Newsletter Numéro 29                                                            7 September 2005    

 

Robert S. Rivkin(*)

(*) Robert S. Rivkin, author of GI Rights and Army Justice (Grove Press, N.Y. 1970), is a San Francisco lawyer who has trained foreign judges and prosecutors on human rights and rule of law issues.
 

A POST-HURRICANE SPEECH  THAT BUSH  WON’T MAKE

             In his weekly radio address to the nation this past Saturday,  President George W. Bush attempted to sanitize the blistering criticism from virtually all shades of the  political spectrum which he and his Administration had received for its handling of the tragic (and partly avoidable) Hurricane Katrina  calamity. 

            Words like “death,” “chaos,” “anarchy,” “squalor”, “incompetence” and “national disgrace”  --  which were among the most descriptive and emotive ones uttered last week by thousands of people  --  were omitted from the President’s speech. 

            So, I am offering here a straightforward address to the nation that President Bush could give next Saturday.  If actually delivered, this speech could go a long way towards resuscitating his shattered credibility as a leader:  

My fellow Americans.  First, I want to apologize to you, and particularly to the citizens of Mississippi, Louisiana and New Orleans, for my Administration’s failure adequately to prepare for Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.   I apologize especially for our excruciating slowness in getting life-supporting essentials  -- food, clean water and medicine  --   to the flood victims in New Orleans.  Sadly, I realize that the Federal Government’s  inexcusable delay of at least two days in providing these essential items caused many  unnecessary deaths, and unnecessarily prolonged the agony for thousands of mostly poor, black citizens of the United States, who were barely surviving in disgusting conditions.    For that I am truly sorry. 

I confess that last week, I tried to excuse our  neglect by claiming that “I didn’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”   Also, I’m aware that  my Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff,  has claimed  that this was an “ultra-catastrophe” (a hurricane plus a flood); and that nobody could have reasonably predicted that both would happen at the same time.   We were both wrong.

My Administration will no longer try to shift blame  to others nor to an “uncooperative” Mother Nature.   Years ago, experts tried to warn the Army Corps of engineers that a category 4 or 5 hurricane would likely overwhelm the levees and flood most of New Orleans.  The Corps dismissed these experts’ warnings as overblown.  Just last year, in its October issue, the National Geographic Magazine published an article that predicted a scenario for New Orleans that was eerily close to what has taken place.   The author wrote:

“The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain . . . Nearly 80 percent of Orleans lies below sea level … so the water poured in.  A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columened porches of the Garden district, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse.  As it reached 25 feet … over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it. Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste.  Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dyhdration and disease as they waited to be rescued… It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States .  When did this calamity happen?   It hasn’t – yet.  But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched.”

My fellow Americans, that was published in the October 2004 edition of the National Geographic.   Similar warnings were published years before.  So you see, my comments, as well as those of  Secretary Chertoff , were misleading.  We should have and could have done more than we did to prepare the government to respond to this hurricane as it bore down on the Gulf coast. 

What actually happened was almost exactly what the scientists predicted.  Hurricane Katrina ripped through the coasts of  Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday, August 29th.   By Tuesday, August 30th ,  I knew that the levees protecting New Orleans had been breached.  On Wednesday,  August 31st, I  flew over flooded New Orleans on my way back to the White House from my vacation.  I did not insist that military units immediately airlift food, water and medicines  to the thousands of desperate people at the Superdome and Convention Center.    I failed to insist that National Guard units be immediately provided to back up the overwhelmed New Orleans police department.   My failure contributed to the lawlessness that continued at least until Saturday.  

The result was that by Friday, September 2nd,  when substantial  aid finally began to arrive, many people  --    mainly the elderly and seriously ill  --  had perished.  This did not have to happen. 

I will say  that I had no idea just how incompetent my director of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), Michael D.  Brown, actually was.  I now know, and I have just fired him and will replace him with experts who know what they are doing.

We must look to the future.  So far as I am aware, nobody in the Federal Government has yet told you – straight out  --  the enormity of the tasks which confront us as a nation.  I will do that now.   We must not only repair the physical damage to the Mississippi coast and New Orleans.  We have a moral obligation to the hundreds of thousands of surviving victims of this mammoth calamity to restore  a sense of normalcy to their lives.    

Last week,  experts predicted that the cost of rebuilding the destroyed areas would be $25 billion.   Then, others raised the predictions to as much as $100 billion.  Let me tell you right now that the  losses resulting from  this national nightmare will almost certainly total  half a trillion dollars in the next five or six years.    Maybe more.    Included in that number  are the costs not only of rebuilding, but  of relocating hundreds of thousands of people, not in temporary shelters like the Astrodome, but in homes – at least for the medium term – by which I mean six months to three years.

This astoundingly  large group of  displaced American citizens must  be housed.  It is the Federal Government’s  obligation to find them housing  -- as soon as possible, so that their continued suffering – being forced to live communally  in sports stadiums  --  is not prolonged.   It must be done so they can have privacy.  So they can have dignity.  So they can have hope for the future.

Therefore, I am instructing the Secretary of Defense to provide a list of domestic military bases where empty and  under-utilized barracks, apartments and houses are located.    For those refugees who want to be housed in federal military housing, we should provide not only housing, but educational facilities, medical care and the possibility of finding new jobs.  For others, the government should provide funds to help integrate these American citizens into other communities throughout the United States.   For those refugees who want to work on rebuilding New Orleans and Mississippi  communities, the Federal Government should set up a 21st century equivalent to the WPA (Works Progress Administration), the highly successful program introduced by President Franklin Roosevelt, to provide jobs to people who want to help rebuild their own communities. 

Insurance companies, private industry, charitable and religious organizations will of course all pitch in to help make life livable again for our fellow citizens.  But they cannot provide the guidance, the infrastructure and the financial muscle.  In a crisis as huge as this one, that is the obligation of the Government  --  any government.

Therefore, I am submitting  legislation to Congress to make this happen.  It will be expensive.  It will necessitate an increase in the tax burden, especially  for those Americans who are better off  than others.     But, in the long run, it will be worth it by enhancing  cohesiveness, equality and justice in our society.  And it will enhance our prosperity as well.  

I realize that I am urging a new approach towards disaster relief and reconstruction;  and that this noble project may not generate profits for private contractors that earlier projects have done.    I realize that this approach may surprise  and disappoint, some who, like myself, have long embraced the concept of  “the less government, the better.”

Philosophically, that still appeals to me.  But we must be pragmatic. Monumental catastrophes require extraordinary flexibility.  Fixed ideological positions must be abandoned.  We are a country in crisis.  We cannot afford to exacerbate racial divisions. We need to pull together.  We cannot neglect those most desperately in need. Everyone needs to share the burdens.  

For those who may find this new approach difficult – get used to it. 

Thank you, and God Bless America.  

 

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