Can We Start Talking About Why This Happened Yet?

Where to start in the ongoing disaster...?

It's not just the troops who are missing, it's their equipment too:

The National Guard's scramble to bring aid and order to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is hamstrung by the fact that units across the country have, on average, half their usual amount of equipment -- helicopters, Humvees, trucks, and weapons -- on hand because much of it has been siphoned off to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to military officials and security specialists.

Which helps explain why Homeland Security is telling the RED CROSS to stay out: Renita Hosler, spokeswoman for the Red Cross., says there is a transport bottleneck.

"The Homeland Security Department has requested and continues to request that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans. Right now access is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities. We have been at the table every single day [asking for access]. We cannot get into New Orleans against their orders... The situation is like an hourglass, and we are in the smallest part right now. Everything is trying to get through it."

A Salvation Army rescue operation by boat was also thwarted debris and electrical wires which made passage impossible. Obviously what's needed now is still what was needed six days ago: an air rescue operation. The US military can drop 500kg bombs on Baghdad for a week on end, but they can't get anybody into New Orleans? Why not?

CNN has a good look at the disconnect between what politicians are saying and what's been happening on the ground. This is one reality scenario where the neo-conservative fantasy just isn't going to cut it. As one former Bush fan says:

Neoconservatism has always been an ideology dependent on the global projection of national power. What gave it its strength was that after 9/11, Americans were so angry at the assault that they wanted to go overseas and attack those responsible – thus was 'The War on Terror' born. They were lied into thinking that the removal of Saddam Hussein would make the world a safer and more prosperous place. Clearly it hasn’t; if anything, you’re more at risk riding the Tube now than you were three years ago. The lie has been shown not to stand up; and when that has not only failed but has been shown to have failed, what can an ideology based on the global projection of national power do when confronted with a crisis which shows it to be nationally powerless?

Nothing. The collapsed levees of New Orleans will have consequences for neoconservatism just as long and deep as the collapse of the Wall in East Berlin had on Soviet Communism; for when hacks and fulminators like John Podhoretz are openly criticizing the president, the Great Leader, the ideology is on the way out. And hopefully all of those who urged the ideology on, myself included, will have a long time to consider the error of our ways.

Damn straight. And there's plenty of food for thought available at Josh Marshall's blog:

- Guess who has been hired by the Navy to repair its damaged facilities in Mississippi? Halliburton.

- The head of FEMA, Michael Brown, is a lawyer and GOP party activist who Bush still says is "doing a helluva job". Really? If you disagree, this might explain a few things:

Before he came to FEMA in 2001, he had a full-time job overseeing horse-shows as the commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association. He started with them in 1991. But he was eventually fired because of what the Herald describes as "after a spate of lawsuits over alleged supervision failures."

But the stars were shining on Brown because President Bush had just been elected. And he appointed his chief political fixer Joe Allbaugh to replace James Lee Witt as head of FEMA.

That was a good break for the recently-canned Brown, because, as we learn from the Herald, he and Allbaugh were college roommates. He hired Brown as his General Counsel at FEMA in February. And then, by the end of the year, he promoted him to Deputy Director.

Then, little more than a year later, Allbaugh left FEMA to set up New Bridge Strategies, a consultancy to cash in on the Iraqi contracts bonanza. On Allbaugh's departure from FEMA, Brown became Director, in charge of federal domestic emergency management in the United States.

- After Condi Rice was seen buying shoes, Marhsall asks "Where's Dick Cheney?" Answer: visiting an oil facility and hosting a fundraiser in for Sen. Jim Talent. Politics 101: stay away from bad news stories.

- Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff is telling lies coz he's got a whole lot to answer for. From the DHS website:

In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective recovery effort.

This is a story that is going to run and run, so perhaps it's no coincidence that the TV trial of Saddam has finally been announced. Yeah, yeah: call me a cynic.