Press Gaggle by Tony Snow

Business Wire, May 9, 2007

WICHITA, Kan. -- Aboard Air Force One

En Route Wichita, Kansas

9:14 A.M. EDT

MR. SNOW: I've brought Fran Townsend and Dave Paulison, as well, to answer any questions. The President will be in Greensburg today, as you know. On board, Congressman Jerry Moran, Senator Sam Brownback, Senator Pat Roberts. Obviously, we have the FEMA Director with us, as well.

What the President is going to be doing is a series of stops. We'll arrive at McConnell Air Force Base, and then helicopter to Greensburg. First, the President will -- there will be an aerial tour, and the President will be visiting Greensburg. We're leaving it a little flexible. We're going to go out and we're going to try to meet with a lot of people who have been affected and see what's going on.

There will also be a briefing with federal, state and local officials at the emergency operations center. And then we will return to the White House this evening.

Q Could I start the questioning to Director Paulison? Is the National Guard stretched too thin to deal with natural disasters in the country?

DIRECTOR PAULISON: No, not at all. We have not seen that at all. I talked to the Adjunct General in Kansas yesterday when I was down there. He said he has plenty of equipment for this disaster. I've asked probably at least 20 times, is there anything that you need you don't have; the answer is, no. And that's from the Governor, the General, the Mayor and the City Manager.

What he did say was if they had another disaster they might be short of equipment. I said, if you have another disaster you have my personal commitment that we can get equipment from other states -- like we always do; any state having two major disasters is going to run short of equipment. So we have what we call an emergency management disaster compact from all the states around the country where we share equipment from one state to another. That's a good system, it works well. It worked everything from Hurricane Andrew to Katrina to the tornadoes we had in Georgia and Alabama just recently.

MR. SNOW: It's also important with regard to this to get the facts straight, because I think there's been a narrative that equipment was not available. It was. The Governor has said so. She has said so on the record. It didn't make it into some newspapers this morning, but she said it yesterday.

Q -- available as quickly as they had --

MR. SNOW: It was immediately available. There were no shortages. This is not a case -- you've got to understand that this is not an either/or situation and that there are considerable assets on the ground. Again, Director Paulison can tell you, the National Guard has also assured the Governor and others that if -- now we're talking hypothetical situations -- but in these hypothetical situations they're going to get what they need.

But I'll tell you what; this is a situation where extraordinary measures -- FEMA was on the ground almost immediately. And to start asking questions about whether things were not available when FEMA people are literally pulling people out of the rubble is to --

Q -- a National Guard issue. And the Governor made very clear comments on this --

MR. SNOW: What you need to do is to ask the Governor, because the comments --

Q We had an interview with her.

MR. SNOW: Okay, then you better look at what she said yesterday. Because when she was asked, was there any shortage in this case, the answer was, no. What she was talking about was a -- she was talking about a buildup in the National Guard, which she has expressed concern about. The President has given the largest commitment to increasing National Guard strength in the history of this country.

So set that aside for now. Please resist the temptation to try to create a political fight because there is none. And furthermore, at least be open to taking a look at the facts on the ground and seeing the extraordinary efforts that people made to save lives. Because there is this attempt now to try to make a -- to turn it into a debate about Iraq, which is wholly separate and irrelevant to what happened in the rescue mission in this case. And as a matter of getting the reporting straight, you need to understand that these are separate issues and, therefore, this was not something -- this was not an either/or situation in which people were denied access to equipment.

Q -- in your view, in this case, was the response swift enough and complete enough, or do you see any cases where something could have been done better?

DIRECTOR PAULISON: No, the response in this particular case was absolutely phenomenal. I read a quote from the Mayor this morning who said that when he had to kick open his backdoor to get out of his house, the first person he saw was a rescue person from Wichita, helping him out the door, and the person standing behind him was somebody from FEMA. We were on the ground right away. We had a lot of homes destroyed; we started moving equipment before the Governor even asked for a declaration. I could see what they needed, so we started moving communications unit, moving staff, moving USAR people into that area before they even asked for any assistance.