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THE RESULTS ARE UNACCEPTABLE |
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by President George W. Bush
REPORTER: This morning you said the results were unacceptable, what did you mean by that? PRESIDENT: Well, I’m talking about…uh….the fact that …uh…we don’t have enough security in New Orleans yet. The results are acceptable here in Mississippi. Uhh…you know…the results are acceptable in New Orleans when it comes to the hard work of the Coast Guard. But we need to get troops…we have 1200 troops who arrived yesterday I’m told, and we have 1200 today and 1200 tomorrow - especially trained for military police work. They need to get in there. They need to stabilize that situation. They need to make sure that the food and medicine that’s in place is given to the people who need the food and medicine. I’ve had a good report today about food and medicine getting to people who weren’t getting it - but we’ll find out if it’s true when we get to New Orleans… …You know…uh…this is a huge task that we’re dealing with (guffaw). And our jobs - with people of positions of responsibility - is not to be satisfied until the job is done as good as it can possibly be done - and that’s what I was referring to. I’m certainly not denigrading the efforts of anybody (smile). But the results could be better in New Orleans. And I intend to work with the folks to make it better. Again, in Mississippi, we have a different situation. Uh, we’ve got a guard that’s…uh…in place - activated. Haley made some clear rules (inaudible). Uh, but the tasks in both places…uh…the task is enormous (guffaw) - and it’s going to take awhile. Our fellow citizens must understand that we’re talking years. We’re not talking years to get people rescued - we’re talking days. And we’re…uh…not talking years to get infrastructure back up here. You, know - we’re talking weeks to get the electricity running. I’ve got some good news on the pipeline…(Talks about this for 1:20) REPORTER: You talk about fixing what’s wrong and you talk about the results not being acceptable. There are a lot of people wondering why you weren’t fixing the problems yesterday or the day before, and why the richest country on earth can’t get food and water to the people who need it. PRESIDENT: Uh…the levee was broken on Tuesday in New Orleans. On Wednesday…uh…on Thursday we started evacuating people. A lot of people evacuated that city - a lot of people left on buses. It’s…uh…You know, I am…uh…satisfied with the response, but I’m not satisfied with the results. We started pulling people off of roofs immediately. We started rallying choppers to get people off of rooftops to start saving lives. I mean, thousands of people’s lives have been saved - immediately. And that’s good news. This is one of the worst storms in our nation’s history. And we got hit by two storms - one by the hurricane and one by the flood. And … uh … it’s … uh… it’s…uh…it is…uh…it’s going to take a monumental effort to move forward, but we will. And…uh…this is a nation that’s done a lot of great things before. |
