Posted on 12/30/2004 3:23:06 PM PST by lancer
WASHINGTON, Dec. 29, 2004 — Three Marine Corps disaster relief assessment teams are on the ground or about to arrive in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and at least two P-3 aircraft are conducting initial reconnaissance of damaged areas as a wide range of other Defense Department assets works its way to tsunami-stricken regions of the Indian Ocean.
U.S. Pacific Command has marshaled assets ranging from carrier strike groups to water purification ships to aircraft to provide emergency support for victims following the Dec. 26 earthquake and subsequent tsunamis, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Conway, director of operations for the Joint Staff, told reporters today at a special State Department briefing.
Navy Adm. Tom Fargo, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, stood up Joint Task Force 536 to coordinate U.S. relief efforts, Conway said. A forward command element has moved into a military base at Utapao, Thailand, and the headquarters is in the process of deploying. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Rusty Blackman, commander of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force based in Okinawa, will command the joint task force.
Meanwhile, the first of three Marine disaster relief assessment teams being sent to the region arrived in Thailand earlier today and a second team was due to arrive in Sri Lanka this afternoon. A third team will arrive in Indonesia Dec. 30, Conway said.
In addition, U.S. Pacific Command has committed six C-130 aircraft and nine P-3 aircraft to the relief effort. Conway said all the C-130s and four of the P-3s will operate out of Utapao. Five other P-3 aircraft will operate out of Diego Garcia.
Conway said at least two of the P-3s already are conducting observation and reconnaissance of damaged sites.
In addition, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, which was in Hong Kong when the earthquake and tsunamis struck, has been diverted to the Gulf of Thailand to support recovery operations, Conway said.
Aircraft from the strike group are checking the Malacca Straits for debris before the strike group transits the area. "If it is clear — and early reports indicate it might be — the five ships associated with that carrier strike group will take position off the island of Sumatra," Conway said.
Conway said the Lincoln carrier strike group has 12 helicopters embarked that he said could be "extremely valuable" in recovery missions.
An additional 25 helicopters are aboard USS Bonhomme Richard, headed to the Bay of Bengal. Conway said the expeditionary strike group was in Guam and is forgoing port visits in Guam and Singapore and expects to arrive in the Bay of Bengal by Jan. 7.
Conway said the strike group, with its seven ships, 2,100 Marines and 1,400 sailors aboard, also has four Cobra helicopters that will be instrumented in reconnaissance efforts.
Because fresh water is one of the greatest needs in the region, Fargo has ordered seven ships — each capable of producing 90,000 gallons of fresh water a day — to the region. Conway said five of these ships are pre-positioned in Guam and two will come from Diego Garcia.
A field hospital ship pre-positioned in Guam would also be ordered to the region, depending on findings of the disaster relief assessment teams and need, Conway said.
The U.S. State Department is leading U.S. support for the relief effort. Marc Grossman, undersecretary of state for political affairs, is leading the U.S. task force formed today to respond to the crisis.
Grossman said the task force will work with the regional core group, made up of Australia, Japan and India, to provide coordination and assistance. It also will help coordinate the interagency response in Washington, D.C., and encourage additional international support for the relief effort, he said.
"This is going to be a giant international requirement. Although we make a substantial contribution — more than anyone else in these emergencies — this is certainly not for us to do alone," Grossman said. "It is going to take a worldwide effort. We would expect and hope and believe the world will respond."
But Andrew Natsios, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, stressed that "the principal responders in humanitarian emergencies are the people themselves who live there." This, he said, includes local officials who are in charge of responding and the national disaster response teams "who speak the language, have the maps, know the transportation system."
Natsios acknowledged that these groups can sometimes get overwhelmed by the scope of a crisis and need help.
"We need to not think that these people are all paralyzed and can't help themselves, and we go in there and save them all," Natsios said. "We know that most of the best work is done by the people themselves. Our job is to support the people in the cities and in the villages who will begin the reconstruction process. So we are not there to tell them what to do, but to ask them how we can help."
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Like I said, the dems can't win unless Bush loses...
While the dems are whining and sniveling, our military, who are almost alone in Iraq thanks to the cowards of old Europe, move once more into the breech.
I wonder how many dollars it will take to move and maintain these assets? Bottom-line, it won't be cheap -- another contribution from the USA. And btw, I'm glad we can do it, and wish God-speed to all our support personnel.
Now they are whining that are relief effort will undermine the UN. If they used a fraction of the Oil for Food Scam money they got they could finance the whole relief effort themselves.
Ya know, in the mean time, I don't why the military doesn't drop those yellow food pkgs on the more inaccessible areas.
I'm wondering what Canada in contributing to this natural disaster.
Maybe we should raise taxes on everyone by, say, 50%. Then maybe we could field a rescue force the size of, oh, let's say, France...or Norway.
I hope the wake of our ships doesn't capsize the European rescue flotilla...
That's an opinion that is well-reasoned and with which I can fully agree.
I must have been asleep at the wheel when Jimmy was helping the North Koreans. My recall is that it was a Bubba thing.
What is most important to realize is that the U.S. military will do this without supplemental funding from the Congress. In other words, they U.S. miltary will spend all this money earmarked for defense for disaster aid. That's great, but the average American will then wonder why all the Humvees don't have armor.
That is a very important point to remember. There is alot of Islamic fundamentalism in the region, and I can only hope many of them were washed away. Not a peep of this from MSM however, not that they ever do report what goes on there. The Christians who survived the massacures in Indonesia and were chased into the hills have the last laugh against those terrorists who were caught offguard relaxing on the beachfront property they stole. I guess it's wishfull thinking to hope the majority of the victims were Muslim terrorists, but we know at least in some spots they were. NO AID should be allowed to fall in their hands. I served in Indonesia during the uprizing and I saw the horrors they inflicted on the Christians. Where was the outcry from the world then?
I'd like to know exactly when the carrier group and the bay of bengal groups were given orders to prepare to get underway for the tsunami area and when they did get underway. I'd also like to know when the survellience flights went out, and when any other form of military asset was ordered into the relief effort in the days from the 26th through the 28th.
Should be easy enough to find out at the DoD PA site.
This is from a White House press release on 12/29/04. A series of PRs can be found in a column on the right side of this page.
I had some discussion today with someone who claimed we were tardy. I said we *do*, not talk, and that we were not tardy at all. From backhoe's threads summarizing the news reports I've been able to learn that the carrier group was underway as of tne 28th. But I'm not sure when it got underway, or when the scout planes -- the P3's -- started the overflights to determine the extent and locations of the devastation.
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