Bush Denies Staging Relief-Effort Photo Ops

LA Times | October 13 2005
By Warren Vieth

President Bush strapped on a tool belt today and pounded nails at a home-building project for Louisiana hurricane victims, as his administration announced new steps intended to improve the recovery effort.

Before starting his brief work shift, Bush verbally hammered critics who have accused him of staging politically motivated "photo ops" in the hurricane zone instead of staying in Washington and drafting a comprehensive recovery plan.
"We've got people here who volunteered their time, from all over the country, and they didn't say…'I'm a Democrat and I'm going to work here,' or 'I'm a Republican and I'm going to work here,'" Bush said in an NBC Today Show interview broadcast from the Habitat for Humanity project site in Covington, La.

"I think our job is to elevate this whole process out of normal politics," he said.

"This is really, really important," said First Lady Laura Bush, who joined the president at the plots where two houses are being built for low-income Louisianans left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. "It's very American to step out and help."

Following the TV interview, they joined other workers at the Habitat project. Bush donned a hard hat, work gloves and a big leather tool belt. A big hammer dangled from his side. The first lady wore a cloth nail pouch around her waist. After hammering a few nails into a sheet of plywood, the Bushes chatted, signed autographs and posed for photos with Habitat volunteers.

Bush defended the administration's role in the recovery campaign before concluding a two-day visit to Louisiana and Mississippi, where he also met with delegations of local, state and federal officials, spoke to U.S. troops participating in the emergency response, and participated in the reopening of an elementary school.

"Out of this rubble is going to come some good," Bush told military personnel at Belle Chasse Naval Air Station in New Orleans. "Out of this devastation is going to come new cities and new hope."

It was Bush's eighth trip to the Gulf Coast area since Katrina made landfall near New Orleans on Aug. 29, submerging the city and displacing more than 1 million residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The trips are part of a continuing White House campaign to demonstrate the president's personal involvement in the recovery, following widespread criticism that he was slow to engage in the issue and the federal government's initial emergency response was mismanaged.

Bush has promised the federal government will foot most of the bill for what he called the biggest reconstruction effort ever undertaken, but he offered new assurances Washington would not attempt to call all the shots.

"I don't think Washington ought to dictate to New Orleans how to rebuild," Bush said in his Today interview. "…I know there is an attitude in Washington that says, we know better than the local people. That's just not the attitude I have."

In Washington, administration officials announced plans to increase the participation of small and minority-owned businesses in the Katrina cleanup work.

Responding to complaints that the first round of no-bid recovery contracts favored big firms located based outside the hurricane area, officials said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would establish numerical targets for small and minority businesses in subsequent rounds of contracts put out for competitive bids.

The specific targets have not yet been set, said Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, but it was expected to be higher than the 1.5% of contract awards received by small and minority firm so far.

"This administration is reaching out to companies of all sizes, especially minority-owned enterprises, to guarantee that those seeking to join the rebuilding efforts can navigate federal agencies and bid for contracts with ease, " Gutierrez said.

On Capitol Hill, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) proposed legislation to create a new federal agency to oversee the federal reconstruction effort in the hurricane region. Its director would report directly to the president, and would be subject to Senate confirmation.

"While we continue to provide much-needed assistance in federal resources, we must provide an accountable structure for ensuring that these taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and in a systematic way," Gregg said in a statement.

Congress already has appropriated $62 billion to help pay for the recovery effort, and Bush has said more will be required to keep it going.

Last modified October 13, 2005