Bush, AIDS, 911 and Katrina

In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of
the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration
cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44% to pay for the Iraq war.

Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left
millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds
maybe thousands 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 the hurricane may
not entirely be the result of an act of nature.

A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New
Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush
administration ordered that the research not be undertaken.

After a flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast
Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers
strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations.

In early 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report
stating that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most
likely disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York
City.

But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project
essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war.

In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the New
Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back
the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80%

Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in
funding of 44% since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps
to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for
fixing New Orleans' levees, but it was too late.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a
series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now
underwater, reported online:

"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
almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm
surge.

In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands surrounding
New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and
the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot.

Bush had promised "no net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his
father's administration and bolstered by President Clinton.

But he reversed his approach in 2003, unleashing the developers. The
Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency then
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 joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands
protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a
Category 4 or 5, 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 chairman 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,"
President Bush declared in June 2001.

But in 2002, when the Environmental Protection Agency 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 the agency's 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 demanded
removal of the line and all similar conclusions.

At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any
common action on global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued
to accumulate impressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans,
which has produced more severe hurricanes.

In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20
Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity
in Policy-making": "Successful application of science has played a large
part in the policies that have made the United States of America 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 completely ignored this statement.

In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of
science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated.

The Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of
the morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific
evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory
board.

The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bush
administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda
--- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of
"abstinence."

When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in the Justice
Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study that
African-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling
in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced
out of his job.

When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversight analyst
objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraq to
Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO),
she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings.

At the National Park Service, a former Cheney aide, a political
appointee lacking professional background, drew up a plan to overturn
past environmental practices and prohibit any mention of evolution while
allowing sale of religious materials through the Park Service.

On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in
Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin
D. Roosevelt ... Just another date that will live in Infamy!

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT- A bit of perspective on Katrina
    ... >> administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to ... >> Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has ... >> Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush ... >> administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. ...
    (alt.smokers.pipes)
  • Re: OT- A bit of perspective on Katrina
    ... > administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to ... > Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has ... > Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush ... > administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. ...
    (alt.smokers.pipes)
  • Re: "Katrina" aftermath
    ... After the Hurricane Katrina, ... > the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration ... > cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq ... > administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. ...
    (soc.culture.laos)
  • Re: "No One Can Say they Didnt See it Coming"
    ... > striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the ... > Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush ... > administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. ... > issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating, ...
    (rec.music.country.western)
  • Let The Finger Pointing Begin
    ... FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the ... three most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut New ... Orleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war. ... Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush ...
    (soc.senior.issues)
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