Military to boost humanitarian aid to Pakistan

By Charles Aldinger

MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Florida (Reuters) – The U.S.
military is increasing humanitarian aid to Pakistan after the
worst earthquake in the country’s history, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and other senior officials said on Tuesday.

President George W. Bush has offered an initial $50 million
in U.S. emergency aid to Pakistan, which has been a close ally
in Washington’s war on terrorism.

Bush’s government, criticized for an initially slow
response to last December’s Asian tsunami and for a sluggish
reaction to Hurricane Katrina on the U.S. Gulf Coast in August,
has already sent helicopters and planeloads of disaster aid to
Pakistan. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the
weekend quake.

The United States is expected to have about 40 helicopters
on the ground in Pakistan within weeks, said Gen. John Abizaid,
head of U.S. Central Command responsible for the region.

Rumsfeld and Abizaid said only a small number of U.S.
troops were likely to be assigned on the ground in Pakistan.

“I think probably relatively few,” Rumsfeld said of U.S.
troops, noting that Islamabad’s airport and other aid
distribution points already were crowded.

“What they need is blankets and tents and medicines. They
have a lot of doctors, people on the ground.”

Additional C-17 and C-130 cargo planes, two U.S. military
engineer battalions and four big CH-47 and CH-53 helicopters
were going to Pakistan, said a senior Bush-administration
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The Pentagon said eight helicopters already were in
Pakistan. The United States was also using reconnaissance
aircraft, including unmanned drones, to survey damage from the
quake, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said in Washington.

The Pentagon named U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Michael Lefever
to head a disaster-assistance center in Islamabad and
coordinate military relief efforts.

Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, commander of U.S. forces in
neighboring Afghanistan, visited Islamabad to oversee the
initial U.S. military-assistance response but was returning to
Kabul to resume his responsibilities in Afghanistan, U.S.
Central Command said.

The United States also would try to get trucks and
bulldozers into Pakistan to help, Di Rita said.

He said that because Pakistan’s airports are so busy after
the quake, the United States was operating some of its aircraft
out of Bagram air base in Afghanistan.

State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said the
government aid agency, USAID, had delivered plastic sheeting,
blankets and water containers for up to 2,500 families and a
team in Pakistan would assess needs for more aid.

Rumsfeld and the U.S. officials — speaking to reporters en
route to Miami for a meeting of Central American security
leaders — also said the United States was sending six more
helicopters and other military support to flood-stricken
Guatemala.

More than 1,000 people have died after Hurricane Stan swept
through Central America and southern Mexico with flooding and
mudslides.

Pentagon officials said the number of U.S. helicopters in
Guatemala would rise to 15 in coming days and would probably go
higher.

(Additional reporting by Will Dunham and Paul Eckert in
Washington)