*EPF302 12/29/2004
United States Makes Long-Term Pledge to Tsunami Disaster Relief
(Bush expresses condolences; U.S. officials outline aid plans) (760)

By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington ���� President Bush said December 29 that the world will help South Asian nations ����prevail over this destruction,���� as he expressed the condolences and sadness of the nation at ����loss and grief to the world that is beyond our comprehension.����

Speaking from his ranch in Crawford, Texas, Bush said the United States is engaged in an effort to build a coalition of nations assisting in the humanitarian relief effort. He said Secretary of State Colin Powell contacted other national leaders about forming this group, which also will focus on long-term recovery and reconstruction.

The United States has made an initial pledge to provide $35 million in assistance to the nations affected, but Bush said U.S. agencies will also await the assessments of long-term needs to help the stricken nations ����get back up on their feet.����

The president appointed Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman to head a U.S. task force that will work with India, Australia and Japan. At a later Washington briefing, Grossman said the group would likely expand over time.

����These were the four countries who could do something right now, and we hope, as the president said, that lots more countries will join in,���� Grossman said. In an upcoming telephone conference call, Grossman will speak with his counterparts in the other nations to decide how to proceed with the humanitarian tasks ahead.

The three objectives of the task force, he said, will be to provide assistance, to coordinate the interagency relief efforts in Washington and to solicit more support from other governments in order to take the relief effort ����to a new level.����

The U.S. aid pledge of $35 million will likely grow when damage assessments are conducted and the full scope of the needs are better understood, said the nation����s leading official in relief efforts, Administrator Andrew Natsios of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).��

He said USAID professionals are already in place in the region beginning these assessments, and the initial reports are grim.��

����The death tolls are higher in all the countries than we anticipated, but especially in Indonesia,���� Natsois said.�� News accounts pushed the death toll over 80,000 December 29, four times what had been reported just two days previously.

Indonesia was particularly hard hit, Natsios said, because it took the brunt of both the earthquake, the most severe worldwide in 40 years, and the resulting tsunami and flooding. Further, Aceh, the most severely affected province, has been undergoing insurrection for some years. Natsios said the insurrection has limited the government����s access to some areas, resulting in incomplete assessments of population and an initial underestimation of tsunami-related deaths.

U.S. assistance already is being distributed in the aftermath of an event that ranks among the deadliest natural disasters in recent decades. Natsios said his agency has handed $4 million in U.S. funding to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which will work through national organizations in the affected countries.�� The United States has also sent funds to the World Food Program to purchase 3,000 tons of rice.

Provision of food, clean water, medical supplies and shelter are the immediate priorities for the relief efforts, Natsios said.�� Flooding has destroyed purification systems in many of the affected areas, such that drinking water is polluted with sewage, a situation that can expose people to disease.��

Working through nongovernmental organizations, and local and national governments, Natsios said, USAID teams are ready to start tapping that $35 billion to address immediate needs, and help local and national officials look toward the future.

����Most of the best work is done by the people themselves,���� Natsios said. ����Our job is to support the people in the cities and in the villages who will begin the reconstruction process.�� We����re not there to tell them what to do, but to ask them how we can help.����

Lieutenant General James T. Conway, Joint Chiefs of Staff director of operations, was at the same briefing, describing the array of military resources that the Pacific Command is sending into the region.�� Five ships each capable or producing 90,000 gallons (over 340 kiloliters) of fresh water a day are heading to the Bay of Bengal.�� Two more U.S. ships with the same capability are already in the Indian Ocean, and steaming toward the affected region, Conway said.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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