Bush: Results of response not acceptable

He spoke on the White House grounds just before boarding his presidential helicopter, Marine One, with Homeland Security Department secretary Michael Chertoff to tour the region. The department, which oversees the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been accused of responding sluggishly to the deadly hurricane.

“There’s a lot of aid surging toward those who’ve been affected. Millions of gallons of water. Millions of tons of food. We’re making progress about pulling people out of the Superdome,” the president said.

For the first time, however, he stopped defending his administration’s response and criticised it. “A lot of people are working hard to help those who’ve been affected. The results are not acceptable,” he said. “I’m heading down there right now.”

Bush hoped that his tour of the hurricane-ravaged states would boost the spirits of increasingly desperate storm victims and their tired rescuers, and his visit was aimed at tamping down the ever-angrier criticism that he has engineered a too-little, too-late response.

Four days after Katrina made landfall in south-eastern Louisiana, Bush was to get a second, closer look at the devastation wrought by the storm’s 145mph winds and 25-foot storm surge in an area stretching from just west of New Orleans to Pensacola, Florida. In all, there are 90,000 square miles under federal disaster declaration.

In Mobile, Alabama, Bush was to get a briefing on the damage, followed by a helicopter survey of areas along the Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana coasts. He was to walk through hard-hit neighbourhoods in Biloxi, Miss.

But Bush was avoiding an in-person visit to the worst areas of New Orleans, mostly drowned in rank floodwaters and descending in many areas into lawlessness as desperate residents await rescue or even just food and water. Instead, the president was taking an aerial tour of the city and making an appearance at the airport several miles from the centre of town.

Today’s trip follows a 35-minute flyover of the region he took on Wednesday aboard Air Force One. as he headed back to Washington from his Texas ranch.

While the president was working his way along the coast, his wife, Laura, was scheduled to be nearby in Lafayette, Louisiana. Mrs Bush was to visit the Cajundome arena to console people who took shelter there.

Amid the lowest approval ratings of his presidency, Bush has other problems besides the hurricane: Petrol prices have soared and support is ebbing for the war in Iraq.

So Bush has tried to respond to Katrina in a way that evokes the national goodwill he cultivated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks – and that does not recall the criticism his father, former President George Bush, endured after Hurricane Andrew slammed Florida in 1992.

But he began facing questions about his leadership in the crisis almost immediately. New Orleans officials, in particular, were enraged about what they said was a slow federal response.

Though he cut his August stay at his Texas ranch short by two days to return to Washington, some said that Bush should not have waited until two days after the storm hit to do so.

The president and his aides have repeatedly rattled off specifics about the massive federal response effort under way, from Bush’s personal donation to the number of tarps delivered to a request in emergency aid from Congress to the 28,000 troops sent to the region to help with security and rescues. Some people say the federal government could do more, or do it more quickly, if so many National Guard troops hadn’t been sent to Iraq.

Also, there already are questions about funding for the Army Corps of Engineers’ part in managing the levees that protected New Orleans, especially given years of warnings that the network of barriers was inadequate for the largest storms.