Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War

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Topic:	Religions > Atheism
User:	"Michelle Malkin"
Date:	01 Sep 2005 08:49:17 PM
Object:	Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131
Bush hates America and Americans. That's a certainty.
.

User: "johac"
Title: Re: Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War	02 Sep 2005 01:33:41 AM

In article <nNydnfzHxaIMMoreRVn-3w@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131

Bush hates America and Americans. That's a certainty.

Not only the money, but the National Guard and its equipment which could
have helped the survivors is over in Iraq defending Islamic state
theocracy.
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
.

User: "Michelle Malkin"
Title: Re: Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War	02 Sep 2005 01:59:17 AM

"johac" <jhachm@ixpres.com> wrote in message
news:jhachm-DB4D6F.23334101092005@news.giganews.com...

In article <nNydnfzHxaIMMoreRVn-3w@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131

Bush hates America and Americans. That's a certainty.

Not only the money, but the National Guard and its equipment which could
have helped the survivors is over in Iraq defending Islamic state
theocracy.

Exactly. And, he's taking his sweet time about getting
the National Guard that are left here down to New
Orleans. For crying out loud, the looters are taking over
the city! They've already killed one cop and they're
shooting at rescuers.

--
John Hachmann aa #1782

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit
atrocities"
-Voltaire

User: "Fred Stone"
Title: Re: Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War	02 Sep 2005 07:58:42 AM

"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote in
news:276dnZ2dnZ2B9k3dnZ2dnaRlit6dnZ2dRVn-0J2dnZ0@comcast.com:

"johac" <jhachm@ixpres.com> wrote in message
news:jhachm-DB4D6F.23334101092005@news.giganews.com...

In article <nNydnfzHxaIMMoreRVn-3w@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131

Bush hates America and Americans. That's a certainty.

Not only the money, but the National Guard and its equipment which
could have helped the survivors is over in Iraq defending Islamic
state theocracy.

Exactly. And, he's taking his sweet time about getting
the National Guard that are left here down to New
Orleans.

"He" who? What is "he" supposed to do? Put on his blue spandex and fly
them all down himself?

For crying out loud, the looters are taking over
the city! They've already killed one cop and they're
shooting at rescuers.

I see what the problem is. Bush isn't God. He'd have to be God to do all
the things you seem to think he should be able to do in the time you've
given him to do them.
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
I think if we had a three-word message right now it�d be, �We can do
better.� - Howard Dean
.

User: ""
Title: Re: Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War	07 Sep 2005 12:35:18 PM

1. Michelle Malkin 2 sep 03:49 opties weergeven
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131
Why Fred
I expected you to tell us the article Michelle referred to was a lie.
Why didn't you
Don't tell me: Because it is all true""
That would be as embarresing for Bush as can be!
Think about it
Peter van Velzen
September 2005
Amstelveen
The Netherlands
.

User: "WCB"
Title: Re: Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War	02 Sep 2005 04:11:27 PM

Fred Stone wrote:

I see what the problem is. Bush isn't God. He'd have to be God to do all
the things you seem to think he should be able to do in the time you've
given him to do them.

The problem is not the Bush is not god, but that he is totally
incompetent. He is Bush. He slashed flood preparedness for
Lousiana, and he gutted FEMA.
Despite being warned that a large hurricane hitting New Orleans
was one of three biggest possible catastrophes facing
America. like all those experts pleading with Bush to
look at terrorism, experts telling Bush what he needed
to look at were ignored. Bush sat on his butt while 9/11
was plotted, planned and put into execution, Bush slashed
money for counter-terrorism. Here, Bush slashed money
for upgrading New Orlean's levees, and gutted FEMA,
leaving it incapable of quick response in face of a disaster
he was fully warned about.
The problem is not that he is not god, but that he is G.W. Bush,
the worst president we have had.
Warned at the very beginning of his presidency of
this very disaster we now face, Bush showed no
competence, no leadership, no sign of even caring.
And it gets worse. Under Reagan and Bush, FEMA proved
not particularly competent in responses after such disasters.
Clinton created a number of programs to deal with those
short comings. Bush systematically disassembled every
last Clinton program. Probably smirked as he signed
off on that too. So now, after the hurricane, and after
the levees are fixed and New Orleans drained, we will
find FEMA and Bush without a clue, without a plan.
Because Bush destroyed that capability to deal with
the aftermath of a disaster leaving the US without
capable people with experience and capable plans
for dealing with the catastrophe.
Bush is an idiot. He is not god, but he is a disaster in
and of himself.
You of course, being a Bush butt sucking right winger
will do nothing but make excuses for this miserable
excuse of a president.
The chaos that is about to envelope New Orleans is
a Bush production, because he in fact gutted
everything after gutting plans to deal with the
inadequacies of New Orlean's levees and flood control
systems starting in his first year.
He made sure that New Orleans had no chance.
he made sure FEMA could not adequately respond.
He made sure that there will be no infrastructure
to deal rapidly and correctly to the aftermath.
Its another Bush trifecta.
He was a totally incompetent *****.
And the worst may yet to come.
http://www.indyweek.com/durham/2004-09-22/cover.html
Disaster in the making
As FEMA weathers a storm of Bush administration policy
and budget changes, protection from natural hazards may
be trumped by 'homeland security"
B Y J O N E L L I S T O N
Fridays don't get much busier than this. It's the morning
of Sept. 3, and Federal Emergency Management Agency
headquarters in Washington, D.C., is running at a full
clip, having mobilized a cadre of disaster-response
specialists in its National Emergency Operations Center
the day before. "This is our 'war room,'" a FEMA employee
explains.
September 22, 2004

C O V E R F E A T U R E

"Right now we're in 24-hours-a-day activation," he says.
"It's a double-whammy." Indeed, the agency is still busy
helping Florida recover from Hurricane Charley's punishing
winds and rain when satellite images show that an even
greater storm, Hurricane Frances, will soon make landfall.
It appears so threatening that most of FEMA's personnel on
the ground, along with 2.5 million Floridians, have evacuated
from the storm's projected path.
..
Inside the op center, scores of personnel from FEMA and a host
of other agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency,
the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Department
of Health and Human Services, buzz around in what appears to be
a state of controlled chaos. They work the phones, hover over
computer screens and trade the latest weather forecasts. Using
a time-tested system of disaster management, they've split their
tasks into 12 "emergency support functions" designed to bring
in food, water, medical care, electricity, housing, transportation
and other desperately needed resources as soon as Frances moves on.
John Crowe, a Department of Homeland Security geospatial mapping
expert detailed to FEMA to help track such outbreaks of rough weather,
steps outside the building for a quick cigarette. "Everybody's
really running into gear here," he says between puffs. "FEMA's
ready, about as ready as they've ever been."
FEMA's relatively quick response to the hurricanes has thus
far won mostly high marks from Florida officials, who remember
well a time when the disaster agency seemed the last party to
show up after catastrophes. In addition, President Bush has paid
multiple visits to assure storm victims they will get whatever
help is needed, and he promptly secured more than $2 billion
from Congress to fund Florida's recovery.
As storms continue to batter the Panhandle, no one would call
Florida lucky. But with national elections just around the
corner, the hurricanes could scarcely have hit at a better
time or place for obtaining federal disaster assistance.
"They're doing a good job," one former FEMA executive says
of the Bush administration's response efforts. "And the
reason why they're doing that job is because it's so close
to the election, and they can't ***** it up, otherwise they
lose Florida--and if they lose Florida, they might lose
the election."
Such political considerations may indeed make this round
of recoveries go better than most. But long before this
hurricane season, some emergency managers inside and
outside of government started sounding an alarm that
still rings loudly. Bush administration policy changes
and budget cuts, they say, are sapping FEMA's longterm
ability to cushion the blow of hurricanes, earthquakes,
floods, tornados, wildfires and other natural disasters.
Among emergency specialists, "mitigation"--the measures
taken in advance to minimize the damage caused by natural
disasters--is a crucial part of the strategy to save lives
and cut recovery costs. But since 2001, key federal disaster
mitigation programs, developed over many years, have been
slashed and tossed aside. FEMA's Project Impact, a model
mitigation program created by the Clinton administration,
has been canceled outright. Federal funding of post-disaster
mitigation efforts designed to protect people and property
from the next disaster has been cut in half, and now,
communities across the country must compete for pre-disaster
mitigation dollars.
As a result, some state and local emergency managers say,
it's become more difficult to get the equipment and funds
they need to most effectively deal with disasters. In
North Carolina, a state regularly damaged by hurricanes
and floods, FEMA recently refused the state's request to
buy backup generators for emergency support facilities.
And the budget cuts have halved the funding for a mitigation
program that saved an estimated $8.8 million in recovery
costs in three eastern N.C. communities alone after 1999's
Hurricane Floyd. In Louisiana, another state vulnerable to
hurricanes, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected
by FEMA this summer.
Consequently, the residents of these and other disaster-
prone states will find the government less able to help
them when help is needed most, and both states and the
federal government will be forced to shoulder more recovery
costs after disasters strike.
In addition, the White House has pushed for privatization
of essential government services, including disaster
management, and merged FEMA into the Department of Homeland
Security, where natural disaster programs are often sidelined
by counter-terrorism programs. Along the way, morale at FEMA
has plummeted, and many of the agency's most experienced
personnel have left for work in other government agencies
or private corporations.
In June, Pleasant Mann, a 16-year FEMA veteran who heads the
agency's government employee union, wrote members of Congress
to warn of the agency's decay. "Over the past three-and-one-half
years, FEMA has gone from being a model agency to being one where
funds are being misspent, employee morale has fallen, and our
nation's emergency management capability is being eroded,"
he wrote. "Our professional staff are being systematically
replaced by politically connected novices and contractors."
So while they're far from where hurricanes hit hardest, FEMA's
Washington-based disaster managers find themselves in the middle
of a perfect storm of their own. "All Hazards"
FEMA has dealt with disasters since long before the term
"homeland security" came into vogue after the 9/11 attacks.
Created by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to handle the country's
worst-case scenarios, FEMA has always struggled to define its
precise mission. In theory, it's responsible for "all hazards,"
which means the agency coordinates efforts to keep the United
States safe from the full spectrum of domestic dangers, be they
"acts of God" like weather emergencies or acts of human enemies
like al Qaeda terrorists.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration endowed FEMA with
extraordinary powers to keep the country running--powers bordering
on martial law, critics argued. The agency became responsible for
"continuity of government" plans devoted to salvaging national
authority in the event of a nuclear attack. Other plans, drafted by
the likes of National Security Council aide Oliver North, laid the
groundwork for rounding up rabble-rousers in the event of societal
breakdown, whatever the cause. (The troubling implications of the
agency's early work had a long legacy in popular culture, thanks
to the X-Files TV show and movie, which often referenced the specter
of how FEMA-rule would supplant constitutional government.)
As the Cold War ended, FEMA turned greater attention to
handling natural disasters, but the agency proved unequal
to the task. In August 1992, Hurricane Andrew assaulted
Florida and other Southern states with 170-mile-an-hour
winds, killing 23 people and leaving a trail of devastation.
The severity of the storm caught FEMA off-guard, and the
agency did too little, too late to help the state recover,
enraging thousands of storm victims. Several days after
Andrew dissipated, Dade County's emergency manager famously
pleaded, "Where the hell is the cavalry?"
Two months later, President George H.W. Bush paid a price
of sorts at the polls when Bill Clinton shrunk the incumbent's
once-sizable lead and came within two percentage points of
beating Bush in Florida. It was an important lesson learned
for both the politicians and the emergency agency.
In 1993, President Clinton's new FEMA director, James Lee
Witt, set the agency on a corrective course. Witt, who had
served under then-Gov. Clinton as director of Arkansas
emergency management, embarked on an ambitious campaign
to bulk up the agency's natural disaster programs while
staying prepared for "all hazards." Witt's changes eventually
reversed FEMA's reputation for being unfocused and ineffective.
The agency garnered praise from both Democrats and Republicans
for improving coordination with state and local emergency offices
and turning attention and resources to the benefits of disaster
mitigation.
"Mitigation is the cornerstone of emergency management," a
FEMA Web site explains today. "It's the ongoing effort to
lessen the impact disasters have on people's lives and
property." Under mitigation plans, houses in flood plains
are moved or raised above the flood-line, buildings are
designed to withstand hurricane winds and earthquakes,
and communities are relocated away from likely wildfire
zones. According to FEMA estimates, every dollar spent
on mitigation saves roughly two dollars in disaster
recovery costs.
The need for more systematic mitigation efforts was driven
home by 1996's Hurricane Fran, which killed 37 people
and caused tens of billions of dollars in damages. In
1997, Witt established Project Impact, which would
become the agency's most high-profile mitigation program.
Under the project, FEMA fostered partnerships between
federal, state and local emergency workers, along
with local businesses, to prepare individual communities
for natural disasters. Impact partnerships sprang up
in all 50 states. In Seattle, Wash., for example, the
grants were used to retrofit schools, bridges and
houses at risk from earthquakes. In Pascagoula, Miss.,
the project funded the creation of a database of
structures in the local flood plain--crucial information
for preparing mitigation plans. In several eastern
North Carolina communities, it helped fund and coordinate
buyouts of houses in flood-prone areas.
By the time the Bush administration entered office
in January 2001, some 250 communities had signed
up for Project Impact. FEMA seemed sturdy, having
found its role and proved itself capable of
fulfilling it. But in the field of emergency
management, some things can change as quickly
as the weather.
Bush's FEMA
From its first months in office, the Bush administration
made it clear that emergency programs, like much of the
federal government, were in for a major reorientation.
At FEMA, President Bush appointed a close aide, Joe
Allbaugh, to be the agency's new director. Allbaugh
had served as then-Gov. Bush's chief of staff in
Texas and as manager of his 2000 presidential campaign.
Along with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, Allbaugh was
known as one part of Bush's "iron triangle" of
professional handlers.
Some FEMA veterans complained that Allbaugh had
little experience in managing disasters, and the
new administration's early initiatives did little
to settle their concerns. The White House quickly
launched a government-wide effort to privatize
public services, including key elements of disaster
management. Bush's first budget director, Mitch
Daniels, spelled out the philosophy in remarks
at an April 2001 conference: "The general idea--
that the business of government is not to provide
services, but to make sure that they are provided--
seems self-evident to me," he said.
In a May 15, 2001, appearance before a Senate
appropriations subcommittee, Allbaugh signaled
that the new, stripped-down approach would be
applied at FEMA as well. "Many are concerned
that federal disaster assistance may have evolved
into both an oversized entitlement program and
a disincentive to effective state and local risk
management," he said. "Expectations of when the
federal government should be involved and the
degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond
what is an appropriate level."
As a result, says a disaster program administrator
who insists on anonymity, "We have to compete for
our jobs--we have to prove that we can do it cheaper
than a contractor." And when it comes to handling
disasters, the FEMA employee stresses, cheaper is
not necessarily better, and the new outsourcing
requirements sometimes slow the agency's operations.
William Waugh, a disaster expert at Georgia State
University who has written training programs for
FEMA, warns that the rise of a "consultant culture"
has not served emergency programs well. "It's part
of a widespread problem of government contracting
out capabilities," he says. "Pretty soon governments
can't do things because they've given up those
capabilities to the private sector. And private
corporations don't necessarily maintain those
capabilities."
The push for privatization wasn't the only change that
raised red flags at FEMA. As a 2004 article in the
Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
would later note, "Allbaugh brought about several
internal, though questionably effective, reorganizations
of FEMA. The Bush-Allbaugh FEMA diminished the Clinton
administration's organizational emphasis on disaster
mitigation."
In February 2001, for example, the Bush administration
proposed eliminating Project Impact, a move approved
by Congress later in the year. (On the very day the
White House proposal was submitted, a magnitude 6.8
earthquake rocked Washington state, which was home
to several communities where Project Impact had
sponsored quake mitigation efforts.) Ending the
project and trimming other FEMA programs, the White
House argued, would save roughly $200 million. In
its place, FEMA instituted a new program of mitigation
grants that are awarded on a competitive basis.
The administration also made a failed attempt to cut
the federal percentage of large-scale natural disaster
preparedness expenditures. Since the 1990s, the federal
government has paid 75 percent of such costs, with
states and municipalities funding the other 25
percent. The White House's attempt to reduce the
federal contribution to 50 percent was defeated in
Congress.
At the same time, Allbaugh gave off contradictory
signals on the value of mitigation, on one occasion
chastising a community for doing too little to
prepare in advance for disaster. In April 2001,
he caused a stir when he asked Iowans, then in
the midst of massive flood recovery efforts, "How many
times will the American taxpayer have to step in and
take care of this flooding, which could be easily
prevented by building levees and dikes?"
A month later, the Washington Post reported that
the Bush administration's moves against mitigation
programs were causing worries in disaster-prone
states. "Statehouse critics of the proposed cuts
contend that in the long run they would cost the
government more because many communities will be
unable to afford preventative measures and as a
result will require more relief money when disasters
strike," the newspaper noted.
By ignoring the logic of fully-funded mitigation and
other preparedness programs, Bush's first FEMA director
earned some scorn among emergency specialists. "Allbaugh?
He was inept," says Claire Rubin, a senior researcher
at George Washington University's Institute for Crisis,
Disaster and Risk Management. "He was chief of staff
for Bush in Texas--that was his credential. He didn't
have an emergency management background, other than
the disasters he ran into in Texas, and he wasn't
a very open guy. He didn't want to learn anything."
Allbaugh's troubled tenure at the agency would be
a relatively short one. In December 2002, he
announced he would leave his post. While political
observers expected Allbaugh to join the Bush
re-election effort, instead he set about creating
a string of lobbying firms, including New Bridge
Strategies, which helps U.S. companies win reconstruction
contracts in Iraq. This summer, he started another
consulting company with Andrew Lundquist, the former
director of Vice President ***** Cheney's secretive
energy policy task force. The firm's first client
was Lockheed Martin, one of the country's largest
defense contractors.
The Merger
The early problems at Allbaugh's FEMA, nettlesome as
they were, paled in comparison to the challenges
the agency faced after 9/11. In the wake of the
terrorist attacks, leading members of Congress
pushed for a radical restructuring of the
government's anti-terrorism apparatus. Sen. Joe
Lieberman (D-Conn.) proposed legislation to merge
several federal agencies into a new security-focused
umbrella department. At first, the White House opposed
the plan, calling it impractical and unnecessary.
But then, as former counter-terrorism czar Richard
Clarke explained in his recent book Against all
Enemies, "the White House legislative affairs
office began to take a head count on Capitol Hill."
Realizing that the Lieberman Bill would likely pass
both houses of Congress, with no credit given to
the White House, in June 2002 the administration
changed its tune, calling for a new Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) that would be even larger
than the one Lieberman had proposed.
Under the administration's plan, 22 government
agencies, FEMA among them, would be merged into
the DHS. Analysts in and out of government warned
against subsuming the emergency agency's vital
functions in a new super-department. "There
are concerns of FEMA losing its identity as
an agency that is quick to respond to all
hazards and disasters," the agency's inspector
general noted in a memo to Allbaugh. Congress'
Government Accountability Office judged the
merger to be a "high-risk" endeavor for FEMA,
and the Brookings Institution, a leading Washington
think-tank, cautioned in a report that such a move
could hobble the agency's natural disaster programs.
"While a merged FEMA might become highly adept at
preparing for and responding to terrorism, it would
likely become less effective in performing its
current mission in case of natural disasters as
time, effort and attention are inevitably diverted
to other tasks within the larger organization."
But Bush's proposal won out, and a shift in
priorities from natural disasters to counter-
terrorism immediately took hold. In its 2002 budget,
the White House doubled FEMA's budget to $6.6 billion,
but of that sum, $3.5 billion was earmarked for
equipment and training to help states and localities
respond to terrorist attacks.
Michael Brown, a college friend of Allbaugh's who
had served as FEMA's general counsel, was recruited
to head the agency, which would now be part of the
DHS's Emergency and Response Directorate. When the
reorganization took effect on March 1, 2003, Brown
assured skeptics that under the new arrangement,
the country would be served by "FEMA on steroids"--
a faster, more effective disaster agency.
But the merger into DHS has compounded the agency's
problems, says FEMA employee and union president
Pleasant Mann. "Before, we reported straight to the
White House, and now we've got this elaborate
bureaucracy on top of us, and a lot of this bureaucracy
doesn't think what we're doing is that important,
because terrorism isn't our number one," he said.
"The biggest frustration here is that we at FEMA
have responded to disasters like Oklahoma City and
9/11, and here are people who haven't responded to a
kitchen fire telling us how to deal with terrorism.
You know, there were a lot of people who fell down
on the job on 9/11, but it wasn't us."
The FEMA program administrator says the crux of the
problem is that the agency is buried in DHS, which
is regarded as a "do-nothing agency" among FEMA's
action-oriented staff. "You know, FEMA could do well
by itself, and FEMA was starting to do well by itself.
But that's changed."
Rubin, the George Washington University researcher,
agrees with these assessments. "DHS has done a number
of things to FEMA that are making it very, very hard
for FEMA to function as it used to," she says. "A l
arge number of people who are experienced with natural
hazards no longer are doing that primarily or at all."
On Aug. 4, 2003, Brown announced that FEMA would at least
be permitted to keep its name, if not its status as an
independent agency. He has insisted that FEMA will stay
prepared for "all hazards," even the non-terrorist ones.
"Yes, it's a new world, it's a dangerous world, and the
Department of Homeland Security will have a focus on
terrorism, but it's not the only focus," he said in early
2003.
But the tension between Brown's competing duties has
proven unavoidable. In May 2003, for example, the DHS
staged TOPOFF 2--officially billed as "the largest
homeland security exercise in the history of the United
States"--to test the government's ability to deal with
a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction.
The same week of the exercise, hundreds of real-life
tornadoes ripped through the Midwest, causing some
FEMA staffers to find themselves torn between practicing
for terrorism and handling an actual natural disaster.
And while resources for the DHS exercise were readily
available, according to Mann, FEMA's headquarters staff
was forced, that same summer, to cancel disaster training
drills due to budget shortfalls.
Whither mitigation?
In 2003, Congress approved a White House proposal to
cut FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) in
half. Previously, the federal government was committed
to invest 15 percent of the recovery costs of a given
disaster in mitigating future problems. Under the Bush
formula, the feds now cough up only 7.5 percent.
Such post-disaster mitigation efforts, specialists
say, are a crucial way of minimizing future losses.
It's after a disaster strikes, they argue, that the
government can best take the steps necessary to avoid
repeat problems, because that's when officials and
storm victims are most receptive to mitigation plans.
Larry Larson is executive director of the Association
of State Floodplain Managers, an organization that
keeps a close eye on mitigation matters. The Bush
administration, he says, is "being penny-wise and
pound foolish" by cutting the HMGP formula. His
group has pressed Congress to restore the federal
investment to 15 percent of disaster costs, and he
expects that some legislators will soon take up the
cause on their own. "Florida's going to be looking
for mitigation money so that they can rebuild in a
safer fashion," he says. "I'm sure that the Florida
delegation is going to be thinking now about how the
state can't do what's needed with the recent cuts
in post-disaster mitigation--how they can't do today
what they could have done before."
Pressed on this issue, Bush administration officials
have said that the formula puts more of the mitigation
burden on state governments, where it belongs. But
the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA)
points out that, now more than ever, cash-strapped
states cannot afford to pick up the balance. "The
federal focus on terrorism preparedness has left
states with an increased responsibility to provide
support for natural disasters and emergencies,"
noted a report released by the association this
summer. "State budget shortfalls have given emergency
management programs less to work with, at a time when
more is expected of them. In fiscal year 2004, the
average budget for a state emergency management agency
was $40.8 million, a 23 percent reduction from fiscal
year 2003."
The administration also argues that its new
pre-disaster mitigation grants, which are awarded
on a competitive basis, will help states pick up
the slack. But again, emergency managers say it's
not enough. In recent congressional testimony, a
NEMA representative noted that "in a purely
competitive grant program, lower income communities,
those most often at risk to natural disaster, will
not effectively compete with more prosperous cities....
The prevention of repetitive damages caused by disasters
would go largely unprepared in less-affluent and smaller
communities."
And indeed, some in-need areas have been inexplicably
left out of the program. "In a sense, Louisiana is the
flood plain of the nation," noted a 2002 FEMA report.
"Louisiana waterways drain two-thirds of the continental
United States. Precipitation in New York, the Dakotas,
even Idaho and the Province of Alberta, finds its way
to Louisiana's coastline." As a result, flooding is a
constant threat, and the state has an estimated 18,000
buildings that have been repeatedly damaged by flood
waters--the highest number of any state. And yet, this
summer FEMA denied Louisiana communities' pre-disaster
mitigation funding requests.
In Jefferson Parish, part of the New Orleans metropolitan
area, flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue is baffled by the
development. "You would think we would get maximum
consideration" for the funds, he says. "This is what
the grant program called for. We were more than qualified
for it."
Brain Drain
Within FEMA, the shift away from mitigation programs is
so pronounced that many long-time specialists in the
field have quit. "The priority is no longer on prevention,
"says the FEMA administrator. "Mitigation, honestly, is
the orphaned stepchild. People are leaving it in droves."
In fact, disaster professionals are leaving many parts of
FEMA in droves, compromising the agency's ability to do
its job. "Since last year, so many people have left who
had developed most of our basic programs," Mann says.
"A lot of the institutional knowledge is gone. Everyone
who was able to retire has left, and then a lot of people
have moved to other agencies."
There are at least at least two reasons for the exodus.
On the one hand, FEMA, like the rest of the federal
government's civil service, is hitting a demographic
brick wall. Its staff of veteran managers, most of t
hem baby boomers, is reaching retirement age.
But another factor is at work: disillusionment at the
agency's new direction under the Bush administration.
In February 2004, the American Federation of Government
Employees surveyed 84 FEMA personnel about the state of
things at the agency. The results showed a dramatic
downturn in morale: 80 percent said FEMA has become
"a poorer agency" under DHS, and 60 percent said that,
given the chance to move to another agency and make
the same salary, they'd do so.
For some, quitting the agency has become an especially
attractive option, since FEMA is outsourcing more and
many former employees have found work with contractors.
It's an understandable choice, Mann says. "They're saying,
OK, I can't develop my career here any more, so I might
as well cash out."
Not everyone who has left did so because of disenchantment,
asserts Laurence Zensinger, a longtime FEMA official who
resigned this year and joined Dewberry, a Fairfax, Va.-based
engineering firm that does disaster work for the government.
Under the DHS reorganization, he says, some of FEMA's
capabilities have in fact been strengthened, because the
new arrangement aids coordination among federal agencies that
FEMA regularly works with. Furthermore, he says, the rise in
public and governmental attention to emergency programs since
9/11 has, in a larger sense, benefited the agency. "I think
there's a lot that's happening that's sort of lifting all
boats," he says.
Nevertheless, FEMA must now get by with a smaller number
of in-house specialists. The irony, disaster researcher
Claire Rubin says, is that FEMA will now have to hire
former employees like Zensinger as contractors. "Now,
frankly, the senior brains and the people with 20, 30
years of operational experience, there's more of them
in the private sector than there are at FEMA. It's a
significant shift. If the government's going to get
smaller and the catastrophes keep getting bigger,
the net effect will be to outsource what you need.
It might be cheaper, it might be more expensive, but
it's not a great way to run this part of government."
Following the current spate of hurricanes, she predicts,
"you will see FEMA contracts flying left and right so
they can get these people back who know how to do
this stuff."
"An exposed nerve"
In case Congress hasn't gotten the message, former
FEMA director James Lee Witt recently restated it in
strong terms. "I am extremely concerned that the ability
of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters
has been sharply eroded," he testified at a March 24,
2004, hearing on Capitol Hill. "I hear from emergency
managers, local and state leaders, and first responders
nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well
with has now disappeared. In fact one state emergency
manager told me, 'It is like a stake has been driven
into the heart of emergency management.'"
Lately, though, Witt has had nothing to say publicly
about the agency's performance. His disaster management
company, James Lee Witt Associates, recently won a
$250,000 contract with Orlando, Fla., to help the city
get its share of post-hurricane FEMA money. A company
spokesman says that Witt will be making no comment while
Florida's recovery efforts continue, out of respect for
his former colleagues.
Waugh, the Georgia State University expert, says that
the recent hurricanes could serve as a wake-up call to
highlight FEMA's drift in priorities. "If you talk
to FEMA people and emergency management people around
the country, people have almost been hoping for a major
natural disaster like a hurricane, just to remind DHS and
the administration that there are other big things--even
bigger things than al Qaeda.
"This is an exposed nerve in the emergency management
community, in the sense that resources have been shifted
away from hurricanes, tornados and other kinds of
disasters--the kind of disasters that are more likely
to occur than terrorism."
Jon Elliston is a former Independent staff writer who specializes
in national security issues. This article was funded by the
Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and includes reporting
by Folio Weekly in Jacksonville, Fla., and Gambit Weekly in
New Orleans, La.
-----
--
Xenu is around and about,
mention Hubbard, Xenu pops out!
No way for the clams to stamp Xenu out,
Xenu is around and about!
Cheerful Charlie
.

User: "defiant penguin"
Title: Re: Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War	02 Sep 2005 08:08:32 AM

Fred Stone wrote:

"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote in
news:276dnZ2dnZ2B9k3dnZ2dnaRlit6dnZ2dRVn-0J2dnZ0@comcast.com:

"johac" <jhachm@ixpres.com> wrote in message
news:jhachm-DB4D6F.23334101092005@news.giganews.com...

In article <nNydnfzHxaIMMoreRVn-3w@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131

Bush hates America and Americans. That's a certainty.

Not only the money, but the National Guard and its equipment which
could have helped the survivors is over in Iraq defending Islamic
state theocracy.

Exactly. And, he's taking his sweet time about getting
the National Guard that are left here down to New
Orleans.

"He" who? What is "he" supposed to do? Put on his blue spandex and fly
them all down himself?

Bush used the national guard inappropriately, rendering them
unavailable when they are desperately needed in this country. He could
have started by not sending them off to fight a foreign war. I don't
think it takes a superhero to use resources the way they are meant to
be used. Americans died because of the late response, the same
Americans who the soldiers in Iraq are supposedly supposed to be
protecting.

For crying out loud, the looters are taking over
the city! They've already killed one cop and they're
shooting at rescuers.

I see what the problem is. Bush isn't God. He'd have to be God to do all
the things you seem to think he should be able to do in the time you've
given him to do them.

--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
I think if we had a three-word message right now it'd be, 'We can do
better.' - Howard Dean

User: "Fred Stone"
Title: Re: Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War	02 Sep 2005 09:27:02 AM

"defiant penguin" <Jason.Kielpinski@gmail.com> wrote in
news:1125666512.127419.250950@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com:

Fred Stone wrote:

"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote in
news:276dnZ2dnZ2B9k3dnZ2dnaRlit6dnZ2dRVn-0J2dnZ0@comcast.com:

"johac" <jhachm@ixpres.com> wrote in message
news:jhachm-DB4D6F.23334101092005@news.giganews.com...

In article <nNydnfzHxaIMMoreRVn-3w@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:

http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=7131

Bush hates America and Americans. That's a certainty.

Not only the money, but the National Guard and its equipment which
could have helped the survivors is over in Iraq defending Islamic
state theocracy.

Exactly. And, he's taking his sweet time about getting
the National Guard that are left here down to New
Orleans.

"He" who? What is "he" supposed to do? Put on his blue spandex and
fly them all down himself?

Bush used the national guard inappropriately, rendering them
unavailable when they are desperately needed in this country.

Uhh, no, he didn't.

He could
have started by not sending them off to fight a foreign war.

So, even if I grant the premise that the Guard in Iraq are needed, Bush
is supposed to be prescient?

I don't
think it takes a superhero to use resources the way they are meant to
be used. Americans died because of the late response, the same
Americans who the soldiers in Iraq are supposedly supposed to be
protecting.

Sorry, but that "late response" is because of the logistics problem of
getting people and large quantities of supplies into NO, not because the
people aren't available. Helicopters can only carry so much, for
everything else you need trucks and the main roads are out.
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
I think if we had a three-word message right now it�d be, �We can do
better.� - Howard Dean
.

User: "WCB"
Title: Re: Money That Was Supposed to Go to New Orleans to Rebuild Levees Was Used For Phony War	02 Sep 2005 04:22:53 PM