Yes, but again, everything has consequences. If we didn't go into Iraq because it was too expensive, and Saddam Hussein gave a nuke to a terrorist and blew it up in the US and killed 500,000 people, then we'd all say "we should have found the $300 billion" or whatnot. Anytime you're managing a budget, you have to make choices of what you think is the most immediate danger. Given that New Orleans had survived 200+ years, I can understand people thinking this was not an absolute immediate priority. 2 years ago if people were asked, well, should we spend money on levees to protect New Orleans from flooding in the event of a near direct hit by one of the most powerful hurricanes in history, or on education or on services for the poor or fighting terrorism or whatever your favorite program is, 99% of Americans would have picked their favorite program, because they would have looked at the immediate benefits of it vs. the theoretical possible issue of New Orleans flooding. It's just the nature of government. .
I agree with that article but as I said in the article about environmentalism and the hurricane now isn't the time for a national political debate. At the moment the Gulf Coast is in a serious crisis and the one person who can do the most to alleviate that is the President. His policies very well may have had something to do with the scope of this disaster but right now we need to deal with the situation.
How does discussing his policies on a message board affect the government's ability to deal with the situation? I agree that politicians, the media, and the President shouldn't be dealing with this type of thing now... but I don't see the problem with random people discussing it?
That's incorrect. You can't "take care" of the safeguarding and be done with it. *Especially* in this case. The levees continue to sink and need to be rebuilt. There are articles from the past few years that discuss this. This is the reason why the Louisiana representation was distraught after funding was cut in 2003... and even further in 2004... and even further in 2005. Why would safeguarding a city be unlike spending for a military? I don't understand that - both require manpower... You can't just magically produce a Corps of Engineers when natural disasters strike (as we're now seeing) and you can't do the same when something needs to be built. Can you?
This comment here defeats the whole purpose of blaming bush. If anything, it praises Clinton for doing something about the problem. Do the math. 10 years ago, this project was setup. Up until last year, this project had been almost completely cut. After 9 years of not getting it right or "doing their best", one more year would not have helped this situation. I think the government has made some attempts, but lets not forget, this problem has been known for many many years. This is not a government secret. These people knew they were living in danger. Its a gamble everyone took, not just the government. I wouldnt park my real estate next to an active volcano, just as i wouldn't park it in a bowl cornered in one of the largest rivers and a gulf.
Not true....the levees were constantly sinking every year due to the poor soil underneath. They needed to be maintained and strengthened every year because of this. Funding for this specific necessity should not have been so drastically cut as it was in 2003-04.
I heard there was a 14 billion dollar plan in place to fix the levees, the wetlands, and the Mississippi delta, all things that would have prevented what we are seeing, but it was cut because of the Iraq war. Now I'm not gonna say It's Bush's fault that New Orleans is underwater because who knows how long it would have taken for that project to have even been completed. But, the real disaster right now is in the aftermath. Did anybody hear the radio interview of the mayor? I heard it this morning on CNN. He is pissed. He says that things are a lot worse than people think. They need thousands of troops to be there, but they just aren't. He said that the people who are out there with guns attacking those trying to help are mostly drug addicts. Their supply has been cut off, so now they are raiding hospitals and attacking aid workers to try and find anything they can get high off of. So, we're at another point where we have to ask, what is the point of the war in Iraq? Have american lives been saved because of this war? How many people will die in New Orleans after the storm who could have been helped if there were more troops and equipment available?
"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." -- George W. Bush on the Today Show What an arrogant, lying sack of ****.
There is no question that the relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina have been badly bungled. I'm sure there is plenty of blame to go around in both parties and at the local, state, and federal level. However, it looks like FEMA has been particularly inept, and the Bush Administration does bear responsibility for this, as Bush appoints the head of FEMA and the agency has been significantly restructured and weakened under Bush. Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, concurred and he was particularly pungent in his criticism. Asserting that the whole recovery operation had been "carried on the backs of the little guys for four ******* days," he said "the rest of the ******* nation can't get us any resources for security." "We are like little birds with our mouths open and you don't have to be very smart to know where to drop the worm," Colonel Ebbert said. "It's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane." Local Officials Criticize Federal Government Over Response By JOSEPH B. TREASTER and DEBORAH SONTAG NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 1 - Despair, privation and violent lawlessness grew so extreme in New Orleans on Thursday that the flooded city's mayor issued a "desperate S O S" and other local officials, describing the security situation as horrific, lambasted the federal government as responding too slowly to the disaster. Thousands of refugees from Hurricane Katrina boarded buses for Houston, but others quickly took their places at the filthy, teeming Superdome, which has been serving as the primary shelter. At the increasingly unsanitary convention center, crowds swelled to about 25,000 and desperate refugees clamored for food, water and attention while dead bodies, slumped in wheelchairs or wrapped in sheets, lay in their midst. "Some people there have not eaten or drunk water for three or four days, which is inexcusable," acknowledged Joseph W. Matthews, the director of the city's Office of Emergency Preparedness. "We need additional troops, food, water," Mr. Matthews begged, "and we need personnel, law enforcement. This has turned into a situation where the city is being run by thugs." Three days after the hurricane hit, bringing widespread destruction to the Gulf Coast and ruinous floods to low-lying New Orleans, the White House said President Bush would tour the region on Friday. Citing the magnitude of the disaster, federal officials defended their response so far and pledged that more help was coming. The Army Corps of Engineers continued work to close a levee breach that allowed water from Lake Pontchartrain to pour into New Orleans. The effects of the disaster spilled out over the country. In Houston, the city began to grapple with the logistics of taking tens of thousands of refugees into the Astrodome. American Red Cross officials said late Thursday night that the Astrodome was full after accepting more than 11,000 refugees and that evacuees were being sent to other shelters in the Houston area. Elsewhere, San Antonio and Dallas each braced for the arrival of 25,000 more, and Baton Rouge overnight replaced New Orleans as the most populous city in Louisiana and was bursting at the seams. The devastation in the Gulf Coast also continued to roil oil markets, sending gasoline prices soaring in many areas of the country. In North Carolina, Gov. Michael F. Easley called on citizens to conserve fuel while two big pipelines that supply most of the state's gasoline were brought back on line. Throughout the stricken region, scores of frantic people, without telephone service, asked for help contacting friends or relatives whose fates they did not know. Some ended up finding them dead. Others had emotional reunions. Newspapers offered toll-free numbers or Web message boards for the searches. Meanwhile, the situation in New Orleans continued to deteriorate. Angry crowds chanted cries for help, and some among them rushed chaotically at helicopters bringing in food. Although Mayor C. Ray Nagin speculated that thousands might have died, officials said they still did not have a clear idea of the precise toll. "We're just a bunch of rats," said Earle Young, 31, a cook who stood waiting in a throng of perhaps 10,000 outside the Superdome, waiting in the blazing sun for buses to take them away from the city. "That's how they've been treating us." Chaos and gunfire hampered efforts to evacuate the Superdome, and, Superintendent P. Edward Compass III of the New Orleans Police Department said, armed thugs have taken control of the secondary makeshift shelter at the convention center. Superintendent Compass said that the thugs repelled eight squads of 11 officers each he had sent to secure the place and that rapes and assaults were occurring unimpeded in the neighboring streets as criminals "preyed upon" passers-by, including stranded tourists. Mr. Compass said the federal government had taken too long to send in the thousands of troops - as well as the supplies, fuel, vehicles, water and food - needed to stabilize his now "very, very tenuous" city. Col. Terry Ebbert, director of homeland security for New Orleans, concurred and he was particularly pungent in his criticism. Asserting that the whole recovery operation had been "carried on the backs of the little guys for four ******* days," he said "the rest of the ******* nation can't get us any resources for security." "We are like little birds with our mouths open and you don't have to be very smart to know where to drop the worm," Colonel Ebbert said. "It's criminal within the confines of the United States that within one hour of the hurricane they weren't force-feeding us. It's like FEMA has never been to a hurricane." Federal officials took pains to defend their efforts, maintaining that supplies were pouring into the area even before the hurricane struck, that thousands of National Guard members had arrived to help secure the city and that thousands more would join them in coming days. Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana said some 300 National Guard members from Arkansas were flying into New Orleans with the express task of reclaiming the city. "They have M-16's and they are locked and loaded," she said. Speaking at a news conference in Washington, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, said that the Superdome had "crowd control issues" but that it was secure. He referred to what he called "isolated incidents of criminality" in the city. Mr. Chertoff said Hurricane Katrina had presented a "double challenge" because it was really two disasters in one: the storm and then the flooding. "For those who wonder why it is that it is difficult to get these supplies and these medical teams into place, the answer is they are battling an ongoing dynamic problem with the water," he said. On Thursday, the Army Corps of Engineers was battling the water problem by finishing a metal wall across the mouth of the 17th Street Canal, the source of most of the flooding. Once finished, the wall was expected to staunch the flow from Lake Pontchartrain into the canal, which would allow engineers to repair a breach in the levee and to start pumping water from the city. The federal government's other priority was to evacuate New Orleans, Mr. Chertoff said. To that end, some 200 buses had left the Superdome for the Astrodome in Houston by midday, he said, adding that another 200 buses were expected to start loading passengers later Thursday and that Louisiana was providing an additional 500 school buses. On the receiving end in Houston, though, the Astrodome looked at times like a squatters' camp in a war-torn country. The refugees from Louisiana, many dirty and hungry, wandered about aimlessly, checking bulletin boards for information about their relatives, queuing up for supplies and pay phones, mobbing Red Cross volunteers to obtain free T-shirts. Many found some conditions similar to those that they left behind at the Superdome, like clogged toilets and foul restrooms. But in Houston, there were hot showers, crates of Bibles and stacks of pizzas, while in New Orleans, many refugees scrounged for diapers, water and basic survival. The Senate convened a special session at 10 p.m. Thursday to pass the an emergency supplemental spending bill providing $10.5 billion for relief efforts. Senator Thad Cochran, the Mississippi Republican who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he had just returned from his home state. "The whole coastal area of the state has been destroyed, virtually destroyed," he said. "It was quiet. It was eerie. It was horrible to behold." House leaders intended to hold a special session Friday to approve the measure. Even as administration officials pledged vast resources to the region, however, Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, told a local newspaper, The Daily Herald, that he was skeptical about using billions in federal money to rebuild New Orleans, given its vulnerability. "It doesn't make sense to me," Mr. Hastert said. "And it's a question that certainly we should ask." He later sought to clarify his comments, saying in a statement: "I am not advocating that the city be abandoned or relocated. My comments about rebuilding the city were intended to reflect my sincere concern with how the city is rebuilt to ensure the future protection of its citizens." Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, had stayed in his Garden District home through the storm and its immediate aftermath. But on Thursday his generator was running out of fuel, and he was tiring. "People have only so much staying power with no infrastructure," Dr. Penland said. "I am boarding up my house today and will hopefully be in Baton Rouge or the north shore tonight." Joseph B. Treaster reported from New Orleans, and Deborah Sontag from New York. Jeremy Alford contributed reporting from Baton Rouge, La.; Felicity Barringer from Metairie, La.; Christine Hauser from New York; and Simon Romero from Houston. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/02/n...=1125720000&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print
I assume he wasn't a guest on the Today Show. Were they just providing a clip of a recent press conference? Please provide a link if you can.
It has been played on BBC world a bunch today (or yesterday, depending on your time zone). It was some interview I think. Anyway, again, it's the same as in Iraq - the President is either monumentally uninformed (and thus incompetent) or outright lying - either way, he still apparently is determined not to be accountable for anything, ever, in history.
Unfreaking amazing! I googled it and found some blog that had a transcript of the entire intervew with Dianne Sawyer where he said that. What an a$$.
True in terms of the big scope of things ClutchBBS D & D doesn't mean squat. I'm speaking more to an overall attitude that I'm seeing out of this disaster among society in general to, phrase it bluntly, b**** b**** b****. I understand there's a lot that should've been done before but my fear is that the inclination to b**** is eroding the effort to focus on getting aid out and the future recovery. I think in its most extreme form it is reflected in the people shooting at helicopters and looting because they don't feel enough is being done. As you know in general I'm all for political debate and do a fair share of b****ing myself but right now I think US society should be focussed on the present problem. I'm not saying to suppress free speech or even self-censor just consider the problem at hand.
Yeah, me being upset about what caused this certainly prevented me from cuttign a check to Red Cross last night. Look, there are people who are working on the problem and I am pretty fooking certain that they're not all standing around just b****ing about the Bush administration instead of loading crates of water and food onto helicopters. Your assertion is not only baseless, it just doesn't make any sense when you apply logic to it. And I don't understand how us being concerned with the reaction of the government hurts the effort. If anything it HELPS IT. Why you ask? Because the more questiosn we ask, the more demands we make, and the more heat we put on Bush and company to get somethign done the more likely they are going to be forced to do something. If someone doesn't b****, then Condolezza Rice will continue to play tennis and shop for shoes instead of trying to organize aid from other countries e.g. Venezuela. The duty of the body of citizens in a democracy is to always question and criticize, and there's certainly nothing wrong with what the people on this board and on tv and around the nation are doing now. If you disagree with me, well, I don't know what more I can say...
