[Peace-discuss] Preventive war and natural disaster, both misnamed

Wed Aug 31 15:35:13 CDT 2005

Q.  What's the difference between Baghdad and New Orleans?

A.  The Louisiana National Guard is protecting Baghdad.

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IRAQ WAR MAY HAVE LOST US NEW ORLEANS

WILL BUNCH, EDITOR & PUBLISHER - New Orleans had long known it was
highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a
hurricane. In
fact, the federal government has been working with state and local
officials in the region since the late 1960s on major
hurricane and
flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm
in May
1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast
Louisiana
Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with
carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and
building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But
at least
$250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane
activity
in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees
surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA
dropped to a
trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending
pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security --
coming
at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the
strain.
At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005
specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of
hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night
at The
Times-Picayune web site, 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."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared,
President
Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps
said was
needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004,
article,
in New Orleans CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for
Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It
appears that
the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle
homeland
security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price
we pay.
Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and
we are
doing everything we can to make the case that this is a
security issue
for us.". . .

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_c

ontent_id=1001051313

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THE DISASTER THEY KNEW WAS COMING

PROGRESS REPORT - In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency
ranked a major hurricane strike on New Orleans as "among the three
likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country,"
directly
behind a terrorist strike on New York City. . . While it happened,
President Bush decided to ... continue his vacation, stopping
by the
Pueblo El Mirage RV and Golf Resort in El Mirage, California,
to hawk
his Medicare drug benefit plan. On Sunday, President Bush said, "I
want to thank all the folks at the federal level and the state
level
and the local level who have taken this storm seriously."

Two months ago, President Bush took an ax to budget funds that
would
have helped New Orleans prepare for such a disaster. The New
Orleans
branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers suffered a "record
$71.2
million" reduction in federal funding, a 44.2 percent
reduction from
its 2001 levels. Reports at the time said that thanks to the cuts,
"major hurricane and flood protection projects will not be
awarded to
local engineering firms. . . .  Also, a study to determine ways to
protect the region from a Category 5 hurricane has been
shelved for
now." (Too bad Louisiana isn't a swing state. In the aftermath of
Hurricane Frances -- and the run-up to the 2004 election --
the Bush
administration awarded $31 million in disaster relief to Florida
residents who didn't even experience hurricane damage.)

The Gulf Coast wetlands form a "natural buffer that helps
protect New
Orleans from storms," slowing hurricanes down as they approach
from
sea. When he came into office, President Bush pledged to
uphold the
"no net loss" wetland policy his father initiated. He didn't
keep his
word. Bush rolled back tough wetland policies set by the Clinton
administration, ordering federal agencies "to stop protecting
as many
as 20 million acres of wetlands and an untold number of waterways
nationwide." Last year, four environmental groups issued a joint
report showing that administration policies had allowed
"developers to
drain thousands of acres of wetlands." The result? New Orleans
may be
in even greater danger: "Studies show that if the wetlands keep
vanishing over the next few decades, then you won't need a
giant storm
to devastate New Orleans -- a much weaker, more common kind of
hurricane could destroy the city too."

Forward-thinking federal plans with titles like "Issues and
Options in
Flood Hazards Management," "Floods: A National Policy
Concern," and "A
Framework for Flood Hazards Management" would be particularly
valuable
in a time of increasingly intense hurricanes. Unfortunately, the
agency that used to produce them -- the Office of Technology
Assessment  -- was gutted by Gingrich conservatives several
years ago.
As Chris Mooney (who presciently warned of the need to bulk up
hurricane defenses in New Orleans last May) noted, "If we ever
return
to science-based policymaking based on professionalism and
expertise,
rather than ideology, an office like OTA would be very useful in
studying how best to save a city like New Orleans -- and how
Congress
might consider appropriating money to achieve this end."

National Guard and Reserve soldiers are typically on the front
lines
responding to disasters like Katrina -- that is, if they're not
fighting in Iraq. Roughly 35 percent of Louisiana's National
Guard is
currently deployed in Iraq, where guardsmen and women make up
about
four of every 10 soldiers. Additionally, "Dozens of high water
vehicles, humvees, refuelers and generators" used by the Louisiana
Guard are also tied up abroad. "The National Guard needs that
equipment back home to support the homeland security mission,"
Louisiana National Guard Lt. Colonel Pete Schneider told reporters
earlier this month. "Recruitment is down dramatically, mostly
because
prospective recruits are worried about deployments to Iraq,
Afghanistan or another country," the AP reported recently. "I
used to
be able to get about eight people a month," said National
Guard 1st
Sgt. Derick Young, a New Orleans recruiter. "Now, I'm lucky if
I can get one."

http://www.issues2000.org/default.htm

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TRIAGE

NEW ORLEANS TIMES-PICAYUNE - As Jerry Rayes piloted his boat
down St.
Claude Avenue, just past the Industrial Canal, the eerie
screams that
could barely be heard from the roadway grew louder as, one by one,
faces of desperate families appeared on rooftops, on balconies
and in
windows, some of them waving white flags. . .  A woman screamed as
Rayes boated by: "Hey! Damn! Hey!" "You can't save everybody," he
said, as he passed street signs barely visible above the water
along
with scores of felled trees and downed power lines. "That's all we
heard for hours this morning."

As he motored toward St. Claude Avenue, which looked like a bayou
rather than a thoroughfare, his boat passed Fats Domino's
pink-and-yellow-trimmed house on Caffin Avenue. About a half a
dozen
men screamed from the balcony, flailing their hands for help. He
passed them by.

"What am I going to do? I got to go to the parish," he said.
"There's
way too many people out there and too few boats."

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/t-p/katrina.ssf?/hurricane/katrina/stori

es/083005_a1_wipecomm.html