NY Times reprinted without contradiction Bush's false claim that nobody 'anticipated the breach of the levees'

NY Times reprinted without contradiction Bush's ... [Media Matters]: "NY Times reprinted without contradiction Bush's false claim that nobody 'anticipated the breach of the levees'

In a September 2 article headlined 'Government Saw Flood Risk but Not Levee Failure,' The New York Times printed without challenge President Bush's false claim, originally made on ABC's Good Morning America, that 'I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees' surrounding New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, dozens of news organizations had reported on the possibility of a breach well in advance of the hurricane, and even the Times' lead editorial in the same day's newspaper flatly stated that '[d]isaster planners were well aware that New Orleans could be flooded by the combined effects of a hurricane and broken levees.'
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Though the Times kept it a secret from its readers, Bush simply wasn't telling the truth. Many people "anticipated the breach of the levees," as Media Matters for America has detailed. A September 2 Washington Post editorial similarly noted:

It is simply not true, as Mr. Bush said yesterday, that nobody "anticipated the breach of the levees." In fact, experts inside and outside of government have issued repeated warnings for years about the city's unique topography and vulnerability, and those warnings were loudly and prominently echoed by the media both nationally and in Louisiana.

Not only is it not true, as Bush claimed, that nobody "anticipated the breach of the levees," it seems that nearly everybody anticipated the breach. The problem wasn't lack of anticipation, it was lack of preparation.

A June 8, 2004, New Orleans Times-Picayune article noted: "For the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees." ...