Quotes by James Carafano

“Theres a lack of adult leadership on both sides.”

“Even more than money and the availability of money, what really slows down the reconstruction is decision-making bureaucracy and red tape,”

“You cant make a million people happy. Theres going to be a lot of debates. I dont think you can minimize the role Congress is going to play in what kind of legislation they formulate to guide the reconstruction. There will be enormous pressure to do something quickly. Its all new virgin territory, and itll be tough to craft an optional strategy.”

“There is no way that a terrorist campaign can disrupt the elections in the United States. This is too big a country, too many voters, too many polling places,”

“If you had a nuclear explosion and fire or something biological in New Orleans, youd have seen tens of thousands of casualties, ... We dont really have the capacity to mobilize the medical support for catastrophic terrorism.”

“Given that the tsunami killed 150,000 people [in Southeast Asia], I frankly think we responded pretty well to a storm that might have done the same, given the density of the population in the area where it hit. Essentially, Katrina was a nuclear bomb without a mushroom cloud or radiation.”

“In many ways, this is a test of our national capacity, ... If we cant do this 24-7-365, we arent doing our job for preparedness.”

“Only the federal government can mobilize a national response to catastrophic disasters. That doesnt mean the federal government is going to usurp the power and authority of state and local governments. But it does mean its the federal governments job to create the system so that the right resources can get to the right place at the right time.”

“Where do you stage? Where do you go? You have to have communications, you have to have electricity, you have to have dry ground. These are all things that have to exist, and these are all things that dont exist in New Orleans.”

“When we started out doing this, basically what we were doing was throwing money at the problem. In most cases, people had absolutely no idea how to spend the money.”