Former FEMA Director Michael Brown appeared on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and Homeland Security Correspondent Jeanne Meserve. Highlighted transcript follows…

On who is to blame for FEMA’s failure

BLITZER: I had been screaming internally that the budget cuts, the personnel cuts, what they were doing within Homeland Security, was in effect marginalizing FEMA. And I predicted that at some point — in a very specific memo to both Tom Ridge and to Chertoff — that at some point FEMA would fail. I just doesn’t expect to be in the middle of that failure.

BLITZER: So who deserves the blame for that failure?

BROWN: I think it really belongs with the Department of Homeland Security. I really think that Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, because they had ample opportunity. If you go back and you read the 2003 letter to Ridge from me, and you read the 2004 and 2005 memos about our budget, in every single one of those, I keep repeating FEMA is going to fail because of these actions.

On whether Michael Chertoff should be fired

BROWN: Well, it appears to me that, you know, when Michael — when Chertoff does things like tells me that I’ve got to go to Baton Rouge and plop my butt down on a seat in Baton Rouge and run a disaster from there, I think that shows naivete about how disasters are run. And you’ve either have to get with it, or move on.

MESERVE: Should he lose his job?

BROWN: Well, I think so.

On the president’s knowledge of levee breaches

MESERVE: How did the president know to ask about breaches of the levees? Did he have reports in hand at that time already that that had happened in New Orleans?

BROWN: There’s no question in my mind he probably had those reports, because we were feeding in the Homeland Security Operations Center, into the White House sit room, all of the information that we were getting. So he had to have had that information. Plus, I think the president knew from our earlier conversations that that was one of my concerns, that the levees could actually breach.

MESERVE: So are you saying when you said recently that it was baloney that the White House didn’t know about the breaches on Monday night — are you saying that the president knew about the breaches on Monday morning?

BROWN: He knew that was a potential, because my testimony has been…

MESERVE: And he knew there were reports of them?

BROWN: Well, yes. He knew about the reports of potential breaches.

On earlier statements from the president he wasn’t aware of the potential for a levee breach

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BUSH: I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. (END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What is he talking about when he says no one anticipated the breach of the levees, if everyone seemed to be anticipating that possibility on Monday?

BROWN: Right. I think that was fairly typical of the president. I think what he was really saying — and I’m defending the president in this regard — I think he was saying that we really didn’t anticipate that it was going to happen because the storm was beginning to decrease. Yes, I was still worried about it, because I knew what the potential was. But I think the president was speaking honestly at that point that he didn’t really anticipate that they would be breached because of all this conflicting information.

On the full story of Katrina

MESERVE: Do you think that the public knows yet the full story of what happened with Katrina?

BROWN: No, they don’t. Because what they don’t — everyone’s focused on Katrina, and Katrina is just the symptom of a much more serious problem within the Department of Homeland Security.

On holding an independent investigation into Katrina response

BROWN: I don’t think it’s necessary.

BLITZER: Well, how would the American public going to know the truth then?

BROWN: Wolf, it’s so simple. They need to look at how Homeland Security is operating, what’s happened to FEMA. And if they will have the guts to pull FEMA out and say, you know, we made a mistake and this is not going work, and restore FEMA to its ways of doing business with its budget, that will fix the problem.

On falling out of favor with President Bush

BLITZER: But you can’t just blame Chertoff. You have got to blame the president, too.

BROWN: Well, ultimately you’re right. I mean, I served at the pleasure of the president. So I’m certain at some point the president may have said, hey, Chertoff, get Brownie out of there or whatever. But I don’t hold that — I serve at the pleasure of the president, so I don’t hold that against them.

But I think — I think it did reach a point where they were as frustrated as I was in how things were going, and so it’s easier just to let’s pinpoint somebody, let’s pull them out, and so now we can say to the world, we’re fixing things.

On conversations Brown had with President Bush the day Katrina made landfall

MESERVE: And they occurred directly with the president?

BROWN: Yes, on at least — on at least a couple of occasions.

MESERVE: And you specifically talked levee breaches with the president?

BROWN: Yes. Because that, again, that was almost foremost in my mind and my concern.

On current communications with President Bush

MESERVE: Since you left your job, have you heard from the president?

BROWN: No, I have not.

BLITZER: Are you disappointed about that?

BROWN: Well, you know, look, I’m a big boy, and I don’t need to hear from the president. It would have been nice to have had an “attaboy” or, you know, thanks for service or whatever, but I’m not asking for that. I did my service. I know in my heart that the fight that I carried on within DHS to protect FEMA and to help FEMA — and I also know what I did in 2004, those hurricanes in Florida, and the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster and the 160 disasters I successfully handled, I know what I did, so I can hold my head high.

On Congressman Henry Waxman’s questioning of Gov. Jeb Bush’s role in a federal contract for Carnival Cruises

BROWN: For Waxman to come out now and try to make some big deal that Jeb Bush somehow was doing something I think is just disingenuous, and it shows how this has become so partisan and so inflammatory that, you know, people need to take a deep breath about some of this.