Bush Family To NOLA: Go Ahead And Sink

Unbelievable.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070314/ap_on_re_us/katrina_faulty_pumps

Paging Mr. Dangerously. Mr. J Dangerously.

 

Does Bush bear some responsibility in ensuring that the area is "fixed" correctly? Absolutely. But its the Army COE, usually a pretty solid bunch, who jacked this one up. They should definitely be called to the carpet for this one.

Sorry, Fen, but in pseudo-military instances like this, I'm well aware of how the chain of command works and how long it can take for something like this to filter all the way up to the president. The onus is clearly on the COE guy in charge.

 

But I don't believe these facts are unrelated:

The drainage-canal pumps were custom-designed and built under a $26.6 million contract awarded after competitive bidding to Moving Water Industries Corp. of Deerfield Beach, Fla. It was founded in 1926 and supplies flood-control and irrigation pumps all over the world.

MWI is owned by J. David Eller and his sons. Eller was once a business partner of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps. And Eller has donated about $128,000 to politicians, the vast majority of it to the Republican Party, since 1996, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

MWI has run into trouble before. The U.S. Justice Department sued the company in 2002, accusing it of fraudulently helping Nigeria obtain $74 million in taxpayer-backed loans for overpriced and unnecessary water-pump equipment. The case has yet to be resolved.

Because of the trouble with the New Orleans pumps, the Corps has withheld 20 percent of the MWI contract, including an incentive of up to $4 million that the company could have collected if it delivered the equipment in time for the 2006 hurricane season.

Misgivings about the pumps were chronicled in a May 2006 memo provided to the AP by Matt McBride, a mechanical engineer and flooded-out Katrina victim who, like many in New Orleans, has been closely watching the rebuilding of the city's flood defenses.

The memo was written by Maria Garzino, a Corps mechanical engineer overseeing quality assurance at an MWI test site in Florida. The Corps confirmed the authenticity of the 72-page memo, which details many of the mechanical problems and criticizes the testing procedures used.

 

I think, after what happened during the storm, the rebuilding of NOLA at the very least ought to be a crony-free zone.

 

No argument there. I just don't feel like blaming Bush anytime anything negative happens.

 

Dammit, Fenian.

Bush was taken to task right after Katrina for not making meaningless gestures of sympathy soon enough or well enough to suit you lefties.

Now he goes and makes an expensive and meaningless gesture to protect the citizens to keep you commies off his back and you're still not happy.

The fact that his bro's cronies got a little sumpin in the deal is irrelevant.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but don't the people in the Netherlands have this down?
That whole country is below sea level and they seem to manage. Why not just copy what they are doing?

 

We'd have to legalize marijuana to make that happen.

 

Plus, this administration doesn't seem to be fond of dikes.

 

He'll be here all week folks...

 

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