One year after Katrina disaster: No accountability for US political elite

Local, state and federal governments had all failed to meet the needs of the people of the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf coast, he said, recalling the “terrible scenes that we never thought we would see in America: citizens drowned in their attics, desperate mothers crying out on national TV for food and water, the breakdown of law and order and a government, at all levels, that fell short of its responsibilities.”

Bush added, “I take full responsibility for the federal government’s response.” What exactly this “taking full responsibility” actually means he did not say. Only one federal official has been removed over Katrina—FEMA director Michael Brown, who was seeking to leave the agency even before the hurricane struck, and served as useful scapegoat for the bankruptcy of an entire political system.

No local or state officials have lost their jobs either, including Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, who was reelected in May, and the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi, Democrat Kathleen Blanco and Republican Haley Barbour.

The anniversary commemoration ceremonies in both states were exercises in political cover-up, with the inevitable invocations of God—to distract attention from the human responsibility for the deaths of nearly 2,000 people—as well as paeans to the efforts of individuals to rebuild their lives, although such efforts cannot possibly be sufficient to meet the enormous social needs in the wake of Katrina.

The scale of the crisis bears repeating:

* A death toll of 1,600 in Louisiana, most of them New Orleans residents, including 300 who died in other states of the lingering health effects of the disaster, as well as 231 people in Mississippi

* More than 250,000 homes destroyed or damaged beyond repair

* The displacement of 278,000 workers from their jobs

* The displacement of 116,000 households, comprising nearly one million people, to mobile homes and other shelters

* The ongoing closure of half of New Orleans public transportation, 60 percent of its public schools, two thirds of its hospitals and half its retail food establishments.

In comparison to the vast scale of this devastation, the rebuilding effort remains puny. In Mississippi, 17,000 families have applied for federal grants for home repairs, but checks have been distributed to only a few dozen. Overall, only five percent of severely damaged homes are being rebuilt. Less than 40,000 residential building permits have been issued in the hurricane-devastated region, enough to replace less than one-sixth of the destroyed homes.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/aug2006/bush-a30.shtml