Bush renews commitment to Katrina recovery

A slow response cost him in the polls, but the president vows to stay involved in rebuilding

WASHINGTON -- President Bush stood in a spotlit Jackson Square amid a dark New Orleans last year and made a solemn vow to Americans horrified by Hurricane Katrina's devastation and the government's fumbling response.

"Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives," Bush said during his Sept. 15 speech.

On Monday, the president returned to the Gulf Coast as part of a two-day trip to mark the anniversary of the Category 3 storm, which killed 1,695 people, displaced 770,000 and caused at least $96 billion in damage. The administration's sluggish response also left a black mark on his presidency.

In Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., on Monday and in New Orleans today, Bush is touting the progress his administration has made toward getting the region back on its feet, and he's emphasizing that the road to recovery is a marathon -- not a sprint -- that will take years to complete.

"Even though we've been through about one year together, one year doesn't mean that we'll forget," Bush told community leaders at a luncheon in Biloxi. "As a matter of fact, now is the time to renew our commitment to let people down here know that we will stay involved and help the people of Mississippi rebuild their lives."

But politically, Bush has been playing catch-up since Katrina made landfall, the Chicago Tribune reported.

As most of New Orleans lay under water and thousands of people piled into the city's convention center pleading for food, the nation's most costly natural disaster had become a full-fledged political disaster for a president still early in his second term.

The crisis arrived as growing numbers of Americans were starting to question the conduct of the war in Iraq as well as the economy. Bush's approval rating in the Gallup Poll had slumped to 40 percent days before Katrina, then a low point for Bush and a level of support he still is struggling to maintain.

"The greatest damage that Katrina did to President Bush was in his aura of competence," said David Lanoue, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama. "It shook the confidence of a lot of people in the White House's ability to respond to either natural or manmade disasters."

White House officials disagree. They say that Bush successfully marshaled the financial and physical resources of the federal government after the administration admittedly failed to provide enough assistance in the early days after the storm.

"President Bush has directed the federal government to be fully engaged in the Gulf Coast region, while empowering state and local officials to have the primary role in planning for their own future," said Emily Lawrimore, a White House spokeswoman.

But many analysts say that Bush's stewardship of rebuilding efforts has been uneven at best. They credit his administration for helping secure $110 billion in federal funds for recovery efforts, for fixing New Orleans' levees and for getting nearly 100 million cubic tons of debris removed from the region.

But they note that even some of the positives are problematic. Of $110 billion appropriated for Gulf Coast recovery, only $77 billion has been released, and only $44 billion has been spent. Funds from a $17 billion program to rebuild an estimated 204,000 homes in Louisiana and Mississippi has yet to produce one rebuilt property, according to a new report by Oxfam America, an international humanitarian organization.

'Some frustration'

Bush acknowledged some of the problems Monday, particularly in getting people back into their homes.