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Phil et. al.<BR>
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Phil clearly demonstrates he is bending statements of facts, or not bothering to check his facts, to suit his agenda in his comments on Louisiana Governor Blanco's conduct regarding the Louisiana National Guard and response to Katrina, and the possible impact of the absence of Louisiana National Guard resources in Iraq:<BR>
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Consider Phil's comments on 9/03/05 subject headed "Of Deltas and CO2:"<BR>
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"The response of the Louisiana Governor was not to have pre0positioned her <BR>
Guard assets, except for a few and she also failed to call on additional <BR>
assets by pre-declaring state of Emergency and disaster." <BR>
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The above comment by Phil was/is flat out false! The fact it is false was/is easily determined by a simple Google search, which is where I found the following documentation proving that Blanco did pre-declare a State of Emergency before Katrina hit:<BR>
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<A HREF="http://gov.louisiana.gov/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=973">http://gov.louisiana.gov/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=973</A><BR>
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Friday, August 26 declaration of State of Emergency by Louisiana Governor Blanco. This declaration did activate some Louisiana National Guard.<BR>
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And again from Phil's post on 9/03/2005 subject headed "Of Deltas and CO2:"<BR>
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"The law is pretty plain, the Governor has to ask the Feds to step in. She <BR>
did not do so until Tuesday, by which time it was darn difficult to get into <BR>
the area.'' <BR>
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Really? Blanco did not ask the Feds to step in till Tuesday? Then consider this letter to President Bush, dated Saturday, August 27, before Katrina hit:<BR>
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Governor Blanco sends letter to President Bush requesting that he declare a state of emergency Sat. August 27, 2005. This letter makes it very clear that Governor Blanco wants federal help, that the pending disaster may be more than state and local resources can cope with, and it even contains details on sharing funding, granting right of way, and release from damages to do requested work!<BR>
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<A HREF="http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976">http://www.gov.state.la.us/Press_Release_detail.asp?id=976</A><BR>
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And evidence that Blanco had already accepted National Guard troops from another state in direct contact with the governor of that state before Katrina hit further contradicts Phil's claim that Blanco was the bottleneck:<BR>
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<A HREF="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_national_guard">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/katrina_national_guard</A><BR>
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>From the news story above:<BR>
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New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson offered Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco help from his state's National Guard last Sunday, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana. Blanco accepted, but paperwork needed to get the troops en route didn't come from Washington until late Thursday<BR>
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Again, as the info presented above demonstrates, Phil either did not check certain critical facts, or quoted them from unknown sources who were wrong. Several other comments made by Phil in this post regarding local response to Katrina were false, but the errors I demonstrated above are enough.<BR>
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Mistakes were made at all levels of the Katrina disaster, from individuals who lived in the flood prone areas all the way to the top, President Bush. <BR>
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But why did Phil seem so focused in his post (on 9/03/05, subject headed "Of Deltas and CO2") on blaming state and local officials with false statements of fact, and not the federal government, for the slow federal response time to this huge disaster? A federal response that would have required massive assistance, even if the New Orleans's flood protection system had not failed, even if local and state officials had pre-positioned more critical assets for survival, even if they had evacuated more of the poor and disadvantaged with limited means to escape? Even skipping New Orleans, the devastation of Biloxi, Gulf Port and other coastal areas in Mississippi required a rapid extensive federal response that many agree was too slow to materialize.<BR>
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And why is Phil so intent in that post on proving that the National Guard from Louisiana sent to Iraq, along with all the important equipment they took with them, could not have saved one single more life in this disaster, one single person who would have lived if the thousands of Louisiana National Guard, and all the critical equipment they took with them to foreign soil, had been at home in Louisiana?<BR>
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Phil has no proof that these Louisiana National Guard resources in Iraq could not have saved extra lives in this disaster. In fact, it is more reasonable to assume the absence of these resources led to more lives being lost, than to assume this absence made no difference whatsoever.<BR>
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Is it not possible that the best and most capable Louisiana National Guard troops, along with the best equipment they likely took with them, were the troops missing from Louisiana when Katrina hit? Or should we contemplate that we sent the worst of the worst of Louisiana's National Guard and their support equipment to Iraq? <BR>
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PM Thursday, September 1, 2005 <BR>
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New Orleans Disaster: Where’s the National Guard? <BR>
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NANCY LESSIN, <BR>
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<A HREF="http://by106fd.bay106.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/compose?curmbox=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001&a=a7e5a3abeb5b6a0625bb45e354a7149a28f23d809928c8561c13bb3cff1229bd&mailto=1&to=mfso@mfso.org&msg=DD6AE9EC-0DD1-44B0-BB9B-44D17E8CE82C&start=0&len=6763&src=&type=x">mfso@mfso.org</A> <BR>
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<A HREF="http://www.mfso.org/">http://www.mfso.org</A><BR>
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Lessin is a founder of Military Families Speak Out. She said today: <BR>
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"The numbers we have are that there are 11,000 National Guard personnel <BR>
from Louisiana, of whom about 3,000 are in Iraq with most of the heavy <BR>
equipment. This included generators and high-water and other vehicles <BR>
which could assist with the rescue effort." <BR>
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V2020 post by Ted Moffett<BR>
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