Folks, I found this text out on a Yahoo board. The poster does not cite a source. Is all of this true??

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 percent 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 to 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 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 the Corps of Engineers' request for holding back the waters of New Orleans' Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans levees, but it was too late.

The Bush administration made a choice. They chose to take the money that was needed to protect New Orleans from flooding and spend it on an invasion of Iraq for fraudulent reasons.

This isn't about partisanship. It's about accountability.

MommaG

Syndey Blumenthal wrote it. You can find the full article here .

Thanks, Josh! That's a pretty reliable source, I'd say.

Wow! Stooping to armchair quarterbacking in the midst of a crisis. This is lame.

Everybody does cost benefit analysis every day. The US gov't doesn't have unlimited resources and is running a huge deficit. To allocate money for for what provides the highest ROI across a wide spectrum of needs is completely normal, expected, and good judgement. Get off the soap box!

The comment on Iraq is noted, but Iraq is funded on top of an already huge deficit.

It's inherently bad taste to make political hay out of a crisis.

So, they screw up and walk away from it when there's a disaster? This was preventable. Their war and budget choices caused the funding cuts. Tax cuts instead of levees? Hey, that's the choice they made. If they had funded the projects as they had been since the 1960s, there may well not be a crisis today. That's the point.

kurtg-

Democrats will be making their way to New Orleans to help with this disaster, make no mistake. But we will not ever forget this was entirely preventable.

ROI, you bastard, we just got an ROI for lack of investment, and its coming in the form of dozens of body bags throughout the region. Same as our "investment" in Iraq.

Bush claims the disaster wasn't predictable???

If the disaster wasn't predictable, then why did Republicans allow conservative groups who support Republicans sponsor the airing of an FX original movie earlier this year called "Oil Storm" where a massive hurricane devestates New Orleans and much of the gulf oil rigs, crippling our economy and driving gas prices through the roof, not to mention the thousands of dead, dying, and suffering who are without food, water, and power, and with the rampant looting, also without law and order.

The film praised George W Bush by name ("Thank God Bush is our president").

So it strikes me as incredibly irresponsible and erratic to claim that the disaster wasn't predictable, and that the consequences of the disaster weren't predictable, and furthermore, that knowing this, the president decided to engage in the Iraq war anyway where almost 1900 sons and daughters have been killed.

Mostly, it was irresponsible and erratic to have promised action and allocated funds to the Department of Homeland Security, who would have originally been responsible for protecting and strengthening vital infrastructure, such as highways and communication systems; First-responder medical teams would be strengthened; public transportation would be expanded and strengthened. All of this would have happened had this administration not re-allocated those funds to the Iraq war effort -- and the troops were STILL shorted vital armor.

Now hundreds of thousands are languishing in freakish misery in our own country and hundreds of thousands are languishing in freakish misery in Iraq. If America's credibility and image abroad had not been so badly tarnished, making us less secure at home and abroad, then we may have been prepared for disasters and be able to respond to them, and perhaps other foreign nations would have felt compassion and offered aid and assistance.

DNC, you don't have to apologize for calling Bush on the carpet concerning this situation.

Thousands of people are dying in New Orleans because Bush pulled the funding for fixing the levees in favor of Iraq war. Bush put the bulk of the national guard in Iraq and now there aren't enough people to rescue the stranded.

Let's follow Paul Hackett's example and speak plainly to the truth - Bush is a murderer of American citizens as well as Iraqi and American soldiers.

Alright...To Alexander, I say this--by your reckoning, the wreck of the Titanic should've been predictable because fourteen years earlier, a man tried to have a book published called 'Wreck of the Titan', in which the largest liner to date hit an iceberg and sank in the Atlantic.
Secondly, I can't say personally whether federal funds were diverted away from levee fixing, but I have to ask...couldn't the state of Louisiana spend the money for that? Does reliance in the federal government have to be the first option? If they thought the levee needed shoring up and improving, why did they have to wait for the feds to give them money?
Thirdly, blaming Bush for not preparing for this disaster is futile. I learned a long time ago that hindsight is always 20-20. Did anyone expect him to see that a Catgory 5 hurricane was going to hit? And even if he had mobilized every available unit to shore up the levee before Katrina hit, he had approximately three days. What can you hope to acomplish in three days?
Finally, I have to agree with kurtg--it IS in bad taste to make political hay out of this disaster. Save the finger-pointing for another time and help those who need help.

Can anyone tell me where the billions of dollars spent on Homeland Security have gone? This is more than a 5-day long "My Pet Goat" response failure. If the levees were destroyed by terrorist, which is arguably less predictable, would we have been prepared to respond any better? Surely, for a couple of billion dollars I expect we should get some synergies between federal agencies in the way of disaster scenario planning, crisis management, response procedures, evacuation plans, methods for organizing victims, out-of-band communication strategies, medical readiness, essential food & water supply deployments, et cetera. Do you really feel any safer against dirty bombs, chemical attacks, and other terrorist threats we face? This is straightforward risk management, crisis management, and disaster recovery planning 101.

Where is the accountability in this administration for the lives lost, families destroyed, sacraficed civil rights, and wasted tax dollars in the name of security?

Shame on the government for funding and planning failures.
Shame on the government for a total lack of crisis management.
Shame on the people for not insisting on accountability and accepting incompetent service to this nation.

To all those out there that read this! I have been through Hugo and Took part in the Andrew Recovery. It makes absolutely no sense to continue to bash others for this disaster. What is important, is to learn and impliment ways to prevent this from happening again!
I can tell you first hand that when another hurricane comes to Charleston, everyone will get out. It won't matter if they are rich or poor! If they stayed for Hugo they won't stay again!
We were lucky! We had Great leadership from our Mayor and the surrounding Governing officials. We have in place a disaster team that is up and running before the actual hurricane hits. They have a command post that is almost hurricane proof and they take action imediately. If it looks like a catagory 4 or 5 hurricane is on the way the police, fire dept and other agencies go out into the communities and tell people to leave. If you decide not to leave, they write down your next of kin so that if you die, they can tell someone!
Did Missippi and New Orleans think that they would be spared forever? If the officials think that and have no evacuation plans, which it looked like they didn't, then they should be held responsible for the aftermath!
Finally, No one wants to witness or be a part of something as bad as Katrina, So let's stop the bickering and put your money where your mouth is! Donate you money and time and pray
for all those affected to get the help they need and for their continued safety, sanity and understanding of how to get out of this situation.
As you watch this on television, you will see your fellow American, as always, come to the rescue. We are the most generous people on earth and History will show the love and compassion we have for all man kind!
Peace, Sparky

Let’s compare a leaking tire. If the leaking is tinny, one can pump some air to live with it and he/she needs to use all the energy pumping. But if the leaking is significant or chronic and pumping air even can’t make up the leaked air, one has to seal the leaks in additional to just pumping the air before the tire goes to flat. And when the leak is noticeable or the tire is already flat, it is the time to find, and to be able to find, the leaking area and seal the leak.