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 Bush 'to blame?' |
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| Location: South Africa » Johannesburg |
Interesting and thought provoking article I came across today...
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Bush 'to blame'
Sidney Blumenthal
08 September 2005 08:20
Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, the storm has left
millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter, and hundreds
reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated city of New
Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damage wrought
by Hurricane Katrina may not entirely be the result of an act of nature.
A year ago the United States army corps of engineers proposed to study
how New Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but
the George W Bush administration ordered that the research not be
undertaken. After a flood killed six people in 1995, the Congress
created the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project. Operated
by the corps of engineers, levees and pumping stations were
strengthened and renovated.
In 2001, when Bush became president, the Federal Emergency Management
Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans
was one of the three most likely potential disasters — after a
terrorist attack on New York City.
But by 2003 the federal funding essentially dried up as it was drained
into the Iraq war. By last year the Bush administration cut the corps
of engineers’ request for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain
by more than 80%.
By the beginning of this year, the administration’s additional cuts,
reduced by 44% since 2001, forced the corps to impose a hiring freeze.
The Senate debated adding funds for fixing levees, but it was too late.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which, before the hurricane, published
a series on the federal funding problem, has 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.”
The Bush administration’s policy of turning over wetlands to developers
has almost certainly contributed to the heightened level of the storm
surge. In 1990 a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands
around New Orleans. Every 3km of wetland between the Crescent City and
the Gulf reduces a surge by 15cm. Bush promised a “no net loss’’
wetland policy, which had been launched by his father’s administration
and bolstered by Bill Clinton. But Bush reversed the approach in 2003,
unleashing the developers.
The army corps of engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency
announced they could no longer protect wetlands unless they were
somehow related to interstate commerce.
In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups
conducted a study that concluded last year that without wetlands
protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary — much less a
category four or five — hurricane. “There’s no way to describe how
mindless a policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection,” said
one of the report’s authors.
The chairperson of the White House’s council on environmental quality
dismissed the study as “highly questionable’’, and boasted: “Everybody
loves what we’re doing.’’
“My administration’s climate change policy will be science-based,” Bush
declared. But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
submitted a study on global warming to the United Nations, reflecting
its expert research, Bush derided it as “a report put out by a
bureaucracy’’, and excised the climate change assessment from its
annual report.
The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive Report on
the Environment, stating: “Climate change has global consequences for
human health and the environment,” the White House simply removed the
line and all such conclusions.
At the G8 meeting in Gleneagles this year, Bush stymied any common
action on global warming. But scientists have continued to accumulate
impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, producing more
severe hurricanes.
In February 60 scientists warned in a statement, Restoring Scientific
Integrity in Policymaking: “Successful application of science has
played a large part in the policies that have made the US the world’s
most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and
healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by
presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and
implementing policies. The administration of George W Bush has,
however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific
knowledge for partisan political ends must cease ...’’ Bush ignored the
statement.
In the two weeks preceding the storm, the trumping of science by
ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The Federal
Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was postponing sale of the
morning-after pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its
safety and approval by the FDA’s scientific advisory board.
The UN special envoy for HIV/Aids in Africa accused the Bush
administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda as a
result of pushing its evangelical Christian agenda of “abstinence’’.
The chief of the board of justice statistics in the Justice Department
was ordered by the White House to delete its study showing that
African-Americans and minorities are subject to racial profiling in
police traffic stops. He refused to concede and was forced to quit.
When the army’s chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a
$7-billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton, she
was demoted despite her superior professional ratings.
On the day the levee burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech
comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D
Roosevelt: “And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability
to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan.” Bush had boarded his
very own Streetcar Named Desire. — © Guardian Newspapers 2005
Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is author of The Clinton Wars
Storm water for sale on eBay
The chance to make a quick buck from Hurricane Katrina has not escaped
some, writes David Teather, with items on eBay including a “rain-soaked
newspaper’’ delivered on the day the storm hit the American south, jars
of rainwater and a message in a bottle that supposedly led to the
rescue of several families.
Among other items on sale on eBay on Wednesday was a scribbling
(pictured left) that a Texan “artist’’ claims he drew after waking from
a dream 10 days before the storm, which uncannily resembles satellite
pictures of Katrina.
One man, claiming to be a survivor of the catastrophe, is offering the
rights to his story, starting at $12 500. Various T-shirts are on
offer. One reads: “I went to New Orleans and all I looted was this
lousy T-shirt.” Another says: “Disaster Relief: Get Rid of Bush.”
The appearance of items on eBay aimed at ghoulish souvenir hunters has
become common after disasters. Soon after 9/11, pieces of the World
Trade Centre were being offered for sale. People also attempted to sell
debris from the space shuttle Columbia.
The message in a bottle allegedly read “Help ... Help ... Mother-2
Children no water ... no food’’ and then gave an address. The seller
claims to have been given the item at a reunion centre in Dallas. — ©
Guardian Newspapers 2005
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