There have been a lot of problems in New Orleans and Mississippi getting needed support, from helicopters for rescue and evacuation, to sandbags to help plug broken levees, to simple water supplies. A lot of frustration has been expressed by rescuers about how long it has been taking for help to arrive.

It turns out that a good part of the reason is that FEMA was enveloped by the Department of Homeland Security and diverted to dealing with potential threats from al-Qaida. In addition, funds were diverted from emergency management and storm preparedness — including massive budget cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers responsible for maintaining the levees in New Orleans. The budget cuts were so severe that in 2004, they were forced to abandon work on the levee system for the first time in 37 years. Now, two of those levees have failed, and there is neither manpower nor equipment coming in a timely fashion to fix them.

This is the very real cost of diverting funding from programs that are known to be necessary to protect the populace into a war. So far, the Department of Homeland Security has nothing to show for its efforts... and the result of the diversion is showing all too clearly.

Knight-Ridder has the details. Link credit to Kevin Drum.