General Interest > Let's talk about the weather...

BREAKING NEWS: Bush Takes Responsibility

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Deborah:
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/ne ... 629945.htm
 
Posted on Tue, Sep. 13, 2005

Bush says he may need more power in disasters  :scared:
 
He wants Congress to look into whether presidential authority should be expanded in times of catastrophes like Katrina
By STEWART M. POWELL
Hearst Newspapers

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Monday urged Congress to examine whether the White House needs stronger powers to deal with catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina.

Bush's backing for the congressional inquiry raised the possibility that lawmakers might expand
presidential authority to:

. Order mandatory civilian evacuations
. Dispatch U.S.-based armed forces for emergency
search-and-rescue operations
. Grant wider leeway for active-duty U.S. military
personnel to carry out law enforcement operations.

"It's really important that as we take a step back
and learn lessons - that we are in a position to
adequately answer the question: 'Are we prepared for major catastrophes?"' Bush said during a tour of hurricane damage in New Orleans.
>
He said if there was a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction, such as germ-warfare agents, "we've got to make sure we understand the lessons learned to be able to deal with catastrophe."
>
Asked whether the federal government needed broader authority to "come in earlier or even in advance of a storm that (is) threatening?" Bush replied: "I think that's one of the interesting issues that Congress needs to take a look at."
>
Bush's comments came as outside experts urged a
variety of changes they said could improve the
federal government's ability to respond to natural
disasters or terrorist attacks.
>
Richard A. Falkenrath, a former homeland security
adviser at the White House during Bush's first term, said officials "need to look very, very closely" at expanding presidential authority to override "a delayed and ineffective evacuation order at the state and local level" that he said had occurred before the hurricane.
>
"It's entirely possible we would need such authority in a biological weapons attack and the destruction of a chlorine tanker and nuclear weapons attack, where local and state capabilities would be instantaneously overwhelmed, and so it would be good to get this one sorted out," said Falkenrath, now a scholar at the Brookings Institution.
>
Michael O'Hanlon, a national security scholar at
Brookings, said the White House ought to create an
emergency response team within the armed forces that could be rushed to disasters "where every hour counts."
>
O'Hanlon said it had taken too long to get Navy and Air Force helicopters into the New Orleans area to assist early search-and-rescue operations by police and the U.S. Coast Guard.
>

Antigen:
We watched ABC's wall-to-wall coverage last night. Part of that, of course, was Büsh's speech. You're right. His entire take seems to boil down to "just give us more power, since we're so damned good at handling things like this."

But the next segment, can't find the name right now, carried a much more sensible message; "You are your own first responder, be prepared w/ water, food and a plan." That's what the authorities in Florida used to instruct us to do. Now they only tell us to do whatever FEMA tells you, whether it makes sense or not. And, more often than not, it doesn't make any sense at all.

One does not have to appeal to God to set the initial conditions for the creation of the universe, but if one does He would have to act through the laws of physics.
--Stephen Hawking, English scientist
--- End quote ---

Anonymous:
I find it so interesting that people are not more up in arms and just saying do your fxxking jobs.

Instead it is typical US blame game and, of course, let's change things, instead of let's do the things
we where supposed to do.

Sadly, the citizens will not stand up and Bush will
come out smelling like a rose.

Republicans know population control, Democrats know how to run the country, but they don't know how to get in charge.

Sad, but true!

Antigen:
Here's Mayor Ray Nagin's perspective as originally broadcast (unbleeped) from on the ground.

http://fornits.com/sounds/nagin.mp3

I think if you hear the whole 10 min or so broadcast, you'll agree that the media machine is unfairly spinning what the man said.
The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.
--Thomas Paine, American revolutionary
--- End quote ---

Deborah:
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs. ... 60369/1260
E-mail suggests government seeking to blame groups
By Jerry Mitchell
jmitchell@clarionledger.com

E-mail sent to various U.S. Attorney's offices:

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."

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