<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><B>She is trying to get ahead of a GOP blame the Democrats scenario ....... Marta</B></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><B><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></B></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">(Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat- Louisiana,</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">September 3, 2005, press release)</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/index.html#landrieu"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/index.html#landrieu</SPAN></FONT></A></DIV><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"> </SPAN></FONT></P><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">LOUISIANA SENATOR MARY LANDRIEU ACCOMPANIED THE PRESIDENT</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Senator Landrieu later commented: "Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"> </SPAN></FONT></P><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">"I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">numbers of victims -- far more efficiently than buses -- FEMA again</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">agency.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 14px/normal Arial; min-height: 16px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><BR></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast -- black and white, rich and poor, young and old -- deserve far better from their national </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">government..."</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">(Senator Mary Liandrieu, Democrat- Louisiana, September 3, 2005, press </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">release)</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/index.html#landrieu"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">http://www.bu.edu/globalbeat/index.html#landrieu</SPAN></FONT></A></DIV></BODY></HTML>