Jello wrote:
The President is clearly resposible for national security. Is he resposible for New Orleans's infrastructure?

In this area, yes. The levee system was a joint project between the city and Army Corps of Engineers, but much more importantly, this whole thing is a FEMA clusterfuck. They not only knew this was coming, in fact EVERYONE knew this was coming, FEMA actually "wargamed" this exact scenario in 2001 and knew what the results would be. They KNEW a cat 4 or 5 would break the levees and that over 100,000 people would not leave under an evacuation order, a few because they were not willing, the vast majority of that number, unable. (see http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/08/31/disaster_preparation/index_np.html)

On top of that, the energy capabilities of the United States IS a national security issue, and the weaknesses in this area, specifically New Orleans, were pointed out as long ago as 1989 by no less an individual than G. Gordon "Mr. Piano Wire" Liddy in Omni magazine (full text available at http://www.liddyshow.us/mustread11.php).

While I will grant that there is no way for the hurricane to be stopped, there is no excuse for FEMA to not have been ramped up and standing by to act. There is no excuse for it to have taken five days from after the hurricane hit to have gotten the National Guard in place and acting. There is no excuse for the situation in the Superdome to STILL BE HAPPENING! They've stopped AGAIN because they don't know what has happened to the buses.

They knew what the situation was going to be ahead of time and from reports from people like Slidell mayor Ben Morris, they are ACTIVELY causing the relief to be slower in coming, blocking the generators and diesel fuel he'd managed to get on his own, diverting the buses arranged by the families of the tourists trapped at the New Orleans Ritz-Carlton after the airport closed early on Sunday trapping them there, and blocking families from driving in to pick up people stuck at the convention center, Superdome and I10 overpass staging area.

They ignored everything that they were being told for 4 years about what would happen and their actions have not just been slow, they have actively hindered the efforts of others.

Mike Brown, the current head of FEMA, at a bare minimum should lose his job, and even might because his comments about this being the fault of the people trapped have put such a bad PR spin on this, but as is painfully obvious, W is once again putting out the line of, "no one saw this coming," and will probably let him off. What has happened here is EXACTLY what his agency said would happen FOUR YEARS AGO and we are staring at what they decided to do with the interving four years.

I am not sure I want to go as far as Jesse Jackson did yesterday and say that this is deliberate, I would prefer to ascribe stupidity over malice to what has happened, but this goes beyond simple stupidity into willful ignorance and neglect. The price tag of billions of dollars for not having done the work recommended by the ACoE I can understand, that falls into the normal world of pork. When I cannot accept is that every day more people are dying because of a situation that was known for all of this time, and the actions taken have not only not been for better preparedness, but actively harmful.

RE: Models predicted New Orleans disaster, experts say