Dean rips into GOP over relief efforts

Published 9:00 pm Friday, April 21, 2006

NEW ORLEANS – Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, touring a neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina, ripped into the Bush administration Friday for failing to move faster to clean up the city and predicted that voters will punish President Bush and the Republican Party for what he called the federal government’s inadequate response to the storm.

“I think it’s a searing, burning issue, and I think it’s going to cost George Bush his legacy, and it’s going to cost the Republicans the House and Senate (in November), and maybe very well the presidency in the next election,” Dean said on his first visit to New Orleans since the hurricane hit. “People will never forget this.”

Dean’s comments reopened a political debate that first erupted in the weeks after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in late August, when the White House and the Federal Emergency Management Agency were roundly criticized for their failure to responded more effectively after rising waters breached the city’s levees and inundated large areas of the city.

The former Vermont governor said a more effective federal government by now would have removed the large piles of trash, wrecked cars, uprooted trees and other debris that lines streets in the neighborhoods hit worst. “Nine months after the hurricane, to have this – this is ridiculous,” he said.

Republicans responded sharply to Dean’s criticism. “It’s sad that Howard Dean and the Democrats would once again look to exploit this human tragedy for political gain,” said Brian Jones, communications director for the Republican National Committee.

White House deputy press secretary Ken Lisaius said that 80 percent of nondemolition debris, totaling about 80 million cubic yards, already had been removed in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast and said much of what remains is on private property. He said the federal government will continue to pay 100 percent of the cost of removing debris until June 30 and 90 percent thereafter.

Aiming directly at Dean, he said: “Unlike some who travel to the region to participate in one-stop photo ops to point fingers, the president has made a firm commitment to provide the Gulf Coast region with the relief and rebuilding effort they require. That’s why we have made over $87.5 billion in direct relief available to the region.”

Dean, in New Orleans for the DNC’s spring meeting, traveled to the 9th Ward, the scene of some of the most severe flooding. There he donned a white protective suit and, along with other DNC members, joined volunteers from the group ACORN in helping to gut and remove debris from the brick home of Vincent Copper, 68. Other DNC members have spent parts of their days here volunteering in the cleanup effort at several locations.

Surveying the scene along the narrow street where waters appeared to have risen to 10 feet or more, Dean claimed Democrats would have done better.

“If Bill Clinton was in the White House, this neighborhood wouldn’t look like this,” he said. “These houses wouldn’t be rebuilt because that’s going to take some time and some money and so forth and so on. But this neighborhood would be cleaned up and these houses would be cleaned up.”