http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050913/ts_afp/usweather_050913170535

here's the article:

Bush takes blame for government's storm failures

Tue Sep 13, 1:07 PM ET


NEW ORLEANS, United States (AFP) - Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf coast,    President George W. Bush accepted responsibility for the first time for the government's flawed rescue operation.

Speaking just a day after getting his first close-up view of the mess that Katrina made of New Orleans, Bush said the hurricane "exposed serious problems in our response capabilities at all levels of government."

"To the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility," Bush told a Washington press conference.

"I want to know what went right and what went wrong," he added, one day after the beleaguered head of the    Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Michael Brown, resigned amid a torrent of criticism of the agency's reaction to Katrina.

Bush was to make a speech Thursday outlining his long-term plans for the stricken region, which encompasses parts of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport, meanwhile, reopened to commercial traffic, giving a sorely-needed boost to the city martyred by the August 29 storm for which the official toll currently stands at 513 dead.

The facility welcomed a Northwest Airlines jet from Memphis, Tennessee, making the first non-relief or military flight to New Orleans since Katrina.

Two more passenger flights and a cargo flight were expected Tuesday, and the rhythm should rise to some 30 inbound and outbound movements within a week, airport spokesman Michelle Duffource said. Before Katrina, the airport hosted around 175 flights a day.

And in a further positive sign, a state official said that all Louisiana children separated from their parents had been reunited with their families or placed with close friends.

The state Department of Social Services identified 50 children alone among the hundreds of thousands of people evacuated when Katrina roared across the state, spokeswoman Nanette White said.

"They may not be with their parents, but they are with a family member or a friend or somebody that is taking care of them," she said. "We've reunited all the ones that were displaced."

The    Homeland Security Department said Monday that the number of people who had been obliged to seek refuge in shelters had fallen significantly, from 208,000 to 141,000.

Despite this good news, New Orleans remains a desolate sight, emptied of its half million people, who have scattered to northern Louisiana, neighbouring states or farther still.

The dark and pungent waters that smothered its streets after dams protecting the city were breached are slowly receding, but it is exposing a sludge of trash and debris and occasional corpses.

In one grim discovery in eastern New Orleans, relief workers found the bodies of 45 people in a hospital on Sunday.

Two specially equipped US Air Force C-130 planes started low altitude spraying of the city late Monday with insecticides in a bid to combat the spread of mosquito-borne disease, airforce spokesman Master Sergeant Paul Fazzini told AFP.

He said the main target zones had been picked out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the government's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (    CDC).

The economic cost of the disaster remains virtual guesswork.

A private consultancy, Risk Management Solutions, has sketched a figure of 125 billion dollars, some 100 billion more than the previous greatest natural disaster in the United States, inflicted by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said the city had spent its last available cash last week on paying its employees, and was seeking bank loans, federal help and other financial support to continue to pay its staff, the local newspaper, the Times-Picayune, reported on Tuesday.

"Technically today, we're out of cash," Nagin told city council members and state lawmakers in Baton Rouge on Monday. "The city is bankrupt. We have no money."

Bush's nuanced acknowledgement of responsibility coincides with a plunge in his approval ratings, driven by his perceived lack of leadership.

For several days after the storm, New Orleans was locked in a nightmare while the state and federal authorities, locked in confusion and poor communication, seemed almost impotent.

Tens of thousands of inhabitants were stranded in their homes as the floodwater rose and armed gangs and looters roamed the streets, while food, water and medical aid failed to arrive and the US military remained on standby.

Bush actually accepts repsonsibility of SOMETHING?? That's a shocker!  :o :o







Cat

Bush actually accepts repsonsibility of SOMETHING?? That's a shocker!  :o :o







Cat

I think the administration is desperate at this point!

Bush had no choice!  He had to accept responsibility for the absent and then slow as molasses response in order to save face.  His ineptitude and incompetence in these circumstances was just too great and too exposed.  There was no covering this up, there was no reasoning and there were no excuses or explanations in the world that could justify his and his administration's failures during this tragic catastrophe.  It seems everyone’s been playing pass the buck; but the buck stops there.  When all else fails, the President & the government were supposed to have been there and ready. They simply weren't. They were all undeniably absent, plain and simple.

It's about high time he admitted it publicly, even if only for his own political gain, reasons and agenda.