An after-action report by a House investigative committee on the response to Hurricane Katrina concluded that government agencies are bureaucratic, unimaginative, inflexible, and inefficient.

* An after-action report by a House investigative committee on the response to Hurricane Katrina concluded that government agencies are bureaucratic, unimaginative, inflexible, and inefficient. The committee found that the devastation wrought by Katrina was met by government failure at every level. In preparing for a large natural disaster, "all the little pigs built houses of straw." Congress and President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security in the hope that it would Lad to better coordination among the 22 agencies and 170,000 employees that were folded into the new department. That didn't happen. In the case of Katrina, the 520-page report found federal efforts were marked by "fecklessness, flailing, and organizational paralysis." Having opposed the creation of the new behemoth department as an ill-conceived, ill-timed distraction, we are not surprised by the committee's scathing review. How about finding an example of a nimble, creative, adaptive agency meeting government's most fundamental responsibilities? C'mon, surprise us.