Day: March 1, 2006

How convenient for Ray.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said on Wednesday he was shocked by video showing U.S. President George W. Bush being told the day before Hurricane Katrina hit that the city’s protective levees could fail.

“It surprises me that if there was that kind of awareness, why was the response so slow?” said Nagin, whose city was devastated when the storm struck on August 29 and causing massive flooding.

“I have kind of a sinking feeling right now in my gut. I mean, I was listening to what people were saying and I was believing them that they didn’t know. So therefore it was an issue of a learning curve.

“From this tape it looks like everybody was fully aware.”

Nagin had a “sinking” feeling. Kind of like the same feeling we had when we saw Ray’s (lack of) preparedness.

The Associated Press has gotten their hands on video footage of a teleconference between members of FEMA and the President of the United States just a day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. In the video various officials give their take on how bad a disaster Katrina would be and voice concerns over various ‘what-if’ scenarios.

Don’t bother to watch the video or read the story. I’ll give you the whole thing right here.

If you were to watch this video without the narration of the AP reporter, you would see real people voicing human concerns. You’d see worry. You’d see seriousness. You’d see a commitment of help from various agencies including the White House. You’d see people trying to predict the unpredictable.

But that’s not what the Associated Press wants you to see, or hear. The AP, who obtained this video exclusively, uses the content in an attempt to prove that everyone from FEMA to state and local officials were begging; no, pleading with President Bush to understand the scale of the storm and react accordingly.

In other words, the premise of the AP story is as follows:

Everyone in the country knew Katrina was a big, bad, killer BEFORE the storm hit. The day before the storm, everyone in the country KNEW THE LEVEES WOULD BE BREACHED.

President Bush…

A. Knew how bad Katrina would be

B. Was warned a thousand times by EVERYONE

C. Had some supernatural power to stop the storm in its track

D. Didn’t use the supernatural power because he didn’t care a wit.

The president has already admitted that the federal government reacted slowly to Katrina and could have done better. State and local officials confessed their lack of coordination, and pointed to the failure of their communication apparatus on the ground as a major factor in the slowness of relief response.

EVERYONE has said they learned a serious lesson from Katrina. EVERYONE has pledged to do a better job next time.

But, that’s not enough.

The Associated Press and the rest of the MSM believe differently. The other people – the agencies, the state and local officials, the Governor of Louisiana, the Mayor of New Orleans and every Tom, Dick or Harry inhabiting the Gulf Coast region would have been spared and saved from Katrina if George W. Bush would have used his supernatural powers to stop the approaching storm. But he knowingly did nothing, and for that, Bush deserves to be impeached.

That’s what this AP story is all about.

President Bush made an unannounced stop in Afghanistan today while en route to India.

The US president’s un-scheduled stop in Kabul came as he made his way to New Delhi, where he was to be greeted by some of the most pro-American metropolitan elites in the world. Mr Bush’s approval ratings may have dropped to a low of 34 per cent at home, but in India, they are double that.

There was a lot of talk yesterday about that dubious approval rating percentage, yet the accuracy of the poll doesn’t seem to matter to MSNBC.

The Kabul visit was part of a four-day south Asian tour that has offered him the prospect of a rare foreign policy success. Accompanied by Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, and Stephen Hadley, national security adviser, Mr Bush behaved warmly towards Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, who hailed him as a friend and liberator of the Afghan people.

Behaved warmly? As opposed to what – misbehaving coldly? Weird.

Yet, at a press conference interrupted by the roar of military aircraft, Mr Bush struggled to explain why the Taliban were still a force in Afghanistan and why Osama Bin Laden, famously “wanted dead or alive”, was still on the loose.

Mr Bush said he was confident of the capture of the mastermind of the September 11 attacks and of Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. “It’s not a matter of if they’re captured, it’s a matter of when they’re brought to justice,” Mr Bush said.

Forget about the fact that Afghanistan is a mountainous region where it’s very easy to hide. That makes it difficult enough to find bin Laden. The other real problem is one of sympathy. There are many Afghanis who like bin Laden and are willing to help him. Likewise, the Pakistanis. As long as someone is willing to lie to keep bin Laden hidden, this cat and mouse game will continue.

That the White House felt it necessary to keep the visit secret speaks volumes about the unfinished job facing coalition forces in Afghanistan, where the US lost more lives last year than in any since the invasion and removal of the Taliban.

When reporters on Air Force One asked about a rumoured stopover in Afghanistan at a refuelling stop at Shannon airport in Ireland, Mr Hadlee responded curtly: “We’re briefing India and Pakistan. That’s the trip that we’re talking to you about.”

A similar information blackout surrounds his trip to Pakistan, for which no formal schedule has been published, reflecting unease at the swelling wave of anti-western riots triggered by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Ah, the MSM. Always looking for a controversy. A scandal. There is none of that here. Not announcing a stop over in Afghanistan is purely an issue of security. Just as Bush didn’t announce his surprise Thanksgiving Day visit to Iraq a couple of years ago, he can’t preannounce a visit to a place where terrorist attacks might occur. If the administration were to hype a visit like this, half a dozen suicide bombers would be raising their hands to voluntarily ‘meet’ the president at the airport.

I think this is just another case of the MSM feeling hurt by not being in the loop. They hate that.

Visiting Kabul is a smart move by the president. It serves a dual purpose – he gets to visit with a new American ally, President Hamid Karzai, and he gets an opportunity to be with US troops – always a morale booster.

As the World (of Saddam) Turns.

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein admitted on Wednesday he had ordered the trial of Muslim Shi’ites who were executed in the 1980s and said he had approved the “razing” of their farms.

Saddam made the extraordinary confessions during his second day in court this week, where prosecutors read out documents, showed satellite images and played audio tapes in an attempt to link Saddam to the execution of 148 Shi’ites after a 1982 assassination attempt on his life in Dujail.

“I referred them to the revolutionary court according to the law. Awad was implementing the law, he had a right to convict and acquit,” Saddam said, referring to his co-accused Awad al- Bandar, the former chief of the Revolutionary Court.

“I razed them … we specified the farmland of those who were convicted and I signed,” Saddam told the court trying him for crimes against humanity.

“It’s the right of the state to re-own or compensate. So where is the crime?”

It’s hard to know if Saddam is resigned to the fact that he’ll be convicted and executed for crimes against humanity. At certain points the ex-dictator speaks as if he believes he’s invincible. We’ve heard him say over and over again how he believes he’s still the president of Iraq. I’m he has people around him who give reports on the insurgent movement within the country. He could believe completely delusional and think that eventually the terrorists will win and that will usher in a triumphant return to power. At other times, he speaks as if he knows the odds are against him. Lunatic rantings? i doubt it. Deep down I would bet most people believe Saddam is a pretty smart guy, and he knows exactly what is happening to him and his country.

The trial has adjourned until March 12.