Far from Victory in New Orleans

The Century Foundation:

"President Bush’s series of speeches on rebuilding Iraq while some half a million New Orleans and Gulf Coast families remain homeless or under threat of eviction forces us to acknowledge our nation’s priorities. Since his September 15 speech in Jackson Square, President Bush has said little about Katrina. There have been no grand “strategies for victory” for rebuilding and resettling the Gulf Coast. While Congress approved $60 billion in aid to the region, states and residents affected have received virtually none of it.

While it is perhaps easy to attribute the slow rebuilding efforts in New Orleans to its unique geographical situation and the fact that it was under water for so many days, no other areas of the Gulf Coast are rebuilding either. Even Republican Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi, who often was at Bush’s side during the president’s few visits to the affected region, recently testified that his state cannot rebuild because it lacks the federal funds to do so."