Rice says race had nothing to do with Katrina aid
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday toured areas of her home state hit by Hurricane Katrina and disputed claims her government had been slow to respond because most of the victims were black.
Rice, the most senior black member of President George W. Bush's Cabinet, said she did not believe race had anything to do with how quickly the government reacted to Katrina, which killed thousands and displaced millions along the Gulf coast.
"I don't believe for a minute anybody allowed people to suffer because they are African-Americans. I just don't believe it for a minute," said Rice, while visiting a hurricane relief center outside of Mobile, Alabama.
"I see people across the spectrum -- Asians and blacks and whites and Latinos -- helping each other. What you are seeing is Americans are helping Americans," said Rice, who was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and often speaks about experiencing segregation firsthand while growing up in America's South.
Black leaders in the United States have accused the Bush administration of reacting too slowly to help people in New Orleans and in other Gulf areas where most of the victims were poor and black rather than rich and white.
Congressional black leaders pleaded with Bush and federal disaster relief officials to speed aid and said they were stunned by the failure to feed and shelter displaced people after the storm ripped through the region a week ago.
While defensive about race allegations after Katrina, Rice conceded the response could have been better.
"People couldn't evacuate who were poor, people couldn't evacuate who were elderly, people couldn't evacuate who were sick. We have to understand better so this doesn't happen again," she said.
En route to her home state, Rice personally defended the president. "Nobody, especially the president, would have left people unattended on the basis of race."
Rice has spoken to members of the Congressional Black Caucus in recent days to reassure them the government was doing everything it could to help hurricane victims.
On Sunday, she attended a church service in Whistler, Alabama, and prayed alongside the congregation for victims of the hurricane.
Asked to say a few words from the pulpit, Rice, a preacher's daughter, said: "The Lord Jesus Christ is going to come on time." She added: "If we just wait."
Rice visited relief centers where she packed boxes and loaded cars with food and water. She also toured a gymnasium where survivors were camped out with everything they owned.
Afterward, she drove through the bayou where shrimp boats were piled on each other and homes and stores were gutted. A sign outside one obliterated house whose residents were going through the debris read: "Looters will be shot."
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