Please media blast them everywhere, along with this one, from Editor & Publisher. In addition, send the Mercury News story (below) on how Bush is slashing FEMA funding. No community is safe as long as he's in the White House.
DID NEW ORLEANS CATASTROPHE HAVE TO HAPPEN? `TIMES-PICAYUNE HAD REPEATEDLY RAISED FEDERAL SPENDING ISSUES
EDITOR & PUBLISHER (8/30/05) – ….At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
…. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."… the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.”
… One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer: a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.
The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana Congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House....In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."
Full story:
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313 POLITICAL WINDS SHATTER FEDERAL DISASTER AGENCY
FEMA, ABSORBED BY HOMELAND SECURITY, LOSES RESPONSIBILITY
San Jose Mercury New (8/31/05) -- In the days to come, as the nation and the people along the Gulf Coast work to cope with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we will be reminded anew how important it is to have a federal agency capable of dealing with natural catastrophes of this sort. This is an immense human tragedy, one that will work hardship on millions of people. It is beyond the capabilities of state and local government to deal with. It requires a national response.
Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, at this moment, the country's premier agency for dealing with such events -- FEMA -- is being, in effect, systematically downgraded and all but dismantled by the Department of Homeland Security.
Apparently homeland security now consists almost entirely of protection against terrorist acts. How else to explain why the Federal Emergency Management Agency will no longer be responsible for disaster preparedness? Given our country's long record of natural disasters, how much sense does this make? What follows is an obituary for what was once considered the pre-eminent example of a federal agency doing good for the American public in times of trouble, such as the present…
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/12521521.htm kicked
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