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The World’s Jeb Sharp reports on who’s in charge of coordinating the relief effort in Haiti. (Photo: Patrice Coppee/AFP/Getty Images)
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MARCO WERMAN: The White House says the U.S. Military will be providing some security in Haiti soon with thousands of American troops en route to the country. It’s not clear who will actually be running Haiti in the coming weeks. U.S. officials are being careful to signal that Haiti is still a sovereign nation and that the U.S. has not intention of taking over. Within days, the U.S. Military will have huge numbers and resources in place in a country that cannot run itself. The World’s Jeb Sharp reports.
JEB SHARP: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been blunt about the situation in Haiti.
SOUND CLIP: The government of Haiti is not able to function. The Haitian government has to be endowed with authority but obviously they need the United States and the United Nations, which is rushing in replacements for the personnel that have been unfortunately lost. We will be working closely with the Haitian government and with the U.N. This is going to be a full court press.
SHARP: That full court press was in evidence today as ships and troops steamed toward the island. The nuclear powered aircraft carrier, the Carl Vincent, is already in place with its 18 helicopters, three surgical operating rooms, and water purification equipment capable of delivering hundreds of thousands of gallons of clean water every day. Other ships are on their way. Military officials say nine to ten thousand military personnel will be in place by Monday. Joel Charny of Refugees International says it’s still important that civilians, not military officials, control the aid operation.
JOEL CHARNY: What the military has is a tremendous logistical capacity. In an emergency of this scale, that capacity is a tremendous asset but precisely because we’re in a foreign country
where there has been U.S. Military intervention in the past, it is very, very important both from the standpoint of effectiveness and image that civilians really be in control of this effort.
SHARP: So far that is the case. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was asked today what resources the U.S. Military was willing to commit to getting Haiti back on its feet. Here’s how he answered.
SOUND CLIP: This will be principally the responsibility I assume of the United Nations. From the standpoint of the United States government, the lead role will be played by our ambassador, the state department and AID. Our efforts will be in support of them.
SHARP: Aid as USAID or the U.S. Agency for International Development. The agencies new head is Rajiv Shah, who has only just been sworn in. Joel Charny says part of Shah’s challenge will be juggling the tension between military and civilian leadership.
SOUND CLIP: What we’ve seen increasingly is military involvement in humanitarian response in what you might call a militarization of that response. Here is Dr. Shah brand new on the job and early reports are he has been very successful at being the lead within the U.S. government and then bringing the military along rather than the military charging in and making key decisions about how aid should be allocated.
SHARP: Sorting out who is in charge of the U.S. operation is only one part of the who is in charge question. The other is who is in charge on the ground in Haiti, the Haitian government, the United Nations or the United States. David Rothkopf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says there is no way it is the Haitian government.
SOUND CLIP: They are weak in the best of times. These are the worst of times. The government infrastructure is gone. The ability to communicate is gone. The ability to move money around to provide services are all gone. The international community is going to have to do this sensitive balancing act of respecting Haitian sovereignty, respecting Haitian needs, trying to rebuild these institutions but coordinating that rebuilding themselves.
SHARP: Rothkopf says the United States has to take a leading role but it doesn’t have to be the lead role. Either way, U.S. troops will be a big presence in and around the island for some time to come. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today he expected, “a long term undertaking with the U.S. as a principal player.” For The World, I’m Jeb Sharp.
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Why not build for the time being, with the shipping containers, which are not only cheap, but structurally wonderful.
This website
http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/articles/containers.htm
shows them to be more than nerdly ugly, but they make wonderful structures, which can then have solar panels for on their roofs, but they can be dismantled in the future when the bigger, more comprehensive plans come about as to where they new city layout should be.
This can be instant housing and get the recovery underway. Each family could have one or two and there could be solar health clinics and solar orphanages take more than a dozen.
What I suggest is that the National Guard bring these containers to the horrible sites, fill them with rubble, and then switch out the full containers with empty ones which can then be tooled into homes.
I hope you find this idea plausible — and feasible for putting into effect right now.
Best
Janet