U.S. Mobilizes to Help Haiti

By HELENE COOPER and LIZ ROBBINS
Published: January 13, 2010
WASHINGTON — President Obama, facing the first large-scale humanitarian crisis of his presidency, moved quickly to send help to Haiti, pledging Wednesday that the Haitians and their devastated island nation would have the “unwavering support” of the United States.
Within hours of Mr. Obama being informed of the quake in Haiti on Tuesday, United States officials were plotting a response that included ships, transport planes, helicopters and thousands of Marines. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton decided Wednesday night to cancel the rest of her Pacific trip and return to Washington.
Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of the United States Southern Command, said that one of the Navys large amphibious ships would probably be sent to Haiti, with a Marine expeditionary unit aboard, and that other American military forces were on alert, including a brigade of 3,500 troops. He said the Pentagon was “seriously looking” at sending thousands of Marines to help the disaster effort.
The Navy aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was deployed from Norfolk, Va.; military commanders said it should arrive in two days. In addition, White House officials said the military was looking into sending the Southern Command’s hospital ship, the Comfort, in light of reports that most of Haiti’s medical facilities were severely damaged if not destroyed. The Coast Guard also dispatched four cutters.
As the United States mobilized, other governments and aid agencies around the world began marshaling supplies and manpower and overwhelmed rescue workers in Haiti scrambled to set up makeshift clinics. Medical workers from Doctors Without Borders, which had 800 people in Haiti before the quake, said they were mobbed everywhere they went by people who had suffered severe traumas and crushed limbs, and by others begging for help in rescuing trapped relatives.
France said that it would send three military transport planes, including one from nearby Fort-de-France, Martinique, with aid supplies, and that 100 troops based in the French West Indies would be sent, according to TF1, a French television network. Britain and Germany were sending governmental assessment teams, and Germany said it would make available 1.5 million euros, or about $2.2 million, for emergency assistance.
On Wednesday, relief organizations developed aid plans from their headquarters outside of Haiti and quickly raised millions of dollars through social networking sites and donations by cellphone. But they were still struggling to get workers and supplies into Haiti, where operations at the capital’s port were shut down and runways at the main airport were open only to limited traffic because the control tower had collapsed.
“We’re looking at private charter options, looking at getting people through the Dominican Republic,” said Paul McPhun, a director of the emergency management team for Doctors Without Borders. “We need to get people in, and get people fast. There’s not a shortage of getting people to go, but it’s how to get them there.”
Mr. Obama did not make a specific aid pledge, and administration officials said they were still trying to figure out what Haiti needed. But he urged Americans to dig into their pockets and to go to www.whitehouse.gov to learn ways to donate money.
“This is a time when we are reminded of the common humanity that we all share,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday, speaking in the White House diplomatic reception room with Vice President Joseph R. Biden. at his side.
He described the reports of thousands buried under the rubble in the capital, Port-au-Prince, as “truly heart-wrenching,” a tragedy made more cruel by Haiti’s desperate poverty.
Robyn Fieser, the regional information officer for Catholic Relief Services, said, “All they heard last night was chanting and praying,” describing reports from some of her organization’s relief workers who were in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday night. “They did not hear any emergency vehicles or emergency efforts at all. All they saw was people doing rescue work on their own, with their bare hands.”
White House officials were clearly conscious that Mr. Obama’s response to the first major humanitarian disaster of his presidency would be closely watched. President George W. Bush learned that lesson the hard way, when his initial response to the December 2004 tsunami in Asia that killed 226,000 people was derided as paltry, and a year after that when his White House fumbled its response to Hurricane Katrina.
Mr. Obama canceled a trip to Lanham, Md., scheduled for Wednesday afternoon so he could make telephone calls to discuss the relief effort with staff members and foreign diplomats, White House aides said.
Mr. Obama was informed about the quake at 5:52 p.m. Tuesday by Denis McDonough, his national security chief of staff; he told aides that he wanted the United States to move “fast and aggressively,” one White House official said. By 6:22 p.m. the White House had issued a statement from the president that the United States was “closely monitoring the situation” and stood “ready to assist the people of Haiti.”
The Coast Guard cutter Forward was at the Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba when the earthquake hit on Tuesday, causing the 270-foot ship to rock back and forth even though it was more than 200 miles from the epicenter. The Forward arrived in Port-au-Prince early Wednesday morning, the first American military ship on the scene and the only large vessel in the harbor, Diane W. Durham, commander of the Forward, said in a telephone interview.
Commander Durham described extraordinary devastation, with collapsed buildings reaching from the port into the hills above, and said that Haitian officials had told her that half of the 80 Haitian coast guard staff members stationed at the port were killed in the earthquake.
The Department of Homeland Security said it was halting the deportations of Haitians back to the island “for the time being.” Refugee and immigration rights groups said the United States should grant temporary protective status that would allow Haitians who are now in the United States to stay here.
Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and Liz Robbins from New York. Eric Lipton contributed reporting from Washington.