Dean, in New Orleans, slams Bush on Katrina

NEW ORLEANS, Apr 21 (Reuters) Democratic Party chief Howard Dean, pitching in to help clean up hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, today said the area's slow recovery was a failure of national leadership that would cost Republicans in November's elections.

''This is why Republicans are going to be out of business,'' Dean said outside a badly damaged house in New Orleans' devastated Ninth Ward, where whole streets remain vacant and debris from Hurricane Katrina chokes yards and roads more than seven months after the storm.

''This is ridiculous. This is not the America we grew up in,'' Dean said, gazing at the mounds of mud and water-soaked debris. ''This is a lack of leadership.'' Flooding caused by Katrina last year killed more than 1,300 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. President George W Bush's administration has been heavily criticised for its slow initial response and the lack of a clear recovery plan since.

Dean and about 20 Democratic National Committee members and staff, in New Orleans for the DNC's spring meeting, helped a crew of volunteers gut, scrape and clear debris from a brick house slated for rebuilding.

Other teams of DNC members fanned out across New Orleans to perform other acts of community service today, helping rebuild houses, sort clothes and distribute food for hurricane victims.

The effort, and the Democrats' decision to hold their meeting in New Orleans, is a way to pledge support for the city while reminding voters of the Bush administration's slow response to the disaster.

Dean, dressed in a white protective suit, said after pushing wheelbarrows of debris to a pile in the front yard that Bush's ''incredible failure'' in New Orleans would tar his presidency.

If Democrat Bill Clinton was still president, he said, the neighborhoods would have been cleaned up.

''This is a searing, burning issue and I think it's going to cost George Bush his legacy and it's going to cost the Republicans the House, the Senate and maybe very well the presidency in the next election,'' he said. ''People will never forget this.'' SLOW RECOVERY The balance of power in the House and Senate will be at stake in November's congressional elections, with Democrats needing to pick up six Senate seats and 15 House seats to reclaim majorities.

The owner of the house, 68-year-old Vincent Copper, thanked Dean for his help. He said he had lived there since 1971 and was determined to rebuild, but was temporarily staying near the airport.

''It's been slow,'' he said of the pace of recovery. ''They have been moving, but it's not as fast as I would like it to be.'' Water in the neighborhood had been 12-feet (3.7-meter) deep after the storm, and many of the other wooden houses along Copper's street had been knocked from their foundations and were likely to be torn down.

Dean told volunteers working on the house from ACORN, a grass-roots group that works on behalf of low-income and minority families, they were performing a valuable service.

''We don't have a federal government that wants to help, so I'm glad you're doing this. This is all we've got,'' Dean said.

''We need different kind of folks in Washington who will put the ordinary people of New Orleans in front of bureaucracy and paperwork and politics,'' he said.

Reuters SC VP0315