Bush's Second Gulf Disaster
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050908/bushs_second_gulf_disaster.php
Terry Lynn Karl
<http://www.tompaine.com/search/index.cgi?search=Terry%20Lynn%20Karl&IncludeBlogs=1&SearchFields=keywords&Template=author>
September 08, 2005
/Terry Lynn Karl <http://cddrl.stanford.edu/people/terrylkarl/> is
professor of political science at Stanford University./
*President Bush has asked* that Americans not “play politics” at this
moment of terrible national disaster. But asking hard questions of our
nation’s leaders is exactly what democracy demands when the government’s
response to Hurricane Katrina is widely viewed as “a national disgrace.”
Katrina came with at least two days’ warning, but authorities waited to
issue an evacuation order. There was no transportation for people
without cars or money; facilities to house and care for refugees were
insufficient; there were no forces in place to deliver desperately
needed supplies or to secure order; and there was nowhere near the
number of boats, helicopters and other craft necessary to rescue the
stranded.
Hampered by a National Guard with 40 percent of its people in Iraq, the
pace of getting military personnel to the hardest hit areas was
inordinately slow. For four days, there was simply no clear center of
command and control. As a result, countless people suffered and died.
Much of this failure is the result of the Bush administration’s
policies, which effectively eroded the capacities of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the government agency primarily
responsible for dealing with disasters. Obsessed with the war on terror
as well as an ideology of privatizing the functions of government, the
administration systematically sapped FEMA’s long-term ability to prevent
disaster or at least cushion the blows when prevention is not possible.
FEMA was downsized and downgraded from a cabinet position, then placed
under the Department of Homeland Security. Its mission of disaster
planning and preparation was dropped entirely, and its focus was altered
to fight terrorists. Its leadership had no experience in disaster
management. The past director was one of Bush’s Texas political cronies,
and the current director’s qualifications include a stint as
commissioner for judges and stewards with the International Arabian
Horse Association, where he was asked to resign for “supervision failures.”
Since 2001, billions of dollars were shifted from disaster relief to
homeland security and the war in Iraq. Key disaster mitigation programs
were slashed, and federal funding for post-disaster relief was cut in
half. The Army Corps of Engineers’ budget for levee construction in New
Orleans was gutted, including funds specifically aimed at the Southeast
Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project. Preventive measures to protect
people and property were not carried out despite FEMA’s own conclusion
in 2001 that a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was one of the three
“likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country.”
Believing FEMA to be an “oversized entitlement program” and that the
“business of government is not to provide services,” Bush’s first FEMA
director instituted new outsourcing requirements as part of a major
privatization effort. This provoked a brain drain as experienced FEMA
personnel moved into the private sector.
Privatization also left poorer states and poorer communities especially
vulnerable. As money dried up and federal programs were contracted out
to private firms at higher rates, only the richest and politically most
important states and communities could compete successfully for the
scarce federal grants necessary to pay for services.
For example, Florida (with 16 more electoral votes than Louisiana and
where the president’s brother governs) received its requested funding to
protect its wetlands. By contrast, a more needy Louisiana (with its
staggering 24 percent poverty rate) was denied its request for
flood-mitigation funds in 2004. With Louisiana’s ability to protect
itself weakened and the center of disaster relief badly undermined, an
inadequate government response and unnecessary destruction were almost
inevitable—with the poor paying the price.
But the failure of this administration runs deeper than its chronic and
intentional diversion of resources away from the types of policies that
keep people safe from disaster. Despite scientific evidence
demonstrating that the increased intensity and frequency of hurricanes
is related to climate change, the Bush administration systematically
rejects participation in international climate-protection regimes.
Rather than continue a ban on wetlands development instituted by
previous administrations, the Bush administration overturned it. Because
development-provoked erosion has brought the Gulf of Mexico 20 miles
closer to land than it was in 1965, hurricanes are able to retain more
strength, and their winds and waves pack more speed and destructive power.
Similarly, loss of wetlands threatened New Orleans’ levees, which were
built on the assumption that they would have 40 to 50 miles of
protective swamp as buffer between the city and the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite every major study showing that a massive coastal restoration
program and higher levees were needed to protect New Orleans, the
administration permitted federal agencies to stop protecting 20 million
acres of wetlands, allowed developers to drain thousands of acres and in
2004 cut funding for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by
more than 80 percent.
New Orleans is America’s canary in the mineshaft. Ideologies of
privatization that incapacitate effective government—permitting the
privileged to save themselves while leaving the poor clinging to
roofs—must now be challenged. This disaster is a chilling reminder of
what happens when government fails to protect its citizens, and it is
imperative that Americans demand accountability. Officials who did not
do their jobs must be dismissed, and elected officials whose policies
aggravated the devastation wrought by Katrina must be removed from
office. We owe this to the dead and to the survivors.
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