Bush Tours 'Pain And Agony' Of Gulf

Six months after Hurricane Katrina, President Bush got a close-up look Wednesday at the mountains of debris, the abandoned homes and the boarded-up businesses that are shocking reminders of the "pain and agony" New Orleans endures still.

In the devastated Lower Ninth Ward, few residents were around to tell Bush how they felt. But two young women held up a sign for his motorcade that said, "Where's my government?" Farther up the road, a man waved a flattened cardboard box on which he had written, "Pres. cut the red tape and help us."

The president scaled down the enthusiastic assessment he made on his last trip to New Orleans in January, when he suggested this city would be a great place for Americans to bring their families and have their conventions. This time, Bush discussed the hard work ahead.

He said Congress must come forward with money for rebuilding New Orleans and its broken levee system.

"I'm getting a view of the progress that is being made," Bush said. "There's still a lot of work to be done, no question about it."

But with 85 days before the start of the next hurricane season, the levee system is only 45 percent repaired to pre-Katrina strength, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reports.

And the new system needs to surpass pre-Katrina levels if people are going to have the confidence to rebuild, Paul Kemp, a professor at Louisiana State University, told Axelrod.

"If it stops at pre-Katrina, then the city really doesn't come back. … Really the levees are the key to redeveloping new Orleans," Kemp said. "We can have all the discussions you want about where people can build and not build. But that's all assuming we've got a certain levee protection."

Demolition of the worst-damaged homes in the Lower Ninth Ward began only this week. Those not flattened by the storm had no signs of life and were spray painted with large Xs and, in some cases, the number of bodies found inside.

"You've got a pile of stuff here," Bush said after watching a small bulldozer push a pile of debris on a street littered with a mattress, toys, a cooking pot, several pairs of blue jeans, and a pair of women's underwear.

"We want people coming home," Bush said, adding that he was pleased to see that Mardi Gras brought so many residents back to celebrate.

A key House panel was set on Tuesday to approve $4.2 billion in flexible community development funds for hurricane-related housing projects, but lawmakers dedicated that money to all states affected by Katrina. Bush said Congress must allocate all that money just to help compensate Louisianans whose homes were damaged or destroyed.

Bush also criticized Congress' earlier diversion of $1.5 billion in levee-rebuilding money to non-New Orleans-related projects, saying lawmakers "shortchanged the process" of rebuilding the city. He said Congress must reverse the decision — even as lawmakers were poised to do so.

The House bill, part of a $19.1 billion measure for new Katrina relief spending, provides $1.5 billion in various Army Corps of Engineers water projects, chiefly for rebuilding New Orleans' levee systems.

The president stopped in front of a pink duplex with signs on the porch that said "Keep out! No Trespassing!" Across the street, a house was spray painted with the familiar orange X and the words "DOG DEAD."

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin summoned Bush into the entryway of the pink home, where mold could be seen covering the walls at least chest-high. "You ought to come see this," Nagin said.

Bush's four-hour stop contrasted with previous visits to the city where he stuck to less affected areas. It began with a helicopter ride over a landscape of bright blue tarps covering damaged roofs. Then his flight path turned over the marsh land where trees lay on the ground and railroad cars and other debris were strewn in the swamp.

The president tried to focus on the positive. He ordered a meal to go of red beans and rice at a diner and posed for photos with proprietor Kim Stewart.

"Katrina knocked us down, but its not going to keep us there," Stewart said with a smile. But asked whether about the pace of recovery, she changed her upbeat tune. "I think things should be a lot faster," she told reporters.

Said Bush: "I fully understand, and I hope your country understands, the pain and agony that the people of New Orleans and Louisiana and the parishes surrounding New Orleans went through."

Democrats said Bush has not done enough to help the city recover. Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and John Kerry of Massachusetts issued a report they said detailed the Bush administration's failures to respond adequately to the needs of homeowners and small businesses.

The report said 120,000 Gulf Coast residents are waiting to find out if they will get a disaster loan while more than 140,000 others have been turned down.

Some independent experts have suggested that the Army Corps of Engineers is taking shortcuts and using shoddy materials to meet the president's June 1 deadline to rebuild the levees. The agency denies those allegations and Bush said the levees will be "equal or better than what they were before Katrina."

"We fully understand that if the people don't have confidence in the levee system, they're not going to want to come back," Bush said. "People aren't going to want to spend money or invest."

Bush also visited Gautier, Miss., where first lady Laura Bush promoted her foundation that is providing grants to rebuild school library collections in the Gulf. The Bushes also stopped at a waterfront home that is being rebuilt and the president picked up a hammer to install a light fixture.