The top Bush security official made it clear that he had no intention of stepping down, saying "We will have time to go back and do an after-action report, but the time right now is to look at what the enormous tasks ahead are."

Still, Russert continued pressing Chertoff on his fitness for office, saying, "many Americans believe now is the time for accountability."

"Your Web site says that your department assumes primary responsibility for a national disaster," he continued in prosecutorial tones.

"If you knew a hurricane 3 storm was coming, why weren't buses, trains, planes, cruise ships, trucks provided on Friday, Saturday, Sunday to evacuate people before the storm?"

Chertoff reminded the by-now agitated moderator that under the Emergency Operations Act, "the responsibility and the power, the authority, to order an evacuation rests with state and local officials.

"The federal government comes in and supports those officials," he explained. "That's why [FEMA Chief] Mike Brown got on TV on Saturday and he told people to start to get out of there."

Neither Russert nor Chertoff noted that more than a hundred of city school buses sat idle next to the Superdome storm center as evacuation orders were issued. Three days later, after the 17th Street Levee broke, the buses were underwater.

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