Reverend Jesse Jackson criticizes hurricane response

September 3, 2005 (WLS) -- There is no shortage of criticism of the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina. The Reverend Jesse Jackson is back from New Orleans. He predicts more people will die as a result of dehydration and starving than the actual storm itself.

The Reverend Jackson says he witnessed evacuation buses without passengers, residents without hope and federal responders without a clue in New Orleans. He and others say it is costing lives.

"Baghdad is protected and New Orleans is underwater. It's time to fight back. It's time for a fundamental change!" said Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rainbow-Push Coalition.

Jackson says the change needs to come in the form of more food, more water and more rescues. He says there also needs to be a change in the way the world is viewing those hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.

"The imagery of blacks as refugees and blacks as thugs and blacks as a threat has complicated the relief efforts," said Jackson.

The Reverend Jackson told supporters they should consider holding off on making donations to the Red Cross -- if that agency refuses to set-up relief efforts in areas it deems too dangerous.

"For the Red Cross to use as a reason for not going in at all 'fear..." they're reputation is for going into war zones! There is no evidence of a mass riot in the mud in New Orleans," said Jackson.

"The deaths are increasing for no real reason except for incompetence and negligence," said Carol Moseley Braun, former U.S. Senator

Former U.S. Senator and Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun has extended family and friends who rode out the hurricane near the French Quarter. She says part of the problem with the response started before the hurricane hit.

"I think it's just a sin of omission more than anything. They don't see poor people. They don't think about them, they don't plan for them," said Carol Moseley Braun, former U.S. Senator. "How do you tell people to evacuate and then turn your back on those who don't have money for car fare or who don't have cars?"

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