By Sidney BlumenthalIn 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane striking New Orleans was one of thethree most likely disasters in the U.S. But the Bush administration cut NewOrleans flood control funding by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.
Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has leftmillions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds tothousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated cityof New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the damagewrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act ofnature.
A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how NewOrleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bushadministration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a floodkilled six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast Louisiana UrbanFlood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers strengthened andrenovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001, the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency issued a report stating that a hurricane striking NewOrleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S., including aterrorist attack on New York City. But by 2003 the federal funding for theflood control project essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraqwar. In 2004, the Bush administration cut funding requested by the NewOrleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back thewaters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts atthe beginning of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to imposea hiring freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing NewOrleans' levees, but it was too late.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published aseries on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are nowunderwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ...Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions arebeing asked about the lack of preparation."
The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developersalmost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the stormsurge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlandssurrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the CrescentCity and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no netloss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration andbolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in 2003,unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and theEnvironmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer protectwetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.
In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groupsconducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlandsprotection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less aCategory 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless apolicy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of thereport's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council onEnvironmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," andboasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."
"My administration's climate change policy will be science based,"President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the EnvironmentalProtection Agency submitted a study on global warming to the United Nationsreflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a report put out by abureaucracy," and excised the climate change assessment from the agency'sannual report. The next year, when the EPA issued its first comprehensive"Report on the Environment," stating, "Climate change has globalconsequences for human health and the environment," the White House simplydemanded removal of the line and all similar conclusions. At the G-8meeting in Scotland this year, Bush successfully stymied any common actionon global warming. Scientists, meanwhile, have continued to accumulateimpressive data on the rising temperature of the oceans, which has producedmore severe hurricanes.
In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20 Nobellaureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity inPolicymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large partin the policies that have made the United States of America the world'smost powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by presidents andadministrations of both parties in forming and implementing policies. Theadministration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle... The distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends mustcease." Bush completely ignored this statement.
In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of scienceby ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The FederalDrug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of themorning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific evidenceof its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory board. TheUnited Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused the Bushadministration of responsibility for a condom shortage in Uganda -- theresult of the administration's evangelical Christian agenda of"abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice Statistics in theJustice Department was ordered by the White House to delete its study thatAfrican-Americans and other minorities are subject to racial profiling inpolice traffic stops and he refused to buckle under, he was forced out ofhis job. When the Army Corps of Engineers' chief contracting oversightanalyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid contract awarded for work in Iraqto Halliburton (the firm at which Vice President Cheney was formerly CEO),she was demoted despite her superior professional ratings. At the NationalPark Service, a former Cheney aide, a political appointee lackingprofessional background, drew up a plan to overturn past environmentalpractices and prohibit any mention of evolution while allowing sale ofreligious materials through the Park Service.
On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech inColorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin D.Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and stability tothe region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had boarded his very own"Streetcar Named Desire."
Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to PresidentClinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for Salonand the Guardian of London.
