the can't do governement....NYT

[Guest guest]

September 2, 2005

 

New York Times - Op Ed

 

 

A Can't-Do Government

 

 

By PAUL KRUGMAN

 

Before 9/11 the Federal Emergency Management Agency listed the three most likely

catastrophic disasters facing America: a terrorist attack on New York, a major

earthquake in San Francisco and a hurricane strike on New Orleans. " The New

Orleans hurricane scenario, " The Houston Chronicle wrote in December 2001, " may

be the deadliest of all. " It described a potential catastrophe very much like

the one now happening.

 

So why were New Orleans and the nation so unprepared? After 9/11, hard questions

were deferred in the name of national unity, then buried under a thick coat of

whitewash. This time, we need accountability.

 

First question: Why have aid and security taken so long to arrive? Katrina hit

five days ago - and it was already clear by last Friday that Katrina could do

immense damage along the Gulf Coast. Yet the response you'd expect from an

advanced country never happened. Thousands of Americans are dead or dying, not

because they refused to evacuate, but because they were too poor or too sick to

get out without help - and help wasn't provided. Many have yet to receive any

help at all.

 

There will and should be many questions about the response of state and local

governments; in particular, couldn't they have done more to help the poor and

sick escape? But the evidence points, above all, to a stunning lack of both

preparation and urgency in the federal government's response.

 

Even military resources in the right place weren't ordered into action. " On

Wednesday, " said an editorial in The Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., " reporters

listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High

School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel

playing basketball and performing calisthenics. Playing basketball and

performing calisthenics! "

 

Maybe administration officials believed that the local National Guard could keep

order and deliver relief. But many members of the National Guard and much of its

equipment - including high-water vehicles - are in Iraq. " The National Guard

needs that equipment back home to support the homeland security mission, " a

Louisiana Guard officer told reporters several weeks ago.

 

Second question: Why wasn't more preventive action taken? After 2003 the Army

Corps of Engineers sharply slowed its flood-control work, including work on

sinking levees. " The corps, " an Editor and Publisher article says, citing a

series of articles in The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, " 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. "

 

In 2002 the corps' chief resigned, reportedly under threat of being fired, after

he criticized the administration's proposed cuts in the corps' budget, including

flood-control spending.

 

Third question: Did the Bush administration destroy FEMA's effectiveness? The

administration has, by all accounts, treated the emergency management agency

like an unwanted stepchild, leading to a mass exodus of experienced

professionals.

 

Last year James Lee Witt, who won bipartisan praise for his leadership of the

agency during the Clinton years, said at a Congressional hearing: " I am

extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to

disasters has been sharply eroded. 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. "

 

I don't think this is a simple tale of incompetence. The reason the military

wasn't rushed in to help along the Gulf Coast is, I believe, the same reason

nothing was done to stop looting after the fall of Baghdad. Flood control was

neglected for the same reason our troops in Iraq didn't get adequate armor.

 

At a fundamental level, I'd argue, our current leaders just aren't serious about

some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they

don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on preventive

measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice.

 

Yesterday Mr. Bush made an utterly fantastic cl.. that nobody expected the

breach of the levees. In fact, there had been repeated warnings about exactly

that risk.

 

So America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government

that makes excuses instead of doing its job. And while it makes those excuses,

Americans are dying.

 

are you a mod or are you a skin or are you a punk or are you just faking?