Bush under fire after botched rescue operation
Battered and sickened survivors have made no attempt to disguise their anger: “We have been abandoned by our own country,” said Aaron Broussard, president of Jefferson Parish, just south of New Orleans. “It’s not just Katrina that caused all these deaths in New Orleans. Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now.”
After a nightmare confluence of natural disaster and political ineptitude that al-Qaida-linked websites called evidence of the “wrath of God” striking America, National Guard troops and US marshals patrolled the city, stricken in the days after the hurricane by anarchic violence and looting. Local and federal officials expect to find thousands of corpses still floating in flood waters or locked inside homes and buildings destroyed by the devastating storm that struck the US Gulf coast last Monday.
US President George W Bush who, in a rare admission of error, conceded on Friday that the results of his administration’s relief efforts were unacceptable, said on Saturday he would send 7,200 more active-duty troops over three days.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld toured a medical facility at New Orleans’ international airport yesterday.
He spoke and shook hands with military and rescue officials but walked past a dozen refugees lying on stretchers just feet away, most of them extremely sick or handicapped.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was touring the Mobile, Alabama, area, in her native state.
A further 10,000 National Guardsmen were being sent to storm-hit Louisiana and Mississippi, raising the total to 40,000. A total of 54,000 military personnel are now committed to relief efforts.
Defending the administration’s response and disaster planning, homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said the hurricane and flood in New Orleans were “two catastrophes” that presented an unprecedented challenge.
“That perfect storm of combination of catastrophes exceeded the foresight of the planners and maybe anybody’s foresight.”
Critics have said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has lost its effectiveness since it became part of the Homeland Security Department in a post-September 11 reorganisation.
Ms Rice was slammed by critics on the internet after she attended a New York performance of the Monty Python musical Spamalot on Wednesday, a day after New Orleans flooded. After returning to Washington, she defended the administration against charges the slow government response and prolonged suffering of New Orleans’ predominantly black storm victims were signs of racial neglect.
“That Americans would somehow in a colour-affected way decide who to help and who not to help, I just don’t believe it,” said Ms Rice, the administration’s highest-ranking black official.
The Washington Post reported yesterday that Bush administration officials were blaming state and local authorities for the disaster response problems. The newspaper said the administration was rebuffed in an effort to take control of police and National Guard units reporting to Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat.
Over the weekend, a number of senior government figures, including Mr Chertoff, met with black leaders in a bid to reverse the damage. Jesse Jackson and some black lawmakers have said that racial injustice was at the root of the disaster response.
