and now they are lying their way out of it.
Today on Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer asked Bush why he wasn't better prepared for the Louisiana catastrophe considering they KNEW in advance that a huge hurricane was coming.
His response "Well, no one could have anticipated a breach in the levees." Of course, Ms. Sawyer didn't press him any further on the point.
That's such an appauling answer. Of course they new. They just chose to not fund it. It was a catastrophe waiting to happen, and frankly, it's this administration's job TO KNOW THESE THINGS, PARTICULARLY WHEN THEY ARE APPROPRIATELY WARNED. Instead, they funded the Iraq debaucle. I really hate that Bush would give such a pat answer to something, and I hate worse that Sawyer let it go. We've got a media circus, wherein all the entertainers are running scared. It's so pathetic. Bush is a lying sack of crap, and he just cannot stop lying. The media circus is just a bunch of enablers.
PROOF -- they DID know -- People told them and they were ignored:
Exerpted from a Oct. 2004 Article Link :
FEMA's diminished capacity to respond to natural disasters, and to thwart preventable damage from a major catastrophe, is especially worrisome to Louisiana. Areas of Louisiana once received hundreds of thousands of dollars from "Project Impact," FEMA's largest disaster-prevention program, until the Bush Administration eliminated it in 2001. It gets worse: Not only did FEMA reject all disaster-mitigation grant applications from Louisiana for 2003, but the state might not get any funding in 2004. Maestri says that as of Sept. 28, FEMA hadn't notified his office that any grant money was available for fiscal year 2004, which ended Sept. 30.
Exerpted from here Link :
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. (Much of the research here is from Nexis, which is why some articles aren't linked.)
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 this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness:
The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20% incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.
The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.
This is all history. But, the latest budgets call for even more funding cuts. Exerpts are from this June 05 article Link :
In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding.
It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said.I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to.
Stephen Jeselink, interim commander of the New Orleans Corps district, told employees in an internal e-mail dated May 25 that the district is experiencing financial challenges. Execution of our available funds must be dealt with through prudent districtwide management decisions. In addition to a hiring freeze, Jeselink canceled the annual Corps picnic held every June.
Congress is setting the Corps budget.
Landrieu said the Bush administration is not making Corps of Engineers funding a priority.
I think it's extremely shortsighted, Landrieu said. When the Corps of Engineers' budget is cut, Louisiana bleeds. These projects are literally life-and-death projects to the people of south Louisiana and they are (of) vital economic interest to the entire nation.
One of the hardest-hit areas of the New Orleans district's budget is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, which was created after the May 1995 flood to improve drainage in Jefferson, Orleans and St. Tammany parishes. SELA's budget is being drained from $36.5 million awarded in 2005 to $10.4 million suggested for 2006 by the House of Representatives and the president.
The project manager said there would be no contracts awarded with this $10.4 million, Demma said.
The construction portion of the Corps' budget would suffer if Congress doesn't add money. In 2005, the district received $94.3 million in federal dollars dedicated to construction. In 2006, the proposal is for $56 million.
It would be critical to this city if we had a $50 million construction budget compared with the past years, Demma said. It would be horrible for the city, it would be horrible for contractors and for flood protection if this were the final number compared to recent years and what the city needs.
Construction generally has been on the decline for several years and focus has been on other projects in the Corps.
The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St. Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.
We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem, Naomi said.
The Appropriations Committee in Congress will ultimately decide how much the New Orleans district will receive, he said.