Updated 10 September 2005, with comments from Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes and Rep. Jim Leach (R, Iowa).

Original entries compiled from WorldPress.Org and other sources, 5 September 2005.

Bush aide: U.S. image tarnished by looting after the hurricane

Cox News Service/Gainesville (Florida) Sun, 9 September 2005

WASHINGTON - Karen Hughes, who officially takes her job today as head of the nation's image-building effort abroad, said Thursday that Hurricane Katrina has complicated her already formidable task.

But while much of the international criticism has centered on the Bush administration's response to the storm, Hughes said something else is a problem for America's image around the world: the crime that followed.
....

In an interview at the State Department, Hughes touched lightly on potential world reaction to the relief and recovery effort.

"We saw pictures on Thursday of people who were waiting to be rescued and didn't feel that we had arrived quickly enough," she said, adding that Bush "has acknowledged that we have to do better and we want to do better."

"But what I will challenge in any stories I see is any idea that we didn't want to help people. We certainly wanted to help everyone," Hughes said, noting that a disproportionate number of the hardest-hit victims are black.

"It's offensive to me to suggest that somehow, as I've seen some headlines and some reports do, that people, that Americans weren't helped because they are poor or because of their race," Hughes said. "That is anti-American. That is not what our country is about."

Hughes said it was "unfortunate that this natural disaster disproportionately affected people of one race and one income level."

It is the images of post-storm crime that could do the most damage to the U.S. image abroad, according to Hughes.

"People are seeing things that no one likes to see," Hughes said. "We've seen criminals try to prey on vulnerable people in the midst of a tragedy, and that's horrible."

"On the other hand, we've seen, especially in Texas, the generosity of thousands of people, an incredible outpouring," she said.

U.S. image on Katrina worries Leach

By Jane Norman
Des Moines Register, 8 September 2005

Washington, D.C. — Rep. Jim Leach, a top Republican member of the House International Relations Committee, said Wednesday that "American civilization is on trial" before the world community because of the nation's initially confused response to Hurricane Katrina.

Leach, of Iowa City, was traveling in China, South Korea and North Korea as news of the Gulf Coast disaster was broadcast around the world. He said it was "stunning" to Asian observers.

It was "as sobering a look at America as I've ever witnessed," Leach said.

Asians were taken aback to see how vulnerable the United States appeared, especially in comparison to the "prompt and efficient" response to the tsunami that devastated some Asian nations late last year, he said.

"How we react and take care of our own is of profound importance" for the U.S. image abroad, Leach said.

"All I can say is that I hope the world will judge this over a length of time and not rely simply on initial impressions," he added.

From WorldPress.Org:

Empty, ruined and desperate
The Guardian, London, England (5 September)

New Orleans was finally emptied of all but the most desperate remnants of its population yesterday, leaving behind a ghost town under military occupation as troops fanned out through the city streets.

Police shot dead at least five people who apparently opened fire on contractors on a city bridge, in a clear demonstration of the resolve to deal with the lawlessness that has beset New Orleans.

In belated recognition of the depth of the crisis, Washington swallowed its pride and asked for blankets, food and water trucks from the EU and Nato, and beds and medical supplies from Canada.

Beleaguered Bush forced to admit US is unable to cope
The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland (5 September)

The United States has asked the European Union and NATO for emergency assistance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina as salvage efforts in New Orleans and other cities begin to move from rescuing the living to recovering the dead.

Britain will send 500,000 military ration packs, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday, as Germany and Italy announced military shipments of their own. The 4,000-calorie British armed forces meal packs are designed to last one person one day, with foods ranging from Lancashire hotpot and chicken curry to fruit dumplings with custard and Yorkie bars.

Britain will send 500,000 military ration packs, the Ministry of Defence said yesterday, as Germany and Italy announced military shipments of their own. The 4,000-calorie British armed forces meal packs are designed to last one person one day, with foods ranging from Lancashire hotpot and chicken curry to fruit dumplings with custard and Yorkie bars.

A week after Hurricane Katrina crashed into the Gulf Coast, driving winds of more than 100mph and a massive storm-surge into some of the poorest American states, the city of New Orleans was still showing signs of lawlessness. Police said they shot eight people carrying guns on a bridge, killing five or six of them.

U.S. accepts Russian humanitarian aid - ministry
Interfax, Moscow, Russia (5 September)

The U.S. has agreed to accept Russian humanitarian aid for victims of Hurricane Katrina, advisor to the emergency situations minister Viktor Beltsov told Interfax on Monday.

"The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry and U.S. authorities have negotiated a list of first-necessity goods to be sent to the disaster area," Beltsov said.

The Russian humanitarian aid will be delivered to the U.S. by three Il-76 planes, he said.

What Was Revealed
The Times, London, England (3 September)

The truth is that the New Orleans disaster is far worse than 9/11, and dwarfs anything seen in the West in modern times save for the Etna eruption and the San Francisco earthquake. In that sense it only tells us how vulnerable we are. Well, not all of us equally.

When disasters or fires or bombings happen, you discover just who was traveling on your trains, who was crammed into your hostels or who was living in the low-lying areas. It isn’t the failure to act in New Orleans that is the story here, it’s the sheer, uninsured, uncared for, self-disenfranchised scale of the poverty that lies revealed.

Loss of an American Dream
The Age, Melbourne, Australia (3 September)

How could it happen? Six days after hurricane Katrina swept in from the Gulf of Mexico, America is waking up to a reality as frightening in its force as the storm and flooding themselves. It is that America has been humiliated by its inability to prevent, or then deal effectively with, a natural disaster in its own backyard; and, worse and more important in the long term, that the world’s richest nation has been exposed, in a most brutal way, as a society still divided by race and possessing an underclass.

Of course, the infrastructure can be repaired, dam walls renewed and new homes and businesses constructed; and the French Quarter, which attracts millions each year from around the world, can be restored. What may prove more difficult for Bush and his successors — for this will surely be a project of many years’ duration — is the rebuilding of trust and credibility in the nation’s leaders and administrators and the healing of wounds so savagely and swiftly inflicted by hurricane Katrina.

Political Ramifications
Yediot Aharonot, Tel Aviv, Israel (3 September)

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Americans felt a deep sense of national pride over their solidarity and restraint, efficient response to the disaster. Now, they feel horror and anger.

The Katrina aftershock hurt the conscience of every American and deeply dented America’s self-image as a dedicated, united nation able to offer quick response in difficult situations.

The political ramifications of the failure in America may be similar to what happened here following that war. The ruins of New Orleans may give rise to a popular protest movement that would gradually amass power and influence, paralyzing the Bush Administration and leading to a stinging Republican defeat in the upcoming (partial) elections for Congress.

Storm Reveals A Leader Who Divides America
Corriere della Sera, Milan, Italy (5 September)

In his movie Escape from New York, director John Carpenter portrays Manhattan as a maximum security prison where the US President risks falling into the hands of rebels.The New Orleans tragedy, which has left several thousand residents still prisoners of the floods, and more than half a million people homeless, could trap President George W. Bush. Natural disasters morph into political crises very quickly in the global world. ...

With each passing hour, events along the Southern Riviera on the borders of Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama are becoming a murky mirror for the troubles of America, just as the New Orleans mud now reflects the city’s empty homes.Billions in damage, and perhaps thousands of victims, says Mayor Nagin; a human and economic cost that dwarfs the San Francisco earthquake and 9/11.The Superdome teems with people fleeing from the ghetto. Gangs of desperados from the poor flooded bayou areas steal anything they can lay their hands on, their machetes confronting the M16s of middle-class whites. Grandmothers steal bread for hungry grandchildren.Such things happened in 1992 after the anti-police riots in Los Angeles, as they did during the New York blackout that inspired the nihilist approbation of poet Nanni Balestrini. ...

Like the water spilling over the breached dams of the French Quarter, the propaganda and the polemics will pass.What will remain, along with the bodies and the broken buildings, is the rift that has split America since the end of the Cold War.Mr Bush has seen his approval rating fall to its lowest-ever level at 45%.He has won two elections but, with the exception of the epic post-September 11 period, he has always been leader of half the country. he war in Iraq has two implacable Americas facing each other off, with 53% against and 46% in favor.

Divided in politics, the United States is equally divided in its society. Census Bureau figures for 2004 confirm that the robust economic growth we Europeans so envy is slow to manifest itself as prosperity for the poorest.Just under 46 million Americans have no medical cover, an increase of 800,000 citizens.Some 12.7% of the superpower’s residents live below the poverty line, but what is even worse is that the number has been increasing steadily every year since 2001.The country continues to produce, innovate, consume, and create jobs, but it is failing to win the war President Johnson declared on poverty forty years ago.

Bush officials blame locals
News24.Com, Cape Town, South Africa (5 September)

Since two days after Hurricane Katrina lashed much of the Gulf Coast into oblivion, President George W Bush hasn't gone a day without a public event devoted to the storm.

Monday was no different, as he planned a return to the storm-ravaged region for a third look at Katrina's effect with visits to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Poplarville, Mississippi.

But none of it - including a stream of cabinet secretaries and other high-level federal officials to the area and on the airwaves on Sunday - has quieted the complaints that Washington moved too slowly in the storm's aftermath.