When asked yesterday if Americans should be worried about our government’s response to a future disaster or terrorist attack, President Bush admitted, “Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capability at all levels of government.”

That’s interesting, considering Bush has spent the past couple years telling Americans how safe and secure his leadership has made the country:

- “Since September the 11th, we’ve followed a clear strategy to defeat the terrorists and protect our people. First, we are defending the homeland. We’ve strengthened our intelligence capabilities; we’ve trained more than 800,000 first responders; we have taken critical steps to protect our cities and borders and infrastructure.” [8/24/05]

- “We’re making progress in defending the homeland.” [8/3/05]

- “Of course, we’re doing everything we can to protect America. I wake up every day thinking about how best to protect America. That’s my job.” [10/1/04]

- “In the United States, where the war begun, we will continue our vital work to protecting American people, by protecting our ports and borders and safeguarding infrastructure, preparing for the worst. I mentioned the first responders. I can’t tell you how pleased I am with the coordination now between the federal government, the state government, and local governments for preparing our homeland.” [1/22/04]

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The International Republican Institute recently released a survey of Iraqi public opinion with data taken early this summer. It received virtually no press coverage — according to Lexis, just a single brief mention in the Washington Times — but the results are fascinating and deserve some attention. A few notable points:

Significant drop in country mood. The poll shows an 18 point decline in the attitudes of Iraqis from April to July. This is surely driven by violence and a lack of progress on the political transition, but also by more mundane (yet important) issues like…

Electricity and basic services. See slide 9. A third of the public picks electricity service as one of their top three concerns personally impacting them. This finding is not surprising given the recent street protests (and in some cases violence) against local governments due to the lack of services this summer. One hundred and twenty degree heat without A/C is a serious hardship.

Scant support for the decentralized, federal structure found in the current draft Iraqi constitution. Except for the Kurdish regions, where 87 percent of the public supports giving significant powers to regional governments, there is minimal support for a decentralized structure — the highest level outside of Kurdistan is in southern Shia provinces, where it only approaches 25 percent. This matches results of earlier studies showing a fear in southern and central Iraq that decentralization would lead to a break up of the country, yet a desire among the Kurds to do more. Too bad the current draft of the constitution doesn’t reflect the will of most ordinary Iraqis on this issue – though it does help out the Kurds.

– Brian Katulis

Dick Cheney decided to stay on vacation for 72 hours in the midst of the worst natural disaster in American history.

Most Americans would probably say he came back to the job three days late.

Cheney sees the glass half full — according to U.S. News and World Report:

When asked by a reporter why he did not return from his vacation earlier than last Thursday, three days after the hurricane hit, the vice president replied: “I came back four days early.”

Tomato, tomahto.