http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-golden5sep05,1,6942190.column?coll=la-headlines-business
Bush's Hurricane Response a Disaster
Michael Hiltzik
LA Times
September 5, 2005
Nearly five years ago, the Bush administration rode into office bearing its
cynicism about government high, like a banner.
It promoted a massive tax cut as a way of "starving the beast" of federal
government. President Bush traveled the country telling us that we were
overdependent on the government for help with healthcare and retirement. To
those wondering what resources might see them into old age, he advised: "a
conservative mix of stocks and bonds."
New Orleans is, or should be, the graveyard of the conservative ideology
that government is useless. An American city is reduced to Third World
desperation as people who own nothing scrounge for necessities in a sea of
waste and federal officials offer lame excuses about how their disaster
plans would have worked fine had there not been, you know, a disaster. The
president, at the head of a global power that can't get its own troops or
supplies off their bases to reach the needful, whines, "The private sector
needs to do its part."
This deplorable performance has deep roots. Joe M. Allbaugh, a Bush
campaign hack without any crisis management experience who was named
director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, disparaged federal
disaster assistance as "an oversized entitlement program" before Congress
in 2001. The public's expectations of government in a disaster situation,
he said, "may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level." He
advised stricken communities to rely for help on "faith-based organizations
like the Salvation Army and the Mennonite Disaster Service."
If Allbaugh were not an amateur, he would have known that communities,
"faith-based organizations" and the private sector become overwhelmed by
disasters more modest than this one. In a crisis the federal government
should be the first responder, not the last, to take charge, not wait to be
asked.
Cynicism on such a scale is self-perpetuating. Determined to portray
government as little but an intrusion into people's lives, this gang made
it irrelevant to hundreds of thousands of victims of Hurricane Katrina
thus giving them, and us, good reason to be cynical after all.
The federal officials assigned to New Orleans have displayed an appalling
combination of arrogance and ignorance. Thursday evening on NPR, I heard
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who oversees FEMA, dismiss
reports of thousands of refugees trapped at the New Orleans convention
center for days without sustenance. He called the reports, in so many
words, "rumors and anecdotes."
Informed that an NPR reporter had been on the scene, he sniffed, "I can't
argue with you about what your reporter tells you." Later, his staff called
back to say that he had "received a report confirming the situation" and
that he was now "working tirelessly" to get food to the location.
At a news conference that day, FEMA Director Michael Brown, Allbaugh's
successor and college chum, attributed the death toll in New Orleans "to
people who did not heed evacuation warnings." Insensitive to the truth that
many of the stranded had no way of responding to the warnings no money,
no transport out of the city and nowhere to go he blamed them for having
failed to prepare any better than, well, the federal government.
He also described security in the city, where snipers were firing on rescue
boats and a mob beat back police trying to impose order at the convention
center, as "pretty darn good." The image of lawlessness, he said, was
fomented by those willing to "stick a camera" in front of "bad people."
The Bush administration is not alone in having ignored pleas to improve the
hurricane and flood defenses of New Orleans. But it bears sole
responsibility for a crisis response that has been fairly labeled a
national disgrace. FEMA drafted an action plan for a New Orleans flood:
pre-position food, supplies and hospital ships for immediate deployment in
the aftermath. Brown and Chertoff failed to implement it adequately,
pleading that no one could have anticipated a disaster that had in fact
been anticipated by engineers, geographers and political leaders for
decades. As I write, the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort remains moored in
Baltimore, not to arrive off New Orleans until the end of this week.
President Bush will surely feel the consequences of his dereliction. Every
policy of his administration will be viewed through the prism of the
debacle of New Orleans. The pursuit of a personal vendetta against Saddam
Hussein, supported by manipulated intelligence, has sucked billions out of
the treasury and removed more than 30% of Louisiana and Mississippi
National Guard members from their homes, so they must watch the disaster
unfold from half a world away instead of assisting their own communities.
Tax cuts for the wealthy have been financed by budget cuts
for disaster preparedness and other crucial programs. Four years of
anti-terrorism planning have failed to produce a competent system for
mitigating a metropolitan cataclysm one that, on the ground, is
indistinguishable from the effects of the terrorist attack we've supposedly
been girding for since 9/11.
Then there's Bush's sustained assault on social insurance programs such as
Social Security, safety nets that are to be replaced by the slogan "You're
on your own."
New Orleans is not a local calamity; it belongs to us all, not least
because it signals what to expect from this administration. If a major
earthquake strikes Los Angeles or San Francisco, will President Bush wait
to respond until he can conclude his vacation, as he did last week? Will
his appointees express surprise at an eventuality that "no one could have
predicted"?
Probably. George W. Bush is known for never admitting his mistakes.
Consequently, he never learns from his mistakes. The chances are dismal
that he will learn from this one. We're on our own.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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