[Embraer2004]

This is all we needed!! Now the Liberal Britons have joined the fray and accused our rescuers of preferential treatment.

[atomicpossum]

Guardian. Baron Munchausen-style journalism.

[BenLurkin]

"US authorities" = the mayor of NO and the NOPD.

[FinallyBackInNH]

Yeah, I saw the National Guard stopping to check passports before they plucked people away in helicopters... Right after they checked whether or not they had paid their Republican party dues this year. Otherwise they were left to wait for the school buses...

[mc6809e]

It's likely the LOCAL authorities took this view.

Of course, all of American will be blamed.

[Arkie2]

And if the accusation is accurate?

[stopem]

I was surprised Tony Blair hasn't made any comments yet.

[jocon307]

I'm sorry, I find this very hard to believe.

[aft_lizard]

The European Press has shown an even more ignorant view than our own MSM of Americas govt and how it works during a natural disaster.

[thucydides]

Guardian Alert! This is the farthest left of the British left newspapers. It recently had to fire one of its reporters who was revealed to have terroist connections.

[Logical me]

So? It wasn't the Feds that did this if true. Ask the Mayor and his local police that were in charge. If the Brits are not satisfied then ask the Governor. I'm sure those local CRATS have all the answers. And just for a starter how many local citizens were ignoring the warning. Much of the blame has to be on the citizens themselves, who unfortunately ignored the severe warning that they had 5 days before, and especially for the last 2 days before they got hit. Just look at the picture of hundreds of school buses just sitting on the lot. Transportation? They had it, just the Mayor and his staff was just short of brains.

[Travis McGee]

I hope that sooner or later the MSM discovers that New Orleans did have a written emergency plan to cover the evacuation of the poor, but that the idiot mayor of New Orleans ignored it, and allowed the evacuation buses to be ruined by the flood, forgotten.

The city leaders had at least two full days to use these hundreds of buses to evac the poor, exactly as their own emergency management plan called for.

Here's the southeast Louisiana evac plan supplement, most recently revised in 2000. Go to page 13, read paragraph 5. It states:

5. The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating.

[mtbopfuyn]

Hogwash!

[manwiththehands]

This is a sick, cynical joke from the Huffington Post, right? Are we supposed to believe this?

[Smarti Pants]

Considering some Briton students, who were at the Superdome, were brought here to Houston - I find this story very unlikely.

More probable is the fact that possibly rumor led them to believe these things, and being holed up the way they were - how would they know anything anyhow?

Finally - with no power, no phone systems in the area operating in all of NO - how is it that a lobby payphone works for them to call an operator?

STUPID ain't tatooed on this forehead!

[IronJack]

Are we supposed to believe that the rescuers are checking passports? Looking askance at anyone with a "funny" accent? C'mon! How ridiculous are some of these charges going to get??

[FreedomNeocon]

Well obviously these must be poor black british democrats that are being murdered by Karl Rove.

[Tacis]

There was a simple failure to communicate here. When the New Orleans police told the Brits they'd have to fend for themselves, that was nothing more than a demand for a bribe in order to get help. The Brits that gave the cops bribes got out but those that didn't, didn't. These are corrupt, incompentent cops, related to or paying some politician.

I've not seen it a second time but when cable to air anything they could get, they did an interview with a near hysterical cops who accused his fellow New Orleans cops of being traitors and claimed that more than a third had simply desserted in the face of the storm. No, the Brits should have offered a "gratuity" just like they would if they wanted to avoid a police hassle at Mardi Gras.

[Canard]

This was already known when the evacuation was ordered, that tourists wouldn't be able to leave.

http://www.nola.com/newsflash/louisiana/index.ssf?/base/news-18/1125239940201382.xml&storylist=louisiana

"Acknowledging that large numbers of people, many of them stranded tourists, would be unable to leave, the city set up 10 places of last resort for people to go, including the Superdome.

The mayor called the order unprecedented and said anyone who could leave the city should. He exempted hotels from the evacuation order because airlines had already cancelled all flights."

[Truthsayer20]

My guess is that these people will not set foot on US again.

[Doe Eyes]

Scott explained how they earlier ransacked the hotel kitchens for food

Looters.