A Bureaucratic Exercise

As Hurricane Katrina lingered off the coast of the United States in late August, representatives from a range of agencies were engaged in a training exercise about handling a disaster of a different sort: the loss of a nuclear missile from a submarine in shallow coastal waters. Participants in the exercise--many of whom worked in heavy protective suits in hot humid, Georgia weather--pronounced it a success. But a news release from Sandia National Laboratories shows that they also learned a lesson that Bush administration, Homeland Security and Defense officials were about to absorb in a real-world way:

The exercise revealed the strengths and weaknesses--both bureaucratic and naturally occurring--of the massive attempt at coordinating numerous government agencies to achieve a common task.