"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees"

[BilltheButcher]

He was warned by several people that the levees could cause a major problem and they were all looking up to him just waiting for him to say something, just anything.

Anyone who lived in that area knows that New Orleans has been below sea level for years, its slowly sinking into the Gulf. Has been for the last hundred years. The levees have sucked for how many years? Through how many administrations?

The response sucked. All around from Bush on down, but giving everyone else a free pass is a joke.

[Songsangnim]

I don't even care *that* much about the response to the hurricane except for the warning about the levees. He was warned by several people that the levees could cause a major problem and they were all looking up to him just waiting for him to say something, just anything. All he had to say was like "Ok well let's do something about it", but instead he doesn't say a thing except "we are fully prepared...". Obviously he was wrong.

.

No he wasn't. In fact he was told (hours after the leeves were breached) that they were holding. He was given wrong information.

Here's a link that shows clearly who is responsible for what

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...2/210912.shtml

Especially read the first few sentences. Then the first page.

In fact the federal government had earmarked $600 million for vital repairs..but the locals complained about noise and went to court to stop it.

[MixmasterNash]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/arti...2/210912.shtml

Tee hee. Newsmax. Ha ha.

[Songsangnim]

Tee hee. Newsmax. Ha ha.

If you had bothered to read the article, you would have seen that they were referencing the Wall Street Journal.

[d'Anconia]

No he wasn't. In fact he was told (hours after the leeves were breached) that they were holding. He was given wrong information.

LOL, bro just click on that link in the original post. It shows him being briefed by officials and all that. I don't even know how you can argue against it. I'm not saying that others aren't responsible but what evidence you need to realize that he screwed up and lied about it.

I'm sorry but I just went to the home page for NewsMax and a lot of the stuff there looked pretty ridiculous.

But hey at least we got the Iran issue now to take the spotlight off the Prez. How convenient...

[Songsangnim]

LOL, bro just click on that link in the original post. It shows him being briefed by officials and all that. I don't even know how you can argue against it. I'm not saying that others aren't responsible but what evidence you need to realize that he screwed up and lied about it.

(1) I'm sorry but I just went to the home page for NewsMax and a lot of the stuff there looked pretty ridiculous.

(2) But hey at least we got the Iran issue now to take the spotlight off the Prez. How convenient...

1. As I said they were referencing the Wall Street Journal. A steel barge crashed through one of the leeves and the others were overflooded. Again nothing ties that to Bush or is his fault. If anything the residents of the Ninth Ward were at fault for stopping the repairs.


2. If the president of Iran had been less of a wack-job then maybe the spotlight would still be on Bush.

[mrelwooddowd]

1. As I said they were referencing the Wall Street Journal. A steel barge crashed through one of the leeves and the others were overflooded. Again nothing ties that to Bush or is his fault. If anything the residents of the Ninth Ward were at fault for stopping the repairs.


2. If the president of Iran had been less of a wack-job then maybe the spotlight would still be on Bush.

lol...you forgot "numbers are mine"

[Canadian Crippler]

Haha, I was thinking the same thing.

[Songsangnim]

You get where I am going with this...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4765058.stm

For starters, I don't quite take our President to be exactly representation of the right side of the spectrum.
Anyway, I could understand the President dealing with larger issues instead of smaller and more specific issues but the fact of the matter is that the broken levees caused a.) lots of damage, b.) lost lives of U.S. citizens, and c.) a lot of money to be spent on stuff that it did not need to be spent on.
I don't even like the idea that the citizens of NO were living there in the first place and want the rest of us to foot the bill for the damage BUT I don't see much of a way for anyone to defend the President on this one.

As President of the United States it is his sworn duty to help protect the American people and he absolutely failed this time to do it. Has the integrity of the office of the President gotten so low that it's okay for them to just blatantly lie to the public about this sort of thing? Where is his responsibility? As far as I'm concerned, a lot of those deaths and wasted money and property are on his hands.

Fine, we'll use your link. It makes my case as well.


Your own link says that the President was warned that water could OVERRUN the leeves NOT breach them. And the final briefing predicted MINIMAL flooding.

So given that the people responsible for briefing him gave him wrong information, I'd say the responsibility is on their heads. Obviously if anybody had even thought that Katrina could have caused a tenth of the damage it did, there would have been a lot more readiness.

[Songsangnim]

lol...you forgot "numbers are mine"

LOL...I think I've said it enough times for people to remember that, as your post proves. No need to keep repeating myself.

[d'Anconia]

Okay I read your article and it's pretty convenient how the eyewitness was a.) un-named and b.) they didn't know who the barge belonged to even though it was supposedly found later. I'm sorry but I find that suspicious.
Your article keeps talking about what 'supposedly' happened without any true evidence or support for the claims. Your article talks as if tons of people had been watching the events of the flooding take place but everyone had either evacuated or were in the dome by that point if i remember correctly.

I mean "barge broke from its moorings" but there's no quotes on anyone who witnessed that happen. The "flooding was instantaneous" but the eyewitness I guess was in a safe place(?). But again the article also just seems to be shifting the blame, which we've all seen enough of already.

BTW strangely enough, in the video in my link it shows the (assuming there was only one point where the levee failed) place where the levee failed and I didn't see any barge lying in the gap as your article stated.

[Songsangnim]

Okay I read your article and it's pretty convenient how the eyewitness was a.) un-named and b.) they didn't know who the barge belonged to even though it was supposedly found later. I'm sorry but I find that suspicious.
Your article keeps talking about what 'supposedly' happened without any true evidence or support for the claims. Your article talks as if tons of people had been watching the events of the flooding take place but everyone had either evacuated or were in the dome by that point if i remember correctly.

(1) I mean "barge broke from its moorings" but there's no quotes on anyone who witnessed that happen. The "flooding was instantaneous" but the eyewitness I guess was in a safe place(?). But again the article also just seems to be shifting the blame, which we've all seen enough of already.

(2) BTW strangely enough, in the video in my link it shows the (assuming there was only one point where the levee failed) place where the levee failed and I didn't see any barge lying in the gap as your article stated.

1. Well if a barge smashed through the levee, it's a pretty safe bet to say that it broke loose from its moorings. Come on now, barges aren't just left drifting about a river. As for the flooding, if you open up a 500 ft gap, again it's a pretty safe bet to say that, given the height of the river and the size of the gap.


2. I doubt that your video and my article were made at the same time. Your video was likely made later after the barge had been removed.

If that's all you've got those are VERY weak objections. As for the source, the article is using the Wall Street Journal's article as its source.

[d'Anconia]

Hmmm actually I did a search and it looks like you're actually right on this one. I'm wondering why it hasn't gotten more publicity though. In a USAToday article they were saying that a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the owner of the barge and they also had a pic of the barge still halfway in water and all. There was one engineering professor that said the barge may have come in after the levee was already broken but... he's a professor at Berkely LOL.

I just wonder why Bush and his admin haven't brought this up. He certainly doesn't seem to be good at defending himself.

[Tryska]

And let's not pretend ANYONE was prepared to deal with a flooded metropolis...

but the things is - those assfaces HAD been preparing for just this scenario:

http://www.fema.gov/news/newsrelease....fema?id=13051

so what the hell happenned?

[BCC]

i have jsut one question....

would things have gone down the same way if it were a terrorist attack?

Where I'm from terrorists can't make hurricanes, only GW.

[BilltheButcher]

Hmmm actually I did a search and it looks like you're actually right on this one. I'm wondering why it hasn't gotten more publicity though. In a USAToday article they were saying that a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the owner of the barge and they also had a pic of the barge still halfway in water and all. There was one engineering professor that said the barge may have come in after the levee was already broken but... he's a professor at Berkely LOL.

I just wonder why Bush and his admin haven't brought this up. He certainly doesn't seem to be good at defending himself.

Why didn't the beheadings get more publicity, why doesn't the economy and unemployment rate get more press, etc.etc. Because it isn't anti-bush. Its just sad that the two best of best were Bush and Kerry. Any other vote not for either of those two was a throw away vote.

[trunksy]

Where I'm from terrorists can't make hurricanes, only GW.

I think he's talking about something else. I can't speak for him but I think he's being critical of Bush's single-thought will fit in his head at a time, mentality. And right now, he has terrorist on the brain and can't seem to think of anything else. He's saying that because it didn't fit into his all encompassing "you're either with us or against us" mentality (mother nature is neutral), it wasn't important enough for Bush to get his hands dirty with. I'm so done with Bush's Axis of Evil religious bullcrap. Then again, I'm agnostic.

For the folks that are critical of just Bush or just the local government, the Presidential Report on Katrina seems to think that there's more than enough blame to go around:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/reports/ka...ssons-learned/

I hate when people read a snippet on something, believe all the connotations of that article and instantly become experts on the subject without actually going out and researching the subject even a little. I don't claim to know the answers but at least I look for somewhat comprehensive perspective and not just a single snippet of information. As the report linked above states, blame can be placed at all levels of government to the localities all the way up to Bush. Specifically, toward Bush in terms of the creation of a "fog of war" that created all kinds of problems for FEMA long before Katrina. From the increased beaurocracy and confusion of DHS between the White House and FEMA to funding and personnel(knowledge) that had been diverted to DHS to the point where 7 out of 10 FEMA regions had acting directors that were pulling double duty as deputy directors and acting directors and 3 out of 4 divisions in FEMA HQ having acting directors that were pulling double duty as deputy directors and acting directors like the regional offices. It's all in the report. You're welcome to read the report in the link above if you're really interested on knowing about the government's response to Katrina. There's also lots more stuff that you can look up through Google if you so desire.