The New York Times is in full hysteria mode, trying to turn the human tragedy associated with Hurricane Katrina into political fodder for the Democrats. Paul Krugman is one cog in the Times' wheel; on cue, he chimed in with a strident denunciation of the Bush administration's response to the hurricane. It was, of course terrible; Krugman begins:

Each day since Katrina brings more evidence of the lethal ineptitude of federal officials. I'm not letting state and local officials off the hook, but federal officials had access to resources that could have made all the difference, but were never mobilized.

Characteristically, Krugman avoids facts whenever possible. His columns consist almost entirely of invective; he grudgingly throws in a fact only when it can't be helped. Yesterday's column included exactly one fact, one instance of a "resource" that "could have made all the difference," but was "never mobilized." Krugman's one such example was the U.S.S. Bataan:

Here's one of many examples: The Chicago Tribune reports that the U.S.S. Bataan, equipped with six operating rooms, hundreds of hospital beds and the ability to produce 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day, has been sitting off the Gulf Coast since last Monday - without patients.

Experts say that the first 72 hours after a natural disaster are the crucial window during which prompt action can save many lives. Yet action after Katrina was anything but prompt. Newsweek reports that a "strange paralysis" set in among Bush administration officials, who debated lines of authority while thousands died.

So, according to Krugman, the Bataan, with its hospital and fresh water, constituted a resource that was "never mobilized," apparently because of "paralysis" on the part of the administration. In citing the Bataan as his best example of federal ineptitude, Krugman relied, as he so often does, on an urban legend that circulated on left-wing blogs: that the Bataan, which had been cruising in the Caribbean when Katrina struck, was ready and able to aid the hurricane's victims, but was prevented from doing so because the Defense Department never gave the order authorizing it to act. This rumor became so persistent that one of the ship's officers, Lt. Commander Sean Kelly, wrote to one of the left-wing sites to debunk the myth:

USNORTHCOM was prepositioned for response to the hurricane, but as per the National Response Plan, we support the lead federal agency in disaster relief — in this case, FEMA. The simple description of the process is the state requests federal assistance from FEMA which in turn may request assistance from the military upon approval by the president or Secretary of Defense. Having worked the hurricanes from last year as well as Dennis this year, we knew that FEMA would make requests of the military — primarily in the areas of transportation, communications, logistics, and medicine. Thus we began staging such assets and waited for the storm to hit.

The biggest hurdles to responding to the storm were the storm itself — couldn't begin really helping until it passed — and damage assessment — figuring out which roads were passable, where communications and power were out, etc. Military helos began damage assessment and SAR on Tuesday. Thus we had permission to operate as soon as it was possible. We even brought in night SAR helos to continue the mission on Tuesday night.

The President and Secretary of Defense did authorize us to act right away and are not to blame on this end. Yes, we have to wait for authorization, but it was given in a timely manner.

Poor Paul, always a day late and a dollar short, apparently didn't get the memo.

Still, if I were writing a column that I expected to be read by many thousands of people--oh, wait, I do--and if I were going to rest my column on a single "example" on the basis of which I intended to charge government officials with "lethal ineptitude," I would do a little fact-checking. Sadly, however, research is something of which Paul Krugman is simply incapable.

Perhaps Krugman doesn't know that large naval vessels like the U.S.S. Bataan all have web sites. Perhaps he doesn't know that there is a tool called "Google" that would enable him to find the Bataan's web site in less than ten seconds. Or perhaps he just didn't care enough to go here and read up on the Bataan's contributions to hurricane relief efforts.

If Krugman had taken the trouble, he would have found that on August 30, the same day on which New Orleans' levees burst, precipitating the crisis, men and women from the Bataan were already in action, and by the following day they were busy saving lives:

The crews flew off Tuesday night towards New Orleans and were tasked by the on-scene rescue coordinators. “Our first mission was to provide food and water and to take some people to a safer haven and to help with the levee by providing sandbags,” said AS2(AW/NAC) Johnny Ramirez, MH-53 Aircrewman for HM-15. “We weren't able to complete our assigned mission Tuesday night because it got too dark and it was too risky to land anywhere with all of the water and power lines. Instead, we just flew Tuesday night to survey the area.”

On Wednesday, a crew from HM-15 assisted with lifting numerous stranded citizens in a very short period of time. “My crew and I airlifted nearly 100 people from the roof of a building and onto a field where ambulances and busses were waiting for them,” said LCDR David Hopper, detachment Officer in Charge of HM-15. “Ten of those who we rescued couldn't even walk; my crewmen had to carry them.”

One of the missions of the MH-60 aircraft is search and rescue. HSC-28 personnel have rescued 71 people in their first two days of operation, seven in the first 30 minutes. HSC-28 has three crews and two aircraft and is alternating flight and crew rest time.

Here is a summary of the Bataan's efforts as of yesterday, when Krugman's column implied that the ship was a "resource" that was "never mobilized":

“We've been extremely busy this past week with more tasks than there are hours in a day,” said Cmdr. Jeffrey Bocchicchio, Bataan 's Air Boss. “The shortest day the department has had was 16 hours long, but they understand that everything we do is critical to the mission.”

"All of the divisions and Combat Cargo working together allows the ship to have a 24-hour flight deck with the manning for 10-hour days,” said Bocchicchio. “Military units are the nation's biggest assets and what better use for them than to save our own people.”

To date, the two squadrons have transported 1,613 displaced people and delivered more than 100,000 pounds of cargo. Bataan also provided 8,000 gallons of fresh drinking water to the ravished Gulfport, Mississippi area. Sailors filled eight 500-gallon water bladders with the ship's potable water and HM 15's MH-53 helicopters transported them from the flight deck of Bataan to land.

How about the unused operating rooms and empty hospital beds? It seems not to have occurred to Krugman that the most efficient way to get medical treatment to hurricane survivors is not to helicopter them, individually or in small groups, to a ship at sea. Instead, what happened was that medical personnel were assembled and equipped on board the Bataan, then flown to shore where they could treat the sick and wounded:

Two medical fly-away teams from the Navy's Casualty Receiving and Treatment Ship Team (CRTS) 8, based at Naval Hospital Jacksonville, Fla., left the multipurpose amphibious assault ship USS Bataan (LHD 5) on Sunday, Sept. 4, 2005 , to provide medical support to Hurricane Katrina survivors at the New Orleans International Airport and a high school in Biloxi , Mississippi .

A 26-member primary care treatment team consisting of a pediatrician, family practice physician, an obstetrician along with seven nurses and 16 hospital corpsman departed early Sunday morning for New Orleans International Airport . They expect to return to the ship on Monday.

The second flyaway team, which consisted of an internal medicine physician, two nurses, a respiratory therapy technician and two general hospital corpsman, flew to Biloxi High School to take care of patients with respiratory illnesses. The team's main mission is to provide treatment for those who have respiratory problems. They are expected to return to the ship in two or three days.

The diversity of CRTS 8's composition allows the flexibility of establishing multiple mission-specific medical teams within a short time period. “The CRTS 8 team is glad to be onboard Bataan participating in the relief efforts,” said Cmdr. Michael Illovsky, MC, USN, Director of Medical Services for CRTS 8. “We are ready and willing to help out in any way possible. We are enthused about the opportunity to send groups into the affected areas where they are needed most.”

The 24-member medical team who left Saturday for the New Orleans Convention Center returned to Bataan Sunday afternoon.

This all happened during the three days prior to the appearance of Krugman's column describing the "hospital beds" "without patients" aboard the Bataan.

We never go after Maureen Dowd anymore, because there isn't any sport in it. Poor Paul Krugman is rapidly getting into the same category.

Posted by John at 02:31 PM  |    |