Levee board under federal investigation before Katrina hit

Levee board under federal investigation before Katrina hit
By David Hawkins & Judi McLeod
Tuesday, September 6, 2005
http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover090605.htm

Rampant public corruption was doing big business in New Orleans long before Hurricane Katrina ever hit. What then Congressman, now Senator David Vitter calls "corrupt, good old boy" practices were apparent in the New Orleans Levee Board just one year before the collapse of regional levees, emergency communications and government services brought the Big Easy to the brink of anarchy. In fact, Senator David Vitter requested a federal investigation into improper practices of a number of public utilities, including the New Orleans Levee Board, and a new Task Force was to have been initiated in the Baton Rouge office, beginning in July 2004.

As Vice-Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee, which holds jurisdiction over the Justice Department, Vitter met with and actively encouraged Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller to establish an additional Public Corruption Task Force in their Louisiana offices.

With the focus on kickbacks and bogus contractors, who was heeding experts calling for a levee disaster from a major hurricane?

Could New Orleans’s descent into quasi-revolutionary chaos be an indirect result of racketeering, kickbacks and procurement fraud by Democrat insiders with ties to a fast-growing organization called `La Francophonie’?

Of all the coastal regions struck by Katrina, only the State of Louisiana is in the clutches of La Francophonie. La Francophonie’s detractors insist that the organization is a simple tool of France’s unsavory foreign policy toward Africa. Others describe it as a Montreal-based, racketeering influenced and corrupt organization (RICO) with outlandish claims to represent the interests of the French-speaking world, including such luminaries as the negotiator of America's abdication of its allies in South Vietnam, John Kerry, and the companion to Kofi Annan at the U.N's school for translators in Geneva, Teresa Heinz

In international relations, Louisiana’s foreign partners include the governments of France, the French community of Belgium, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Louisiana now participates in the sometimes-raucous Sommets de la Francophonie as an observer.

Purporting to "defend Louisiana’s unique linguistic heritage", it was the Conseil pour le developpement du francais en Louisiane (CODOFIL) that brought the state into the La Francophonie tent.

"CODOFIL represents Louisiana at the signing of accords with the foreign governments: these accords dictate the nature of the relationship between Louisiana and the foreign governments."

According to a CODOFIL Internet boast, "foreign visitors to Louisiana are often more aware of CODOFIL than even Louisiana residents!"

La Francophonie was funded and re-structured for its dictatorial, syndicalist, racketeering and possibly genocidal goals by insiders of CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) at a 1986 meeting in Paris.

This first CIDA-funded Francophonie meeting was hosted by Francois Mitterrand, the notoriously corrupt French President and the author of a `failed state’ policy in Africa which has led to Canada’s indulgent support of the continent’s most bloodthirsty dictators and paramilitary goon squads as they engage in massacres–including that of Anglophone Tutsis by francophonie Hutus in Rwanda. (http://bloodbankers.typepad.com/submergingmarkets/2003/11/firstworldcri.html).

Management of La Francophonie is Canadian, CIDA is the main source of funds granted by Canada to Francophonie cooperation programs and managed by La Francophonie Affairs Division. Canadian Heritage, Industry Canada (information technologies), Justice Canada (democracy, legal cooperation) and Environment Canada (particularly management of the Energy and Environment Institute of la Francophonie (institut de l’energie et de l’environnement de la Francophonie are also involved. (http://www.dfait-maeci.qc.ca/foreignpolicy/francophonie/cdnmanagement-en.asp).

CIDA was founded in 1968 by the ex-president of Power Corp. of Montreal, Maurice Strong, a paranoid, billionaire depopulationist who claims "rich, industrialized countries (America and the Anglosphere) are the greatest threat to the survival of the planet and therefore he, Maurice Strong, has a duty to force them into line. In the 1990s, Strong went on to become the godfather of the $trillion Kyoto trading scandal, with the financial clout to execute his dreams for La Francophonie.

Strong’s plan appears to have played out as follows: Montreal insiders of Power Corp. and La Francophonie have controlling positions in global commodity markets through oil companies (TotalFinaElf) and water companies (Suez).

Former UN Secretary-General Bhoutros Bhoutros Ghalis serves as La Francophonie Secretary-General. Both Strong and Ghali are under investigation by American authorities for alleged ties to the UN oil-for-food scandal.
David Hawkins, Foundation Scholar-Cambridge University, and founder of the Citizen's Association of Forensic Economists at Hawks' CAFE.

Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the media. A former Toronto Sun and Kingston Whig Standard columnist, she has also appeared on Newsmax.com, the Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and World Net Daily. Judi can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com. You can read your Letters to the Editor here.

================
Military NorthCom ready but White House never made the call?-->AUDIO!
Audio of Commander Kelly
Windows Media Player
Address:rom/HTMLs/NetShow.html
Audio:http://www.apfn.org/Movies/BBC_Katrina.wmv

Louisiana Governor Did Ask for Federal Help Before the
Hurricane unlike what the Regime is saying !

http://www.apfn.org/APFN/KATRINA.HTM

============
Northern Command isn't happy
Posted 12:14 pm |
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/5167.html
Because Northern Command oversees all active-duty military operations inside the United States, it's also responsible for organizing the relief operations on the Gulf Coast. There are early indications, however, that NorthCom officials aren't entirely pleased with the orders they've received of late from the president.

There's an interesting BBC World News report (brought to my attention by my friend Darrell) in which NorthCom Lt. Commander Sean Kelly explained the military's efforts which, in addition to military support, include distribution of medical supplies, search and rescue operations, distributing food and water, and meeting transportation needs. (Note: the server hosting the video seems to be overwhelmed. This is a direct .mpg link, which is also slow right now, but keep trying.)

When the BBC noted the criticism of the government's slow response, Lt. Commander Kelly explained that NorthCom was ready to go well in advance of Katrina making landfall, but suggested the president didn't make the right call at the right time.

"Northcom started planning before the storm even hit. We were ready when it hit Florida, because, as you remember, it hit the bottom part of Florida, and then we were planning once it was pointed towards the Gulf Coast.

"So, what we did, we activated what we call 'defense coordinating officers' to work with the states to say, 'OK, what do you think you will need?' And we set up staging bases that could be started.

"We had the USS Bataan sailing almost behind the hurricane so once the hurricane made landfall, its search and rescue helicopters could be available almost immediately So, we had things ready.

"The only caveat is: we have to wait until the president authorizes us to do so. The laws of the United States say that the military can't just act in this fashion; we have to wait for the president to give us permission."

Apparently, that permission could have been given right away, but it wasn't. Bush was on vacation, sharing some cake with John McCain, and pretending to play some guitar.

This seems like it could be a fairly big deal. There's been some frustration on the part of military officials about bureaucracy and FEMA's ineffectiveness, but Kelly's remarks to the BCC sounded like a fairly direct challenge to the president's leadership — they wanted to leap into action, but the White House never made the call.

Considering that there are already questions about who was in charge last week, can someone please ask the White House who first gave the order to NorthCom and when?

Update: If you have trouble with the link to the BBC video, here's a direct link.

Second Update: Lt. Commander Kelly emailed Kevin Drum to shed some additional light on the subject:

USNORTHCOM was prepositioned for response to the hurricane, but as per the National Response Plan, we support the lead federal agency in disaster relief — in this case, FEMA. The simple description of the process is the state requests federal assistance from FEMA which in turn may request assistance from the military upon approval by the president or Secretary of Defense. Having worked the hurricanes from last year as well as Dennis this year, we knew that FEMA would make requests of the military — primarily in the areas of transportation, communications, logistics, and medicine. Thus we began staging such assets and waited for the storm to hit.

The biggest hurdles to responding to the storm were the storm itself — couldn't begin really helping until it passed — and damage assessment — figuring out which roads were passable, where communications and power were out, etc. Military helos began damage assessment and SAR on Tuesday. Thus we had permission to operate as soon as it was possible. We even brought in night SAR helos to continue the mission on Tuesday night.

The President and Secretary of Defense did authorize us to act right away and are not to blame on this end. Yes, we have to wait for authorization, but it was given in a timely manner.

That's good to hear, but it strikes a different tone than what Kelly told the BBC. If the authorization was timely, and was given when it should have been, then the process worked far better than the BBC report suggested.
74 Comments»
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/5167.html