'Iraq war delayed Katrina relief effort'

File under Suspicions Confirmed:

A confidential report commissioned by the Pentagon finds that Katrina relief efforts “suffered near catastrophic failures due to endemic corruption, divisions within the military and troop shortages caused by the Iraq war.”

Stephen Henthorne, a former U.S. Army War College professor and deputy-director of Katrina relief efforts, authored the report. He found that a "major factor in the delayed response to the hurricane aftermath was that the bulk of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard was deployed in Iraq."

"The US military has long planned for war on two fronts," the report found. "This is as close as we have come to [that] reality since the Second World War; the results have been disastrous. ... Failure to plan, and train properly has plagued US efforts in Afghanistan, Iraq and now that failure has come home to roost in the United States."

--The Independent.