Hurricane Damage The Fault Of Iraq War Funding?
This could get ugly.
This will no doubt be the new rallying cry for leftists in the coming weeks. I'd point out, however, that the manner in which the war was funded does not imply anything about the neccessity of the objectives we have and are achieving in Iraq.
I have no idea how much of this is true. I do know that the people ultimately responsible for the budget are not at the White House but rather in Congress. The President proposes a budget, Congress passes it. Did everything transpire as this article describes it? I don't know. I do know, however, that Editor & Publisher is a publication where I have noticed some fairly biased reporting before, so I'll be taking this with a grain of salt until more facts emerge from more reputable sources.
It will be interesting to see who in Congress supported these budget cuts for these Corps projects.
Update:
More from the Chicago Times:
Read the whole thing.
After reading more on this, here's where I'm at:
Its clear that there should have been more done with these levees. The funding should have been there, the projects should have been completed. That being said, this cannot be used as an indictment of the Iraq war. The war was neccessary and it was the right decision. If funding the war put a squeeze on Congress maybe they should have cut back on the number of $1,500,000 bus stops they've funded.
New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The Times-Picayune web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming....Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness.
On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.
This will no doubt be the new rallying cry for leftists in the coming weeks. I'd point out, however, that the manner in which the war was funded does not imply anything about the neccessity of the objectives we have and are achieving in Iraq.
I have no idea how much of this is true. I do know that the people ultimately responsible for the budget are not at the White House but rather in Congress. The President proposes a budget, Congress passes it. Did everything transpire as this article describes it? I don't know. I do know, however, that Editor & Publisher is a publication where I have noticed some fairly biased reporting before, so I'll be taking this with a grain of salt until more facts emerge from more reputable sources.
It will be interesting to see who in Congress supported these budget cuts for these Corps projects.
Update:
More from the Chicago Times:
"I'm not saying it wouldn't still be flooded, but I do feel that if it had been totally funded, there would be less flooding than you have," said Michael Parker, a former Republican Mississippi congressman who headed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from October 2001 until March 2002, when he was ousted after publicly criticizing a Bush administration proposal to cut the corps' budget.
Read the whole thing.
After reading more on this, here's where I'm at:
Its clear that there should have been more done with these levees. The funding should have been there, the projects should have been completed. That being said, this cannot be used as an indictment of the Iraq war. The war was neccessary and it was the right decision. If funding the war put a squeeze on Congress maybe they should have cut back on the number of $1,500,000 bus stops they've funded.
Kevin
Rob
FlyOnTheWall
robert108
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Eddie_the_Hated
Rodney Graves
Mickey
