5. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is an agency with a very long history of work in construction, operation, and maintenance of infrastructural works (e.g., dams, levees, revetments) and nonstructural disaster mitigation works. The USACE also owns, operates, and maintains other massive infrastructure systems (e.g., lock systems, navigable waterways, bridges, ports). Consequently, USACE became an important player in the U.S. system of emergency management, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. Explain the role of the USACE in disaster management. Does this agency occupy an influential organizational position in the Pentagon? Is the USACE politically important or powerful? Is it effective as a flood-fighting organization? Is it culpable in any way for the levee failures around New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina? Is structural mitigation of the type advanced by the USACE outmoded given the U.S. societal emphasis on nonstructural mitigation? Should all U.S. flood-works be nationalized and made the responsibility of the USACE?