host: joining us from new orleans is karen durham- aguilera, the task force hope leader for the army corps of engineers. guest: thanks for inviting me here today. this reduction system we are building for greater new orleans and the surrounding parishes, i oversee the program and look at the budgeting aspects. one of the things i enjoy the most is the tremendous stakeholder engagement between our levee authorities and the public in louisiana and the parishes. especially the public, they are so involved in what we did and did give us a lot of help with input and solutions. host: how would you tell someone the difference between the levee system now and five years ago? guest: five years ago, we did not know as much as we know today. there is a task force of levees and stations and flood walls. and maximum probable storm. there is a storm -- it was a landfall. it was something no one had ever thought of. a surge of over 32 feet. before katrina, it was the one form that happened in the past. now almost 150 storms with the numerous tracks anywhere from a 25 year to a 5000 year frequency.

later on in the program, you will meet karen durham with the army corps of engineers, and she is one of the key people talking about the levee system in new orleans and what's happening since they spent about $15 billion to upgrade and reinforce those levees. so you'll get a chance to ask her. later, raffle reed with the faith and coalition. and you'll see glenn beck's rally. so you'll have a chance to talk with him about related issues as well. in the miami herald this morning, there is a picture, robert colten's picture and it's air force senior master of homestead, a u.p.s. driver in civilian life returned home on friday to kiss his wife at miami international airport stories about the future of iraq. the president spoke about it himself in his weekly radio and internet address. on our "newsmakers" program, which you can see tomorrow at 10:00, our guest is senator dick lugar, the republican from indiana, the and he spoke with reporters on a large variety of topics. one of them on the difficulties of pulling troops out of iraq and then relying on the civilian government. >> it come