NBC News and news services
Updated: 2:37 p.m. ET Sept. 9, 2005
BATON ROUGE, La. - Amid harsh criticism of federal relief efforts, Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff announced Friday that Michael Brown, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is handing over Hurricane Katrina relief duties to a Coast Guard official and returning to Washington to oversee the national office.
“Other challenges and threats remain around the world,” and Brown is needed to prepare for those, Chertoff said at a news conference in Baton Rouge.
“Michael Brown has done everything he possibly could to coordinate the federal response to this unprecedented challenge,” Chertoff added. He sidestepped a question on whether the move was the first step toward Brown’s leaving FEMA.
But a source close to Brown, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FEMA director had been considering leaving after the hurricane season ended in November and that Friday’s action virtually assures his departure.
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Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen
Brown, 50, is handing over relief duties to Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad Allen, who earlier this week was named Brown’s deputy to oversee relief and rescue efforts.
Chertoff did not allow reporters to ask Brown questions directly and would not respond to the Time magazine report Friday that Brown’s official biography overstated his emergency-management experience.
Brown blames media
Asked ahead of the announcement if he was being made a scapegoat, Brown told The Associated Press after a long pause: “By the press, yes. By the president, no.”
“I’m anxious to get back to D.C. to correct all the inaccuracies and lies that are being said,” Brown said.
Asked if the move was a demotion, Brown said: “No. No. I’m still the director of FEMA.”
He said Chertoff made the decision to move him out of Louisiana. It was not his decision, Brown said.
“I’m going to go home and walk my dog and hug my wife and, maybe get a good Mexican meal and a stiff margarita and a full night’s sleep. And then I’m going to go right back to FEMA and continue to do all I can to help these victims,” Brown said. “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.”
“That’s all I’ve wanted to do,” Brown said in a telephone interview.
Bio controversy
Brown’s biography on the FEMA Web site says he had once served as an “assistant city manager with emergency services oversight,” and a White House news release in 2001 said Brown had worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., in the 1970s “overseeing the emergency-services division.”
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Sept. 9: Amid criticism of a slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, a new “Time” magazine report questions FEMA Director Michael Brown’s resume. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports.
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However, a city spokeswoman told Time magazine that Brown had actually worked as “an assistant to the city manager.”
“The assistant is more like an intern,” Claudia Deakins told the magazine. “Department heads did not report to him.” Time posted the article on its Web site late on Thursday.
A former mayor of Edmond, Randel Shadid, confirmed that Friday. Shadid told The Associated Press that Brown had been an assistant to the city manager, and never assistant city manager.
“I think there’s a difference between the two positions,” said Shadid. “I would think that is a discrepancy.”
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Live Vote: Is relieving Brown of Katrina duties enough?
FEMA, White House response
Nicol Andrews, deputy strategic director in FEMA’s office of public affairs, told Time that while Brown began as an intern, he became an “assistant city manager” with a distinguished record of service.
“According to Mike Brown,” Andrews told Time, a large portion of points raised by the magazine are “very inaccurate.”
White House press secretary Scott McClellan referred all questions about Brown’s resume to FEMA.
McClellan said the White House’s earlier statements that Brown retained the president’s confidence remain true — but he declined to state that confidence outright.
“I’d leave it where I left it,” McClellan said. “We appreciate the work of all those who have been working around the clock to respond to what has been on the worst natural disasters in our nation’s history.”