The Big Queasy

I developed a wicked ear infection from the Shark River Dive. Lord only knows what sort of bacteria is floating around in New Jersey channel water, despite the fact that sea life was abundant and the water clear as anything you would find in the Caribbean. After suffering silently for three days I had a doctor friend prescribe some Cipro-strength antibiotics. I looked them up on line and saw that they are usually used to treat things like the clap and other nasty bacterial infections. The ear feels somewhat better today but no diving for a couple of weeks for me. I even cancelled my NITROX class on Thursday because the thought of doing anything involving diving gives me an earache.

On the political front, Bush accepted “full-responsibility” for the post Katrina government failures which have delayed the rebuilding and intensified the suffering of the poor folks in the Big Easy. Unfortunately it is abundantly clear that “taking full responsibility” is a concept devoid of meaning for this president. While Bush spits out platitudes about rebuilding, the IRS has been instructed to audit the tax returns of thousands of New Orleans’s residents who claimed hurricane damage as a deduction on last year’s taxes, further delaying the refund checks desperately needed to assist residents in rebuilding. In fact, taxpayers form New Orleans were instructed to write “Hurricane Katrina Loss” in big red letters across the top of their tax returns, presumably so they could be more easily singled out for audits. (For more on this, click here.)

I guess the disturbing part of all this is the fact that while Katrina refugees are still sitting in the rubble of their houses anxiously awaiting federal rebuilding funds and tax refunds, information continually comes to light about how much chicanery was going on with the contracts doled out to the crazies’ friends by the Iraq Provisional Authority after the invasion. The government certainly wasn’t asking the hard questions then, were they? 60 Minutes ran a story a few weeks ago about a contract for security at Baghdad Airport that was paid for with two million dollars in cash, transported through the war zone in a duffel bag. In fact, nearly $12 billion in cash was shipped to Iraq and disbursed with virtually no financial controls or reliable accounting. The Administration also cannot account for over $8 billion transferred to Iraqi ministries.

Coalition Provisional Authority employees were seen tossing around football-sized $100,000 bricks of 100 bills inside the Green Zone, withdrawn from Federal Reserve accounts and flown to Iraq in the final days of the CPA’s control over the funds. That kind of money would have rebuilt a lot of houses in the Ninth Ward. Unlike the bureaucratic maze that poor, mostly black and uneducated Katrina survivors were forced to navigate to obtain rebuilding assistance, in Iraq, payments were made from the back of a pickup truck and cash was stored in unguarded sacks in Iraqi ministry offices…”
(Statement by Rep. Henry Waxman, June 21, 2005).

Once the corruption pertaining to these contracts came to light, did the government “take personal responsibility” for the problem and demand an internal audit like it anxiously audited Katrina victims? Not exactly. Paul Bremer’s first action after all of this nonsense came to light was to issue a CPA order immunizing U.S. contractors from any legal liability for human rights, labor or environmental violations stemming from their work in Iraq. According to the 60 minutes report there are currently 50 ongoing investigations involving suspected "fraud, kickbacks, bribery, waste."

Meanwhile, down in New Orleans, a number of reports have recently been released in a wierd sort of commeration of the one year anniversary of the disaster. Oxfam's report points out that $17 billion has been approved by Congress to rebuild homes in Louisiana and Mississippi, yet not one house has been rebuilt with that money in either state.

So where is this personal responsibility the President is taking and what form does it take? Is he grabbing a hammer and rebuilding houses like another (ex)president is in the habit of doing? Is he greasing the wheels of bureaucracy like he did for his contractor buddies in Iraq? Nah. He gave a speech that was long on rhetoric and short on substance then when the lights were turned off he split for higher ground.