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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: geode00 who wrote (170358)	9/1/2005 2:52:49 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Scott McClellan just finished meeting with the press, and he got a lot of questions about the Bush administration's decision to cut funding for the New Orleans district of the Army Corps of Engineers and the president's slow trek back to Washington after disaster struck. "This is not a time for politics," McClellan said. "This is a time for the nation to come together and help those in the Gulf Coast region. That's where our focus is." There's no question about where the president's focus is right now, of course. The question is, where was Bush's focus over the last four years, when his administration and the Republican-controlled Congress imposed draconian cuts on the agency responsible for flood control in New Orleans -- and where was Bush's focus earlier this week, when he was campaigning for his war in California as people died in New Orleans. McClellan didn't have many answers. He never gave a direct response to a question about Bush's slow return to Washington. And in answering another question, he made an unhelpful concession. McClellan said that "everyone recognized on Tuesday ... if not sooner" that Katrina would be one of the worst natural disasters in America's history. On Tuesday, Bush gave a speech on Iraq near San Diego, monkeyed around backstage with a guitar, then returned to Crawford for one last night before returning to Washington Wednesday. McClellan conceded that he could "understand" why people in New Orleans are "frustrated" with the pace of assistance. "For those on the ground who are still in need of assistance, they will tell you that it hasn't," McCellan said. "They needed that help yesterday. But we are doing everything in our power to get assistance to those who needed it." In defending the administration's efforts, McClellan took the same laundry list approach that his boss used yesterday: an accounting of meals shipped and ice provided. The president signed a waiver today that will allow the federal government to pick up more of the cost of relief and recovery efforts, McClellan said, and he's meeting with Donald Rumsfeld and calling a Coast Guard swimmer working in New Orleans in the hopes of boosting "morale." But when reporters peppered McClellan with questions about what the president might have done before the hurricane struck, McClellan insisted that the administration has always made flood control a priority, and he lashed out against "people seeking partisan gain in Washington" in the wake of a national disaster. ----- When the levee breaks At a press conference a few months after 9/11, Condoleezza Rice said, "I don't think anybody could have predicted" that someone would try to use "a hijacked airplane as a missile." It turns out that she was wrong. Someone could have predicted it, and someone did: Long before 9/11, the Federal Aviation Administration had considered the possibility that terrorists would hijack a plane and use it as a weapon, and the agency specifically warned airports of the possibility in 2001. Which brings us, somehow, to George W. Bush's appearance this morning on "Good Morning America." There, the president said: "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded." We're not sure which "anybody" the president has in mind -- and we suppose maybe the president was being extraordinarily careful to distinguish between a "breach" of the levees as opposed to a more general overrunning of them -- but perhaps the White House might want to consult a few clips we found in about five minutes worth of Googling today: The Associated Press, Aug. 31, 2005: "Even as Katrina approached, experts like Louisiana State University's Ivor van Heerden warned of a pending 'incredible environmental disaster.' He predicted the levees would be overwhelmed and much of the city would be turned into a giant, stagnant pool contaminated with debris, sewage and other hazardous materials." The Houston Chronicle, Aug, 31, 2005: "Local officials said that had Washington heeded their warnings about the dire need for hurricane protection -- including fortifying homes, building up levees and repairing barrier islands -- the damage might not have been nearly as bad as it turned out to be." The Associated Press, Aug. 29, 2005: "Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm." www.salon.com