Bush under fire for slow response

Two people are helped by rescuers in east New Orleans, Louisiana after their reluctant evacuation from their home Monday. Tragic New Orleans got a much needed ray of hope as engineers closed the football pitch sized hole in a levee breached when Hurricane Katrina unleashed murderous floodwaters. PHOTO: AFP

Bush made his second visit to Louisiana and Mississippi, where the storm has caused one of the biggest humanitarian crises in US history. On his first tour on Friday, five days after the huge scale of the disaster became apparent, the president acknowledged the initial relief effort had been "unacceptable."

Speaking to emergency officials gathered in a stifling auditorium at Pearl River Community College in Poplarville, Bush pledged that "we're here for the long term."

"I understand. I understand the damage. I understand the devastation, I understand the destruction, I understand how long it's going to take. And we're with you. That's what I want you to know," Bush said.

In a sign of the political pressure facing Bush, Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott, a former Senate majority leader, said he has been battling the Federal Emergency Management Agency and its Mississippi counterpart for help for his state and urged Bush to cut red tape.

After a one-on-one meeting with Bush in Poplarville, Lott said: "I am demanding help for the people of Mississippi to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina."

The recovery effort will require "an unprecedented public and private effort that can't be hampered by a process geared toward much lesser disasters," Lott said in a statement issued after Bush left Mississippi.

In Washington, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada backed calls to create a commission, like the one that examined the September 11, 2001, attacks, to study how the hurricane response went wrong.

"Serious mistakes were made," Reid said.

Bush has been under fire from Democrats and Republicans alike for a sluggish federal response to a flood that has made hundreds of thousands homeless and is feared to have killed thousands along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast.