he didn't want to get in trouble. He said, "Look, we came down here to help people. We have yet to be given a mission." They're told to go to one place, they show up, and people from the Fish and Game service say, "Oh, no, this is our territory, y'all go back. We don't need you here." And they've got boats which are empty and, you know, they're running out of gas themselves and they're frustrated. Do you hear that from people, here?
VITTER: I hear stories like that all the time and it's very unfortunate. As I said, I think those stories are lessening because the military is taking a much larger role, beginning last Friday and ramping up every day, but do I hear stories like that? Absolutely, every day and I've been on the ground in every affected parish.
COOPER: How do you stop it? I mean, if there is, you know, in- fighting or jockeying for power of organizations, whatever it is, how did on a you go about stopping it? I don't know the answer. From your position, do you?
VITTER: Well, about a day and a half into it, my thought was, you go about fixing it by making it a military operation and putting competent operational commanders on the ground. I think we've done that, particularly with General Honore who is active duty military a three-star general. I think that's making a dramatic difference and have all those sort of problems you're talking about gone away? No, absolutely not. So we need to keep working on it particularly on the sort of civilian bureaucratic side.
COOPER: Representative -- Senator Vitter, appreciate you joining us and we'd love to talk to you again as the week progresses. Thanks so much.
VITTER: Sure, thank you.
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