Blinkered ideological mindsets stripped emergency response assets in pursuit of a pointless war, left public authorities floundering and are probably incapable of addressing the aftermath, writes Tony Kinsella.
Hurricane Katrina has killed thousands of US citizens, thousands more will die because of the failures of US governance. Blinkered ideological mindsets left New Orleans vulnerable to hurricanes, stripped the country of emergency response assets in pursuit of a pointless war, left its public authorities floundering and leaderless, and are probably incapable of addressing the aftermath.
Decades of river engineering have all but stopped the Mississippi River from depositing silt to form barrier islands and wetlands, New Orleans' natural flood protectors. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring coastal wetlands around the city.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper reported that every two miles of wetland between the Crescent City and the Gulf reduces flood surges by half a foot, but in 2003 President Bush reversed the policy, turning the wetlands over to property developers.
Washington has cut the budget of the New Orleans district of the US army corps of engineers charged with maintaining and strengthening the levees that protect New Orleans by over 40 per cent since 2001, causing a hiring freeze. The pumps essential for keeping New Orleans dry lack storm-proof electricity supplies or emergency generators. When the electricity supply failed, New Orleans lost its only means of evacuating rainwater, never mind floodwaters.
Most of the money was diverted into other Homeland Security projects and to the war in Iraq. Iraq - where Louisiana's first responders, around 3,000 troops of the 141st Field Artillery of the Louisiana Army National Guard, complete with their heavy trucks and helicopters, have been based for the last 11 months.
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin ordered the city evacuated as Katrina approached, but this was more of an exhortation than an order. Those with cars and money fled the city, perhaps as many as 100,000 could not.
There are no exact figures, because nobody was counting. City residents on low incomes, or welfare payments, waiting for their September checks lacked vehicles and money for petrol, for hotels, for food. There were few evacuation buses, no special trains, no national guard trucks.
Those lacking transport and money had no choice but to stay and pray. The poor, the ill, the old and the very young - and they were overwhelmingly black. The city's invisible underclass remained just that - invisible.
The Rev Jesse Jackson summed it up: "What's self-evident is that you have many poor people without a way out."
Some 25,000 made their way to the Superdome, others to the Convention Centre. Scott Gold of the Los Angeles Times reported seeing "four white people" in the Superdome. Many "hundreds, possibly thousands", to quote mayor Nagin, drowned in their homes.
The designated shelters lacked food, water, emergency power supplies, police and medical facilities. When the electricity went, so did the sewage pumps, the toilets overflowed and in humid temperatures of over 30 degrees, people began to die.
They have been without food and water for four days now.
President Bush wound his holidays down to fly to California for a Republican Party fundraising event as Lake Pontchartrain poured into New Orleans.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, part of the Department of Homeland Security, moved into action while the commander-in-chief raised party funds.
An absence of leadership has plagued US rescue efforts since Katrina cut her deadly swathe across the Gulf of Mexico. Confusion and chaos are inevitable parts of any major search and rescue operation, but what we are witnessing, and the hurricane's victims are suffering, is so scandalous as to be grotesque.
Local emergency services, police, fire and paramedics with their irreplaceable knowledge, must lead search and rescue attempts. Their security functions can be taken over by outside reinforcements.
Flood victims need to be rescued by boat, small helicopters and specialist vehicles, and moved to dry ground. There rescue units can conduct medial triage, feeding and treating some, while the more seriously injured are evacuated to undamaged facilities away from the disaster.
Uninjured survivors can then be transported to processing facilities and camps. It's a pick-up, drop, prioritise and transport operation, familiar to emergency services and armed forces worthy of the name anywhere on the planet.
It's an approach that is only just beginning to creak into action along the Gulf coast.
New Orleans lacks everything; reinforcements, helicopters, boats, medical teams, emergency food, clean water.
Only the armed forces are capable of meeting those needs, but their commander-in-chief has yet to order them into action.
Why are thousands of light, medium and heavy helicopters parked on bases up and down the US, while people in New Orleans die? Why has the air force not created a forward airbase on the serviceable runways of the city's airport? Why are there no military communications systems in place? Why are there no water purification units on the banks of Pontchartrain?
Why on Wednesday could the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Mississippi, report horrific stories of death at the city's Junior High School Shelter while US air force personnel directly across Irish Hill Road were playing basketball and performing calisthenics?
Because their commander-in-chief, President Bush, had not ordered them into action.
US coast guard helicopters (part of the Department of Homeland Security) are working around the clock in the skies of New Orleans. The US navy's hospital ship Comfort is due off New Orleans next Thursday.
Perhaps as many as 1,000,000 people have no homes, no money, no jobs, and no health cover. They can only be cared for and rehabilitated over a period of months, possibly years, by a massive public effort, including temporary housing, welfare benefits, and job-creation schemes.
All of these things, like public investment in flood protection, are an ideological anathema to the Bush administration.
The fact that many of the victims are poor, black and that those of them who vote tend not to vote Republican, does not improve their chances.
The invisible underclass have become visible. They can become an open Third World sore on the face of the US, or the US will have to change.
At the moment, the jury's out.
Tony Kinsella is a writer and commentator. His latest book, Post Washington - Why America Can't Rule the World, co-written with Fintan O'Toole, is published by Tasc at New Island.