Joint Task Force Katrina Commander Russel Honore on Tuesday ripped the Trump administration's response to the devastation in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, saying that "we've got to do better than this."
"Something got distracted here," Honore, a retired Army lieutenant general, told Erin Burnett on CNN. "I think everybody's got an opinion what it was.
"But we've got to do better than this.
"We've got to assure the people of Puerto Rico that if it happens again, it won't happen this week."
President Donald Trump told reporters that he was not preoccupied with his fight with the NFL over the weekend at the expense of Puerto Rico.
He said he would visit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands next Tuesday.
Honore said that only the Defense Department has the logistical capability to get supplies and relief efforts to Puerto Rico, since it is isolated in the Atlantic Ocean.
"It takes logistics to solve the issue," he told Burnett. "In an isolated place like Puerto Rico, those expeditionary logistics should have been moving since Saturday and Sunday.
"We lost about three days of decisive time in putting the Department of Defense" into action, he said.
"Again, the bureaucracy is looking at a calendar and the people are looking at a watch wondering when the military would get there, because they know they're the only force.
"We have to break rules."
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