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To: steve harris who wrote (251568)	9/16/2005 12:45:35 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574439

September 16, 2005 E-mail suggests government seeking to blame groups By Jerry Mitchell jmitchell@clarionledger.com SUBJECT: Have you had any cases involving the levees in New Orleans? QUESTION: Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps' work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation. District: __________ Contact: _________ Telephone: ________ Federal officials appear to be seeking proof to blame the flood of New Orleans on environmental groups, documents show. The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation." Cynthia Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said Thursday she couldn't comment "because it's an internal e-mail." Shown a copy of the e-mail, David Bookbinder, senior attorney for Sierra Club, remarked, "Why are they (Bush administration officials) trying to smear us like this?" The Sierra Club and other environmental groups had nothing to do with the flooding that resulted from Hurricane Katrina that killed hundreds, he said. "It's unfortunate that the Bush administration is trying to shift the blame to environmental groups. It doesn't surprise me at all." Federal officials say the e-mail was prompted by a congressional inquiry but wouldn't comment further. Whoever is behind the e-mail may have spotted the Sept. 8 issue of National Review Online that chastised the Sierra Club and other environmental groups for suing to halt the corps' 1996 plan to raise and fortify 303 miles of Mississippi River levees in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. The corps settled the litigation in 1997, agreeing to hold off on some work until an environmental impact could be completed. The National Review article concluded: "Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain." The problem with that conclusion? The levees that broke causing New Orleans to flood weren't Mississippi River levees. They were levees that protected the city from Lake Pontchartrain levees on the other side of the city. When Katrina struck, the hurricane pushed tons of water from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Pontchartrain, which borders the city to the north. Corps officials say the water from the lake cleared the levees by 3 feet. It was those floodwaters, they say, that caused the levees to degrade until they ruptured, causing 80 percent of New Orleans to flood. Bookbinder said the purpose of the litigation by the Sierra Club and others in 1996 was where the corps got the dirt for the project. "We had no objections to levees," he said. "We said, 'Just don't dig film materials out of the wetlands. Get the dirt from somewhere else.' " If you listen to what some conservatives say about environmentalists, he said, "We're responsible for most of the world's ills." In 1977, the corps wanted to build a 25-mile-long barrier and gate system to protect New Orleans on the east side. Both environmental groups and fishermen opposed the project, saying it would choke off water into Lake Pontchartrain. After litigation, corps officials abandoned the idea, deciding instead to build higher levees. "They came up with a cheaper alternative," Bookbinder said. "We didn't object to raising the levees." John Hall, a spokesman for the corps in New Orleans, said the barrier the corps was proposing in the 1970s would only stand up to a weak Category 3 hurricane, not a Category 4 hurricane like Katrina. "How much that would have prevented anything, I'm not sure," he said. Since 1999, corps officials have studied the concept of building huge floodgates to prevent flooding in New Orleans from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency in 2001 listed a hurricane striking New Orleans as one of the top three catastrophic events the nation could face (the others being a terrorist attack on New York City and an earthquake in San Francisco), funding for corps projects aimed at curbing flooding in southeast Louisiana lagged. U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., has said the White House cut $400 million from corps' requests for flood control money in the area. In fiscal 2006, the corps had hoped to receive up to $10 million in funding for a six-year feasibility study on such floodgates. According to a recent estimate, the project would take 10 years to build and cost $2.5 billion. "Our understanding is the locals would like to go to that," Hall said. "If I were local, I'd want it." clarionledger.com

To: steve harris who wrote (251568)	9/16/2005 12:54:16 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1574439

Sliding into civil war Simon Tisdall Friday September 16, 2005 The Guardian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's declaration of war "against Shias in all of Iraq" has reinforced fears that the country is sliding towards all-out civil war. This week's toll included day-labourers in a Shia district of Baghdad and pre-dawn executions of Shia men in the provincial town of Taji. The Shia response has so far been relatively restrained. Shia leaders are fully aware that al-Qaida is trying to draw them into civil conflict. The main Shia parties, in government for the first time, hope a constitution to be voted on next month and a general election in December will confirm an historic shift of power in their favour. This prospect of permanent dispossession is anathema to leaders of the Sunni Arab minority, accustomed under Saddam Hussein to running the show, and may be a factor in the violence. But a distinction should be drawn between the national concerns of mainstream Sunni Arabs and al-Qaida's more grandiose, destabilising objectives, said Rime Allaf, a Middle East expert at Chatham House. "It's not just about Sunnis versus Shias. Al-Qaida often makes no distinction about who is being targeted. Some of these Baghdad neighbourhoods are mixed Sunni, Shia and others. They're all civilians," Ms Allaf said. "There is already a civil war, but it's primarily a war for power, not a war for religion. That's what it's about for al-Qaida. And power is what it's about for the US as well - power over the region." Considered from this perspective, the Iraqi conflict lies at the heart of two historic struggles that were given a modern dimension by 9/11. All-out sectarian warfare in Iraq, if not avoided, could inflame passions in Shia Iran and among Sunnis and Shias in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, possibly leading to the sort of regime-changing, region-wide upheavals sought by al-Qaida. At the same time, the US, wrestling with contradictory impulses to keep control in Iraq and disengage, may be tempted to lash out. Heavy-handed action against Syria and Iran could also spark a broader Middle East conflict. That is one reason why a compromise on Iraq's constitution that satisfies moderate Sunnis is vital before the October 15 vote, said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East director of the International Crisis Group. "If no compromise is reached ... the country will slowly dissolve into civil war and disintegrate," he predicted. "Unfortunately, this scenario now seems likely." guardian.co.uk