The view from the Indian subcontinent

[steve2470]

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=77549

Bush gears up but too late for New Orleans

In Katrina’s Wake: Put to the test, the nation has failed, says Black America

MARK EGAN

Posted online: Sunday, September 04, 2005 at 0231 hours IST



NEW ORLEANS, SEPTEMBER 3: After days of broken promises, US troops have finally started moving emergency relief supplies into New Orleans, and are now trying to halt widespread looting and horrific violence even as they feed evacuees and move them to shelters in Texas.

A day after touring the destruction, President George W. Bush ordered thousands more troops to New Orleans on Saturday to help pull desperate refugees out of the hurricane-ravaged city, force looting gangs off the streets and find the dead.



‘‘Many of our citizens are not getting the help they need, especially in New Orleans, and that is unacceptable,’’ said Bush, who plans to return to the stricken region on Monday.

Bush, who rarely concedes errors, spoke amid withering criticism of the federal response to the decimation of one of the world’s famous cities and the death of possible thousands. He hopes to counter the impression he was slow to grasp the enormity of the disaster as corpses piled up in the streets of New Orleans, violent gangs ran rampant and survivors went for days without food and medicine.

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