Landrieu blasts Rice over spurned aid

Secretary of state says donations received ‘used well’

11 May 2007 // WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu blasted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday over the Bush administration’s decision to spurn nearly $854 million offered by foreign allies in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In a meeting of a Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee on which she sits, a visibly perturbed Landrieu, D-La., blistered Rice about her agency’s failure to implement changes to the national disaster response plan to ensure the incident isn’t repeated.

“It is my understanding that no changes have been made,” Landrieu said. “There was a lot of money left on the table and the people of the Gulf Coast deserve better.”

Rice said $126 million had been collected from 122 countries. But a recent article in The Washington Post reported that only $40 million of the money has been used.

“A lot of the donations were used and used well,” Rice said. “This was an unprecedented event.”

Landrieu rattled off a list of materials the Bush administration turned away, including generators, communication systems, medical supplies and medical personnel.

“The people I represent were not able to take advantage of this aid,” Landrieu said.

Rice promised to get back to Landrieu about plans to correct the situation. Rice said much of the aid was directed to charity groups, such as the one headed by former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush.

“It was difficult for us to use what was suggested,” Rice said.

Landrieu read from an e-mail obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which uncovered the administration’s failure to accept the offers. State Department officials anguished over whether to tell Italy that shipments of medical supplies spoiled and were destroyed.

“Tell them we blew it,” someone in the State Department e-mailed.

Landrieu also noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, turned away a shipment of supplies from Switzerland. Germany offered much needed radios that were finally obtained after insistence by Army officials, some of whom were communicating by currier, Landrieu said.

“We have seen nothing like it since the Civil War,” Landrieu said.

Rice repeated her pledge to get to the bottom of the issue and report back to Landrieu.

“We are in the process of doing precisely that,” Rice said about recommendations for improvement.

In a related matter, Landrieu met late Wednesday with the president and CEO of ICF, the Virginia company handling the state’s troubled Road Home rebuilding program. Landrieu, chairwoman of the Disaster Recovery Subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, has scheduled a May 24 congressional hearing on the program.

Landrieu expressed concern over the slow pace of rebuilding awards and closings in addition to recent reports that the program may be up to $3 billion short of its needs.

“It is particularly disturbing that at the same time, ICF’s executives were being rewarded with outrageous bonuses,” Landrieu says in a statement.

Recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, indicate that ICF officials received as much as five times their annual salaries after landing the Louisiana contract.

“Our hearing will hold all accountable and will be a key step in charting the course forward to ensuring a reliable, effective and efficient rebuilding program,” Landrieu said.