On the one hand, the terrible disaster that struck New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast region has revealed the extent to which institutionalized racism against blacks in this country is alive and well, and on the other it has provided further confirmation that the Bush administration makes policy and budget choices solely on the basis of ideological considerations and partisan self-interest. Well before Katrina struck, the Bush administration already had demonstrated the extent to which it was prepared to engage in shameless lying and intimidation in order to preserve the image that in launching its war on Iraq, it was acting in the interest of both the American and Iraqi peoples. Every reason the administration gave for launching the war has turned out to be false. If the anarchy in Iraq doesn't by itself show the extent to which the administration is operationally incompetent, then surely its response to Katrina — a disaster affecting mainly impoverished black communities — does.

In 2001, the Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country." The rational and operationally competent response to this assessment would have been to ensure that FEMA was headed and staffed by people who have extensive experience in disaster management. Instead, in December 2002, Joe Allbaugh — one of George Bush's cronies from Texas — was succeeded as head of FEMA by Michael Brown. Like Mr. Allbaugh, Mr. Brown lacked any experience in disaster management. In fact, he had been fired from his previous job for managerial incompetence.

In April 2001, the Bush administration made it clear that a good proportion of FEMA's work would be privatized. According to Budget Director Mitch Daniels, the federal disaster assistance program had evolved into an "oversized entitlement program" and should therefore be streamlined to "an appropriate level." This is consistent with the Republican Party attitude that any provision for the basic welfare and needs of the American people qualifies as an "oversized entitlement program." Rich, predominantly white people should not have to pay for the social "failures" of the black community and other minorities, so tax cuts for those who earn over $75,000 a year are in order.

In March 2003, FEMA was incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and was downgraded from a cabinet level position as a result. Rather than focusing on disaster preparedness, management and response, its new priority was to fight terrorism. It mattered little that terrorism was only one of the three "likeliest, most catastrophic disasters facing this country." To aid this reorientation, the leadership of DHS re-assigned FEMA's preparation and planning functions to the new and untested "Office of Preparedness and Response." From 2003 onward, FEMA's sole mandate was to be disaster response and recovery, specifically, response to and recovery from terrorist attacks. In summer 2004, FEMA flatly denied Louisiana's pre-disaster funding requests. In June 2004, the Army Corps of Engineers budget for levee construction in New Orleans was downsized. Jefferson Parish Emergency Management Chief Walter Maestri noted, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay." In June 2005, funding for the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was cut by a record $71.2 million.

It didn't help matters much that when Katrina struck, 40 percent of Mississippi's National Guard and 35 percent of Louisiana's were in Iraq. When Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force did deploy in New Orleans, Brigadier General Gary Jones observed that "this place is going to look like Little Somalia … We're going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."

As events unfolded, it became clear that prejudice and racism of this sort was an institutionalized norm. Wealthier, predominantly white people had left town, so why not demonize the impoverished black community left behind? The national media took this prescription to heart and set about describing starving people who took food from stores as "looters" and lumped them together with the tiny fraction of the New Orleans population that happened to belong to armed gangs. However, not all people were described in this way: although they are engaged in exactly the same act, black people "loot" and "steal" while whites who remained behind benignly "take food" that just happens to be lying around.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush didn't let the small matter of a national emergency disturb his holiday, but he did eventually get around to paying tribute to New Orleans by pointing out it was a place he used to enjoy himself in — "occasionally too much." He continued on an optimistic note: "out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house — he's lost his entire house — there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." Optimism apparently runs in Mr. Bush's family. His mother couldn't quite understand why people were complaining. In a radio interview from the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, she pointed out that "so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them."

With the Bush administration doing such a wonderful job of re-building Iraq, it would seem as if New Orleans has nothing to fear. Two corporate clients of disaster "manager"-turned-lobbyist Joe Allbaugh have already clinched some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts. One is the Shaw Group and the other is Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root. As New Orleans resident and hurricane survivor Jordan Flaherty points out, "This money can either be spent to usher in a 'New Deal' for the city, with public investment, creation of stable union jobs, new schools, cultural programs and housing restoration, or the city can be 'rebuilt and revitalized' to a shell of its former self, with newer hotels, more casinos, and with chain stores and theme parks replacing the former neighborhoods, cultural centers and corner jazz clubs." One wonders which of these options is more likely. However, one thing we can be sure of is that whether it's Iraq or New Orleans and whether it's the forces of nature, God or the firepower of the United States armed forces that causes the destruction, Halliburton will always be there to re-build.

Mohammed Abed ([email protected]) is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He would like to thank Henry Breitrose, Professor of Communication at Stanford University, for his FEMA timeline.