Lessons of Sept. 11 Ignored, Political Pundit Says -- GOPUSA

Lessons of Sept. 11 Ignored, Political Pundit Says
By Susan Jones
CNSNews.com Senior Editor
September 2, 2005

(CNSNews.com) -- No one in Washington thinks the situation in New Orleans, a major American city, is going well, said NBC's Tim Russert on Friday.

Speaking Friday on the Today show, Russert said the criticism is "uniform and universal" -- even conservative newspapers are criticizing the federal, state and local response to the growing crisis in New Orleans and the surrounding region.

Hard questions will be asked by politicians from all parties about the lack of emergency preparedness, he said.

"People realize that before the entire world, we are watching a scene in New Orleans that people cannot possibly comprehend. It's unfathomable to people in our country that this is the United States of America appearing to be incapable of rescuing and saving its own people after five days."

Russert said no one is faulting the caregivers and relief workers who are on the ground in New Orleans. "But there appears to have been a significant lack of real preparation for this crisis," he said.

NBC Today show anchor Matt Lauer raised a "blunt question," noting that "the great majority of the people were seeing suffering right now are black and they are poor. These are people that don't have a safety net in their daily lives; and clearly there was no net prepared to help them in a situation like this. How much of a wake up call does this have to be for the people of this county?"

Russert noted that 100,000 people in New Orleans don't have automobiles, and when they were instructed to go to the Superdome, where no food or water was waiting for them.

Russert said the lessons of Sept. 11 -- that communications and security are central and vital in a crisis -- went unheeded. But in this case, communications broke down when the hurricane hit, leaving state, local and federal officials with no way to talk to each other, he added.