"NOYB" wrote in message
link.net...

Bush sent more funding to NO to sure up the levees than any of his
predecessors.

Doesn't matter much:

NY Times
September 13, 2005
Katrina's Message on the Corps

There has been much grumbling that Congress and the Bush administration
denied the Army Corps of Engineers the money that was required to fortify
New Orleans against a hurricane like Katrina. These complaints need to be
pursued. Flood control is mainly a federal obligation, and the agency most
responsible for it must have enough money to do the job right.

But there is another question worth asking: has the Army Corps made wise use
of the money it has? Louisiana has received about $1.9 billion over the past
four years for corps civil works projects, more than any other state.
Although much of this has been spent to protect New Orleans, a lot has also
been spent on unrelated water projects - a new and unnecessary lock in the
New Orleans Industrial Canal, for instance, and dredging little-used
waterways like the Red River - mainly to serve the barge industry and other
commercial interests.

The Louisiana delegation, second to none in bringing home the bacon, is as
much to blame for these skewed priorities as the corps is. Yet the reports
of wasted dollars in Louisiana are consistent with the corps's historical
profile. Studies by the Government Accountability Office, the National
Academy of Sciences and others have documented that the agency has long
inflated the economic payoffs of its projects to justify ever greater budget
outlays, while underestimating the environmental damage caused by turning
free-flowing rivers into lifeless canals and destroying millions of acres of
valuable wetlands. This satisfies the corps's appetite for money and
Congress's appetite for pork.

Katrina thus raises an even broader question: has the time not come,
finally, to impose some real discipline on the Army Corps and its paymasters
in Congress who regard it as their own cookie jar?

Both the present commander, Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, and his predecessor have
promised internal reforms. But the lead must come from Congress, where
enlightened reformers like Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold are
pushing independent peer review for individual projects and other changes
that might truly make a difference.

Unfortunately, many other senators - not just those from Louisiana - are
powerfully addicted to corps projects and the votes they attract, especially
Christopher Bond of Missouri, who controls the corps's budget and has
single-handedly kept alive a nonessential barge industry on the Missouri
River at great cost to the environment and taxpayers. To discipline the
corps, Congress must first discipline itself.