U.S. failed to utilize foreign assistance for Katrina, CREW reveals
CREW provided thousands of pages of documents to the Washington Post that revealed how the federal government failed to take advantage of offers of assistance from foreign nations after Hurricane Katrina. The documents can be found on our website here. The United States government didn't collect most of the $854 million offered:
The struggle to apply foreign aid in the aftermath of the hurricane, which has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $125 billion so far, is another reminder of the federal government's difficulty leading the recovery. Reports of government waste and delays or denials of assistance have surfaced repeatedly since hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in 2005.
Administration officials acknowledged in February 2006 that they were ill prepared to coordinate and distribute foreign aid and that only about half the $126 million received had been put to use. Now, 20 months after Katrina, newly released documents and interviews make clear the magnitude of the troubles.
More than 10,000 pages of cables, telegraphs and e-mails from U.S. diplomats around the globe -- released piecemeal since last fall under the Freedom of Information Act -- provide a fuller account of problems that, at times, mystified generous allies and left U.S. representatives at a loss for an explanation. The documents were obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a public interest group, which provided them to The Washington Post.
In one exchange, State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that its shipments of medicine, gauze and other medical supplies spoiled in the elements for weeks after Katrina's landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and were destroyed. "Tell them we blew it," one disgusted official wrote. But she hedged: "The flip side is just to dispose of it and not come clean. I could be persuaded."
Add it up
The total cost of the war, the dislocations to this society, the money into Halliburton's pockets and thence into the coffers of Bush&CO, keeping in mind that the original justification (a nuclear weapons program only months from completion, we were told) was fabricated by persons in the administration, now to be grilled by Congressional oversight at last. This country is on the verge of a one-party system. Not good, but see how the two party system has failed these past six years to save the country from this. Something is broke.
Sadam was no Wahabi berserker but a Baathist and so kept that stuff suppressed in his country, and pretty well, too, but see now what we have at the hands of Bush&co.
And speaking of Wahabi berserkers, how many has that Homeland monster nabbed in all these years? at a cost of over $250 billion? Six? And who let them into this country?
Keeping in mind that the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, the Coast Guard, nor the CIA nor the FBI, which had intelligence which it fumbled, and not for the first time, nor the local law enforcement, the whole of this multi-trillion dollar would-be protection does not suffice for the job, we had to add on another great fumbling, bungling, bumbling bureaucracy that doesn't work, either. But never mind, because Junior needed a personal police force, whose first director on stepping down called for torture to be used in this country. What say you, Congressional investigators? Shall we?
Remember how Junior swore that he would find Bin Laden? Well, he had him, very early, and allowed him to slip away. But he's still there, holed up in the mountains, and Junior has made no attempt to nab him. He serves too well as a boogieman for spooking the country and furthering Junior's work.
There can be made an argument that this country has been betrayed. And in time of war, too. Hmmmm. Anyone got a rope?
Iraq and Qatrina
How much of that aid was shipped to Iraq, I wonder. Everything else went there, including milk that was intended for our own schoolchildren, many of whom had to go without.
$125 billion so far
is another reminder of what is happening to this country. Irresponsible officials allowed the levee to decay and no provisions were made for the inevitable emergency. Whose fault was that? Not mine, nor yours. But we are stuck with the bill for the damages, and those who bring about the disaster point at others so to deflect the blame. And guess what... It works.
Thank you for your hard work
I just want to express my gratitude for your tireless work in uncovering the mess this administration's made. It's heartening to know that there are such staunch seekers of truth like you.
excellent work as always, CREW
It's hard to know what to think any longer of this administration. How much is attributable to incompetence? How much to indifference to suffering? How much to arrogance? And is malice in the mix?
Which countries offered the bulk of the oil? Was Bush simply unwilling to accept gifts from those countries?
Also, I'm curious why you handed these documents over to the Washington Post before writing up your own assessment of them?
--smintheus
It's hard to know what to think of this administration....
It has to do with the caliber of George Bush. The man is quite flawed, and that determines the quality of people that he can recruit to his cause.
Thank you CREW!!!!
Thank you for more of your absolutely brilliant work that you partake in on behalf of all us un-connected Americans who care.
It is important to remember the context in which this donated cash was not collected. Remember the Princess Cruise Liners that were lined sitting empty at the docks while the company collects taxpayer money.
These radical right-wingers figure out how to make money for their buddies and that is the end of their interest in public policy. The human carnage of Katrina didn't even rattle these dirtbags. Remember Barbara Bush saying that all the human refugees sheltering in the Texas sporting arena were "actually doing pretty darn well out of this whole thing."
I'm guessing Barbara Bush and the rest of the ugly paranoid, hyper-selfish, right-wing brethren. These folks basically believe that they know all about homelessness because they once went without a summer home when finances were tight.
These folks are shameless and the reference to "Echo-Chamber" is truly chilling. Anyone who is not familiar with Orwell's 1984 or even anyone who hasn't read it for awhile should read it. Karl Rove and his team must have read it and thought it was a "how-to" manual. It is chilling.
Schooling
I read "1984" as a youth. I also read "Brave New World" and "Animal Farm". You are right: the vision contained in these writings is chilling. These writings made a profound impression and have shaped my political philosophy from the first. And to me this administration has actualized the horrors that those writings tried to warn about.
I feel that our freedoms and liberties are threatened and that those institutions that should safeguard our rights have been corrupted to the purpose of eroding our rights and I feel alarm, like so many others who have not been duped by this administration.
And it is clear to me that the man behind this is George Bush, father and son. It is also clear to me that the present havoc in our political system has largely to do with whether or not this country will be saved and whether these two and their accomplices will go to prison for their crimes against their fellow citizens. May it be provided that they do.
I also wish to say that I regard myself as a conservative, and that I have been so since my youth.
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NYT April 29,
NYT
April 29, 2007
Inspectors Find Rebuilt Projects Crumbling in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ
In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.
The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success — in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections — were no longer working properly...
Officials at the oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said they had made an effort to sample different regions and various types of projects, but that they were constrained from taking a true random sample in part because many projects were in areas too unsafe to visit. So, they said, the initial set of eight projects — which cost a total of about $150 million — cannot be seen as a true statistical measure of the thousands of projects in the roughly $30 billion American rebuilding program...
Curiously, most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage stemming from Iraq’s parlous security situation, but instead were the product of poor initial construction, petty looting, a lack of any maintenance and simple neglect.