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Military to boost humanitarian aid to Pakistan

Posted on: Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 15:24 CDT

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)

Source: REUTERS

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