So we have another Bush administration head serving at the pleasure of the President who didn’t know what was going on under his purview. Donald Powell who is Bush’s Gulf Coast hurricane recovery czar maintains he never saw the memofrom an Army Corps of Engineers expert which warned that the pumps ACE installed in NOLA were defective and likely to fail in a storm.
He also stated this on the risk that NOLA residents faced…
As for whether
the city was as safe as the Corps claimed, Powell said:“We got through
a hurricane season without a hurricane so we didn’t have to answer that
question.” (my emphasis)
That’s quite the cavalier attitude towards the lives of American citizens. He didn’t even rate this as requiring the ubiquitous “mistakes were made” statement.
Powell also stated…
“The corps is
working as fast it can to get the systems back up. The levee system is
better than it has ever been,” he said.
And that is to believed now?
Governor Blanco raises the important question…
“This could put a lot of our people in jeopardy,” Blanco said. “It begs the question: Are we really safe?”
She called for a congressional investigation into how the Corps allowed it to happen
This administration has been negligent and incompetent from Day 1 on the Katrina response and Gulf Coast recovery. Just why does Powell still serve at the pleasure of the Prez given the striking lack of progress on the Gulf Coast?
Lives are at stake. Enough is Enough.