Some 5,700 US marines and soldiers are expected to join Haitian earthquake relief efforts this weekend. The UN says its peacekeeping force should be in command. The US says no.

Washington --- The marines are about to hit the shores of Port-au-Prince – an arrival that would almost certainly send shivers up spines anywhere else in Latin America.

But amid the Haitian earthquake relief effort – in a country that has no military of its own and has hosted an international peacekeeping force since 2004 – the arrival is unlikely to cause many ripples among locals.

Yet the dispatch of some 2,200 marines – as well as 3,500 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division – is raising some command and assignment questions.

When the troops arrive, perhaps this weekend, who will be in charge, given that the Haitian government is almost disintegrated and the 9,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, MINUSTAH, is dealing with its own losses?

Will the 5,500 US military personnel be part of an international, or an American, security effort?

Who's the boss?

“It’s fully desirable that all these forces should be coordinated with the UN MINUSTAH commander there,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday.

US officials, on the other hand, say that while the US may “coordinate” with the peacekeeping operation’s leadership, US troops will be under American command.

“We’ll be under US command supporting a UN mission on behalf of the Haitian government and the Haitian people,” said State Department spokesman Philip Crowley, when asked Thursday to clarify the command structure for what is expected to be a three-month deployment of US forces.

Learning from the tsunami

The command question may cause some initial confusion, but it is likely to be quickly ironed out – especially given the recent experience the US has in dispatching the military to disaster zones, say US security and international relief experts.

“We sent 8,000 marines to Indonesia after the tsunami, and that intervention stands out as one of the best examples of use of the US military in a disaster,” says Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense who is now an analyst at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

Not only did the Marines accomplish significant humanitarian objectives, Mr. Korb notes, but America’s image in Indonesia – the world’s largest Muslim country – shot up as a result. “The use of the military in this way really undermines the Al Qaeda narrative,” he says.
Haiti: a country without a government

The Haiti case is different, however, in part because the Haitian government is so weak, and in some estimations practically nonexistent, after the earthquake.

President René Préval is alive, but the Parliament and several ministry buildings collapsed, taking the lives of as-yet uncertain numbers of legislators and government officials.

The US says it is coordinating with the Haitian government – by which it appears to mean a little-seen President Préval – but acknowledges that in the short-term there will be little government to deal with.

“There’s no question that the Haitian Government is challenged,” the State Department’s Mr. Crowley says. “They have received a very serious blow.” But he adds that the US objective is “not only to provide lifesaving support to the Haitian people but to rebuild the capacity of the Haitian Government.”
Help wanted, calling Cuba?

The US needs to remember that it is part of an international effort, something Korb says the US sometimes forgets. In the case of Haiti, “We’ll be the first among equals, because of our size and proximity and our capabilities,” he says, “but we shouldn’t limit our approach to just what we can do.”

In that vein, Korb offers a politically daring proposition: The US should consider tapping the expertise of neighboring Cuba to help address Haiti’s needs.

“We should stop and think that Cuba right next door has some of the best doctors in the world,” he says. “We should see about flying them in.”

At the same time, the US must be careful not to run roughshod over historical sensitivities in the region about US military interventions.

“We’re not taking over Haiti," said Crowley. "We are helping to stabilize Haiti. We’re helping to provide them lifesaving support and material, and we’re going to be there over the long term to help Haiti rebuild.”

WASHINGTON --- The Pentagon is mobilizing a massive relief effort to help Haiti earthquake victims, but there are worries that the response will still take days to be in place.

The military’s efforts are at the front end of what President Obama said Thursday would be a $100 million U.S. commitment to Haitian relief.

But it is taking time to get there. The aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson was expected to arrive Thursday afternoon but now will not be there until today. The USNS Comfort, a hospital ship, hasn’t left the port of Baltimore yet because it still needs to collect supplies and personnel.

While the assessment teams are still conducting their review of the need in Haiti, mostly in Port-au-Prince, near the epicenter of the magnitude 7.0 earthquake, there is a clear need for medical assistance.

The aircraft carrier arriving today has three operating rooms, several dozen hospital beds and can produce fresh water. The Bataan amphibious ship also possesses some medical assets and is being outfitted with more. But it is the Comfort hospital ship, with its 250 hospital beds and 12 operating rooms, that would appear to meet the most pressing need in Haiti.

A week for hospital ship to get there

Pentagon officials say that ship, one of the Navy’s two hospital ships, won’t leave Baltimore until this weekend and not arrive until sometime at the end of next week.

“It’s a slow moving vessel, it’s an older vessel, so it will take about a week to get down there once it gets all crewed up,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

Ground troops are also being sent, including a brigade of about 3,500 Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C., and about 2,000 Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit in Camp Lejeune, N.C. The mission of the ground forces remains unclear, as the relief effort unfolds and government officials wait to see if any civil unrest would require an American ground presence.

Pentagon officials say the Army unit will arrive in Haiti by the end of the week. The Marines, who will arrive on the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group ships, will wait offshore and only go into Haiti depending on what occurs.

Obama: U.S. moving 'as quickly as possible'

“Even as we move as quickly as possible, it will take hours, and in many cases days, to get all of our people and resources on the ground,” Obama said at a news conference at the White House Thursday, his second meeting with the press about Haiti.

Roads remain impassable, the main port is “badly damaged,” and poor communications pose major challenges, he said.

“None of this will seem quick enough if you have a loved one who’s trapped, if you’re sleeping on the streets, if you can’t feed your children,” Obama said. “But it’s important that everybody in Haiti understand, at this very moment, one of the largest relief efforts in our recent history is moving towards Haiti.”

The U.S. will likely be the largest contributor to relief, and military officials say it takes time to assess the need and move in those supplies and assets that are most needed. But the enormity of the effort lends itself to feeding a perception that the military bureaucracy gets in the way.

Frustration at logistical challenge

Pentagon officials themselves seemed to express frustration at the logistical challenge they were confronting. Gen. Douglas Fraser, head of U.S. Southern Command, briefing reporters Wednesday, said the initial assessment team would “finally” arrive later that afternoon.

Fraser, who is new at Southern Command but now finds himself at the forefront of the military’s relief effort, is expected to update reporters on the situation in Haiti later Thursday.

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials disagree with any contention that the U.S. military is moving too slowly.

“I just don’t subscribe to that premise,” said Whitman. “I think the U.S. military has been very forward leaning on this and in terms of moving assets and anticipating requirements.”

Other officials point out that it took the hospital ship Comfort five days to mobilize and get underway after Hurricane Katrina. For the Haiti earthquake, they say, it's taking just half that long.