ACOE: Actually, We DIDN'T Accomplish the Mission


But anyone paying attention would know that already:

A contrite U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took responsibility Thursday for the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and said the levees failed because they were built in a disjointed fashion using outdated data.

"This is the first time that the Corps has had to stand up and say, `We've had a catastrophic failure,'" Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps chief, said as the agency issued a 6,000-page-plus report on the disaster on Day 1 of the new hurricane season.

The Corps said it will use the lessons it has learned to build better flood defenses.

"Words alone will not restore trust in the Corps," Strock said, adding that the Corps is committed "to fulfilling our important responsibilities."

OK, I'll give Strock a bit of credit: in an era when it takes three years for Shrubleroy to sorta, kind of apologize for being a tactless uber-ditz ("bring 'em on"), it's mildly refreshing to see someone take responsibility. And I hope this admission puts to rest once and for all the Rove-inspired shitstorm of blame heaped on state and local officials. For years, if not decades, politicians representating the Gret Stet, at ALL levels, urged Congress to take action, to no avail.

Had the federal government honored its commitment, 1500 people wouldn't have been killed. Yes, the city would've been smacked by the storm (even the glancing blow caused plenty of wind damage), but it wouldn't have been the catastrophe it turned out to be...

In particular, after 9/11, it seems as if the feds couldn't be bothered with anything that didn't involve neat-o toys and other trinkets to counter the big, bad terrorist wolf...though now it's becoming even MORE evident that the program was just a hack/pork barrel money grab anyway (sidenote: speaking of tactless, Senator Schumer sure didn't help the Democratic Party yesterday when he dismissed all Georgians as "peanut farmers." What a dumbass). But I digress.

You can read the full ACOE report here.

But, they say it's about 6,000 pages or so long AND in .pdf format. Since I'm at home today, and have been holding off for some time on a computer upgrade, I think I'll, one, wait till tomorrow to take a look, and, two, in all honesty, probably just read the summary.

Still, I'm hoping to see a degree of, for lack of a better term, maturity in the Corps' recommendations. It'd be even nicer if the federal government would also show some maturity and do the right things.