"New Orleans Hydraulic Pumps Don't Work"~~Whistleblower, Army Corps of Engineers~~Jesselyn Radack

ray of light

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Thu Aug-28-08 10:45 AM
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"New Orleans Hydraulic Pumps Don't Work"~~Whistleblower, Army Corps of Engineers~~Jesselyn Radack

Edited on Thu Aug-28-08 11:45 AM by ray of light

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/28/74913/4892/458/577208

Jesselyn Radack in her new job at a homeland security think tank has posted a warning at Daily Kos that the New Orleans hydraulic pumps do not work. She has spoken to the whistleblower from the Army Corps of Engineers and seen the evidence of these defective pumps; furthermore, she has seen the evidence that the whistleblower has tried to get the problem fixed but instead our government created a bogus report and protected the manufacturer!

This is what Jesselyn Radack wrote (bolding is mine):

A brave and brilliant woman from the Army Corps of Engineers complained to the Office of Special Counsel about the failure of the hydraulic pumps manufactured by Moving Waters Industry (MWI) and installed in New Orleans.

She should know. She was the team leader of pumping system installations. The OSC required the Department of Defense Secretary to conduct an investigation into her disclosures. The Department of Defense Inspector General substantiated more than half of her allegations, but ultimately concluded that

. . . the deficiencies performance related short-comings that did not rise to the level of a serious violation of law or regulation, abuse of authority or gross mismanagement.

But the OSC agreed with the whistleblower, Maria Garzino, that the report was a whitewash:

The documentation and comprehensive explanation provided by in contrast with the agency's superficial and dismissive findings also suggest that, although you regularly and persistently made the USACE aware of serious flaws in the design, testing, installation, capabilities and contract issues that arose with the New Orleans pumps . . . USACE employees appeared to have taken a band-aid approach at the expense of good government and public health and safety . . . It appears that the pumps remain inadequately untested, and vulnerable to failure in the event of a hurricane....

Whoever said lightening doesn't strike twice never knew the Bush family or the way they protect their friends.

This is the Bush family and their government pre-Katrina:

cronyism

incompetent government

corruption

cover-ups

corporate profit

<a href="

">Take a look at this map showing Hurricane Katrina's whereabouts August 28, 2005.</a>

This is the Bush family and their government post-Katrina:

cronyism

incompetent government

corruption

cover-ups

corporate profit

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at2+shtml/111213.shtml?5day#contents
Now take a look at this map that Monkey posted showing Hurricane Gustav's whereabouts August 28, 2008.

Holy smokes, batman! It looks identical!

A terrible natural disaster ended lives in 2005 due to criminal negligence and Bush family cronyism. Will that happen again in the next few days?

Not convinced about the cronyism part? Read what Jess wrote about the manufacturer of those pumps.

"I can tell you first-hand that the hydraulic pumps don't work. Who manufactured the defective pumps? Moving Waters (MWI), which is owned by J. David Eller, who was once a business partner of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. (From 1989 to 1993 the two operated the company Bush-El, which marketed MWI pumps.)

It surely seems as if the same path of negligence and destruction has continued, and of course the administration has continued the same path of using our government resources to cover-up for the corporation and instead attack the messenger.

Instead of fixing the problem, this administration is content to let the Free Market reign. Corporations see the whistleblowers as "trouble-makers," but is that how our government should treat them?

In this administration and in this government...apparently so.

Jess published a portion of their rebuttal letter to Bush from the US Office os Special Counsel:

>Letter to President George W. Bush from U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Aug. 4, 2008.

The Department of Defense has pledged to hire an independent engineering company to review allegations. As usual, the wrongdoer cares more about shooting the messenger than listening to the message. William Buckman, the VP and general counsel of MWI called Garzino's allegations "highly inventive, scurrilous and patently false."

"To Hell with lives. And to Hell with those peons' homes... To Hell with truth-tellers. To Hell with conscientious products! To Hell to right and wrong!" That seems to be the prevailing attitude.

It would be lovely to believe that this selfishness and disdain for running effective government was limited to Bush and Cheney. However it's not!

We have Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins who are the chairpersons of the Homeland Security Department. Both should have been holding investigations into what went wrong in the government response to Katrina, but furthermore, they should have been holding hearings on what to do to improve government responses.

In 2005, it was Bush, Cheney, and Heck-of-a-job-Brownie who were criminally negligent. This year, you can add Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins to that list. Ms. Garzizino had been all but dancing up and down Connecticut Avenue naked trying to get those pumps fixed and replaced! And one would think that Senators Lieberman and Collins would investigate the homeland security of our Homeland Security! I don't know about you, but for me, it's pretty damn obvious that defective pumps don't keep our homeland safe!

You know...I'm not an engineer and I make no claim to be. I am, however, smart enough to understand the vital connections between levies, pumps, and water to understand that you need to keep those walls and pumps functioning properly and you need to replace defective pumps when they don't work! So why haven't Lieberman and Collins been doing their constitutionally assigned job, that we the tax payers pay for, and making sure that the Homeland is protected from Hurricanes and cronies and corporations?

Hopefully, no lives will be lost this time. And hopefully the emergency mechanisms of the city, state, and federal government will function properly too. But given the situation with the faulty pumps, things don't look good for residents of NOLA who are still rebuilding from Katrina.

NOLA residents clearly don't want a repeat of Katrina's slow seven day starvation adventure. Most will likely be taking their families and their pets and they've probably even packed some food and water and are leaving the city. They have learned the lesson. Nobody wants to see lightening strike twice.

But with a broken government in DC, beholden to corporations, lightening will always strike twice! When you have an infrastructure of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence, then it's like flying a kite during a thunderstorm. The lightening will strike! When the government is protecting the profit margin of companies, it's like sitting in the middle of a lake holding a metal rod... Yes, the lightening will strike twice! And when the government allows defective products to be used, it's only logical that the end result will be....more lightening striking!

It's too bad we have corrupt and incompetent officials in government like Bush, Cheney, Lieberman, Collins who haven't learned their lesson or just don't give a sh*t.

A bumper sticker I saw said it quite well, "We need a better President." But I say we need a better government, too. And we need better governmental policies that prevent these lightening storms, or plan against them, instead of orchestrating policies that cause them.

And that is what this year's elections are about: competence and as well as honesty.

~~~

Reprinted with the author's permission.