George Bush's response to Katrina

14th September 2005

George Bush has "taken responsibility" for the failings of the government response to Hurricane Katrina. He has also indicated that he wants to learn the lessons so that the government, at all levels, is better able to respond to such major events in the future.

This statement will be very welcome in many quarters. At a macro level, it seems to echo George Bush's response to 9-11 in that he has followed up his initial poor response with a sensible and determined approach. In the immediate aftermath of the attack on the twin towers, George Bush was likened to a rabbit caught on the road in car headlights. But later he was able to unite most of the world - Christian, Arab and other persuasions - to support an invasion on Afghanistan.

If this pattern is followed, this suggests that in the coming weeks and months the Bush Administration will learn the lessons from Hurricane Katrina and not be shy in making any bold or radical changes.

However, the pattern of response to 9-11, in my view, was: short-term/poor, medium-term/good, long-term/not so good. Having united the world around the invasion of Afghanistan, the Bush administration split the world over the invasion of Iraq. In my view, trying to focus the world's attention on Iraq in the 'war on terror' was not the most productive strategy; there were other strategies that could have achieved more, with less controversy. Alternatively, if Iraq was to be "dealt with", it could have been handled in a better way.

I wonder, therefore, what the longer-term response might be to Hurricane Katrina. There is already an environmental schism between the US and most of the rest of the world, as manifest in the US stance on the Kyoto protocol. In the UK we have seen some of the impacts of climate change, such as increased flooding and a rise in average temperatures. And we are also seeing the other side of the coin, with fuel protests against the high price of petrol (significantly inflated by a tax designed to be a disincentive to use climate-destroying fossil fuels).

In my view, a "not so good" long term response by the US to Hurricane Katrina would be to misdirect their focus in the "war on climate change" by blaming, for example, the growth of pollution in India and China.

Being the world's only superpower means that the US cannot seriously be challenged when it embarks on a course of action. Such a unique power means that the US carries certain moral responsibilities.

When making decisions of global importance the US needs to take account of global interests, and not act solely in self-interest. Such is the nature of leadership. The US' long term response to Hurricane Katrina, and particularly the issue of climate change, may well be the acid test to determine whether the US is capable of global leadership, or is just the most powerful nation that acts in self-interest.

Background

Washington Post:

"Hurricane Katrina's fury has reignited the scientific debate over whether global warming might be making hurricanes more ferocious. At least one prominent study suggests that hurricanes have become significantly stronger in the past few decades during the same period that global average temperatures have increased..."