New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a
direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working
with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major
hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in
May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban
Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying
out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations,
with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects
remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased
dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a
trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of
the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as
federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the
Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason
for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.

Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at The
Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming.
... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being
asked about the lack of preparation."

In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush
proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for
Lake Pontchartrain, according to a Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans
CityBusiness.

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson
Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been
moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq,
and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees
can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this
is a security issue for us."