Bush: We didn't do enough

2005-09-03 08:34

A man and his dog try to leave flooded New Orleans. (AP)

New Orleans - Under fire, President George W Bush acknowledged on Friday that the early government reaction to Hurricane Katrina was "not acceptable" and vowed to do better as he toured areas devastated by the killer storm.

Bush, on a day-long visit to the battered states of Alabama, Mississippi and the flooded and lawless city of New Orleans, Louisiana, said the region seemed to have been "obliterated by the worst kind of weapon you can imagine."

And with much of the world aghast and Washington's response facing fierce criticism at home, he qualified his days-long defence of relief efforts, saying as he left the White House that "the results are not acceptable."

"My attitude is, if it's not going exactly right, we're going to make it go exactly right. If there's problems, then we'll address the problems," Bush said at the airport in Mobile, Alabama, with idle helicopters as his backdrop.

'National disgrace'

Bush warned that Americans should expect gasoline shortages this holiday weekend and that the $10.5bn emergency package approved by the United States Congress would be "a small down payment" on the total cost of the disaster.

Still, he bluntly dismissed calls for the United States to cut back its efforts in Iraq, calling back manpower and shifting funds from the war there to cope with the aftermath of one of the worst natural disasters in US history.

Bush made a series of public appearances.

"I'm going to fly out of here in a minute, but I want you to know that I'm not going to forget what I've seen. I understand the devastation requires more than one day's attention," he said in his final remarks here.

The president promised that direly needed food and water would come soon and vowed to restore order in the once glittering southern jazz capital, where looting and wrecked infrastructure have crippled relief efforts.

"It's going to require the attention of this country for a long period of time," he said, adding that, while "it seems dark right now," the Big Easy will "rise again and be a greater city."

Bush, facing a mounting death toll and a growing chorus of critics, took aerial tours of coastal Alabama as well as Mississippi, where he took a walking tour through the rubble-strewn town of Biloxi that brought him face-to-face with two sisters who lost everything to the storm.

In Washington, Democratic National Committee spokesperson Karen Finney asked, "Why is it that President Bush was able to send food and supplies to Afghanistan the same day our invasion began, but it has taken five days to even begin to send supplies to New Orleans?" she said in a statement.

Louisiana officials have stepped up their criticism of Washington's response, with some calling the failure to speed troops and food and medicine a "national disgrace."

- AFP