Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today pledged the United States will provide long-term assistance to help Haiti recover from this week's devastating earthquake.
"This is going to be a long-term effort. We have the immediate crisis of trying to save those lives that can be saved, to deal with the injured . . . to try to provide food, water, medical supplies, some semblance of shelter," Ms Clinton said on NBC's Today show.
She said the US government was also prepared to work with the Haitian government and other international partners to begin rebuilding the stricken country.
"This calamity has affected three million people. It has caused the collapse of ten of thousands of buildings. We know that there will be tens of thousands of casualties," Ms Clinton added without providing specific numbers on fatalities.
Her comments came as the United States announced it would send up to 3,500 soldiers to Haiti from the US army's 82nd Airborne Division to assist with disaster relief and security.
Ms Clinton said in a separate interview on CNN that a US military team had reopened the airport so that heavy aircraft could begin to arrive. She also pledged US help for the crippled Haitian government. "The authorities that existed before the earthquake are not able to fully function.
We're going to try to support them as they re-establish authority," she told CNN.
Ms Clinton said a 7,000-strong UN peacekeeping force was helping to maintain order and would receive help controlling looting and other violence from the US Army's 82nd Airborne Division later today. "The peacekeeping force . . . is out on the streets, they're clearing streets, they're bringing law and order," Ms Clinton said on NBC.
The Pentagon was sending an aircraft carrier, which she said would arrive soon, and three amphibious ships, including one that can carry up to 2,000 Marines.
"We've got a very co-ordinated, aggressive response going on," Ms Clinton, who cut short a trip to the Pacific to return to Washington and deal with the crisis, said on CNN. "We've sent some of our crack search and rescue teams into Port-au-Prince. They're beginning their work. We're co-ordinating with the Haitian president, President Preval."
"We are facing a disaster of unknown magnitude . . . therefore I have decided to cancel the remainder of my trip and return to Washington," she said in Hawaii, where she spent two nights at the start of what was to have been a nine-day trip with stops in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Ms Clinton said she planned to reschedule her trip to the South Pacific.
Asked whether Haiti had a functioning government, Ms Clinton noted the destruction of the presidential palace and the severe damage sustained by the local United Nations mission, whose Port-au-Prince headquarters building collapsed. "We've got a lot of work to do," she said. "The president is alive but has nowhere to live."
Reuters