Whether one is discussing the activities of the 2nd Brigade, 82 Airborne of the Army, Special Operations Group 1 of the USAF and many thousands of USAF airmen, the USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70), other ships, and naval aviators of the Navy, the 22nd MEU and the Marines landing in Haiti on Tuesday, or the Guardians who were the first responders in Haiti representing the Coast Guard – the men and women on the ground in Haiti are doing an amazing job. Those men and women who train our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Guardians should take pride today because US citizens indeed take pride in their representation of us in Haiti.
With that said the leaders of the operation need to do a better job organizing, cooperating, and coordinating the response to Haiti, because every problem that pops up can be specifically defined as a leadership issue where Command, Coordination, and Cooperation of operations can be improved – and need to be improved.
Countries like France are exactly right to call US actions in Haiti as “occupation” even if it is not true, because in case you haven’t noticed, every US spokesman on TV and covered in press conferences involved in public diplomacy from the ground in Haiti wears combat boots.
Todd H. Guggisberg, Assistant Professor, Department of Logistics and Resource Operations (DLRO) US Army Command and General Staff College emailed me today with an important observation.
As a retired career Army logistics officer, I am following the events closely. Understanding what it means to feed/water/shelter 3 million people is difficult for most Americans. One of my logistics students did a quick estimate and came up with a requirement for 2,000 cargo trucks per day to supply ONE humanitarian ration to 3 million people per day….and rations are easy compared to water.
That might explain why there has been a policy change regarding the danger of airdropping relief supplies. Are things getting critical? Probably more than most Americans probably realize.
One C-17 airdrop represents ~30,000 rations (usually divided between humanitarian rations and bottled water), and we would need to conduct more than 100 C-17 airdrops per day and equally distribute those rations just to get just 1 bottle of water or 1 humanitarian ration to each of the 3 million people the UN says are in need in Haiti today. The SOUTHCOM focus to date on the one runway airfield is a distraction, by no fuzzy math is it possible for ~180 planes around the world to meet the demand of the Haiti catastrophe.
At the exact same time on Monday General Keen was telling reporters on the ground in Haiti “the only way to get anything in is through the airport”, the Dutch Navy ship HNLMS Pelikaan (A804) had arrived from Netherlands Antilles and was unloading a truck onto a pier in Port-au-Prince. Due to security problems in the port, the unloading was halted and the ship had to pull away with a hold full of aid. See the official MoD website (in Dutch) for a picture of the truck unloading. More information here and here in Dutch.
There are serious coordination issues in Haiti, and it isn’t just the US with the UN or NGOs, because we would also not appear to be coordinating with other countries responding from sea, including NATO ships! The airport will not be able to meet the demand of inbound flights no matter how excellent a job the USAF 1st SOG does. Who is coordinating the effort at sea and in the port? How is it even possible that a Dutch naval ship is the first ship to unload materials in Port-au-Prince with all those US ships working on the port facilities, and at the exact same time the General is telling reporters something completely different? Did General Keen even know the Dutch ship was there when he was talking to reporters?
Without supply from sea, it will be impossible to deliver enough supplies to meet the range of demands in Haiti. USNS 1st LT Jack Lummus (T-AK 3011) should arrive sometime on Tuesday. The ship is bringing INLS pontoons, an Army Port Opening Battalion, US AID materials, Seabee gear, combat engineers, lots of propane tanks, and 223 troops – which is combined far over capacity, but USCG gave a waiver.
The INLS pontoons take many, many hours to get completely set up and operational, but will be a game changer for logistics. Admiral Harvey did an interview with reporters today in Norfolk, and while apparently knowing about the Dutch ship, he was discussing the deployment of the USNS Sacagawea (T-AKE 2), which was due to depart Norfolk Tuesday afternoon. USNS Sacagawea (T-AKE 2) was loaded to capacity with pallets of aid, including nearly 400,000 meals-ready-to-eat and an additional 235,000 pounds of food.
USNS Sacagawea (T-AKE 2) would represent at least 13 fully loaded C-17 airdrops of rations, and that ship can do a lot more than haul food and rations.
But while the Navy is leaning well forward in support of relief operations, open up the port, and get supplies to Haiti; I still have serious questions what is going on in SOUTHCOM. Did the Reserves help load LT Jack Lummus (T-AK 3011) in Jacksonville? I am hearing they did not, rather it was a few shore guys working round the clock over the three day weekend instead… I was stunned to find out too. I know Reserves were sent to help USNS Comfort (T-AH 20). Did the Reserves forget to lean forward per instruction of the President in places other than Baltimore? Where was SOUTHCOM in coordinating the Reserves for loading?
Look, USNS 1st LT Jack Lummus (T-AK 3011) is the most important asset right now for the entire US effort in Haiti. Without INLS, there is no possible way enough food and water can be delivered to the people of Haiti. SOUTHCOM needs to fix their coordination problems – yesterday.
Media people, particularly CNN, are beginning to notice that NGOs are getting short on medical supplies. News reports claim the UN and Haitian government have put food and water ahead of medicine to help the wounded. Hospital supplies of medicine are running out. Why would the UN and Haitian government make this choice?
The only explanation is that there isn’t enough food and water to get to the people. The airport cannot move the fuel, earth moving equipment, food, water, and medicine to meet demand, so choices are being made what isn’t going to get through among the limited flights in. The choice right now is in favor of logistics and infrastructure equipment, food, and water to support the 2-3 million Haitians roaming the streets, instead of medicine for the surviving wounded in hospital camps scattered around Haiti under the care of NGOs.
Which choice would you make? Medicine for the people who are dieing, or food and water for the people who aren’t dieing, yet? Think very hard about the choices being made, because that is the unfortunate reality of the hell in Haiti right now. Anderson Cooper and others will tell people medical supplies are more important than food and water, but the seriousness of the decisions being made by the UN and Haitian government is not being examined close enough to put those complaints in context. Actually, I’m forced to guess, because Anderson Cooper and others don’t have an Obama administration representitive on the ground to ask – and if they do, I can’t name that person. That point seems lost on CNN.
Everyone should understand why the DoD is being asked to carry the load in Haiti, but it is critical you also understand why USAID or the State Department should be in charge in Haiti even though you can’t name who the top US civilian leader is in Haiti right now. The DoD budget is going to be somewhere around $700 billion with supplemental budgets in FY2011, and that gets compared to a USAID budget of $4 billion and the State Department budget of about $65 billion. Obviously the catastrophe in Haiti is beyond the means of either USAID and State to handle the problem, but does that also mean neither agency can’t afford to have a leader inside Haiti to lead the US effort?
If we want the UN and Haitian government to be in charge in Haiti, then we need a strong civilian counterpart to deal with the civilian political challenges. Bill Clinton would be great for that, but is he the political authority speaking for the Obama administration? I doubt he would say yes.
If the DoD is not the lead agency, and I do not under any circumstances believe they should be, why is the DoD being made the face of leadership in Haiti? Who and where is the Obama administration’s appointed representative? Rajiv Shah is in Washington DC, so who is running the show in Haiti? I do wonder if SOUTHCOM leaders are too buried in the internal politics of the UN and Haiti on the ground to support the relief efforts that involve the rest of the world, because General Keen seemed completely oblivious to what the Dutch were doing at the port – and activities at the port should be priority one.
When you don’t know the name of the top US civilian leader in the Haitian relief effort, there is a serious political leadership problem.
The State Department told NBC news on Tuesday that there are still 5,500 missing Americans in Haiti. What the article does not mention is that no Americans have been pulled out of rubble alive in 2 days, and the odds of finding more survivors is very low.
Missing does not mean dead.
High numbers of missing Americans are not uncommon after natural disasters. The number of missing originally peaked at 7,000 a few days after the September 11th attacks, but that number was eventually reduced to 3,016. Two weeks after the 2004 Tsunami, there were still 2500 inquiries to the State Department regarding American citizens, but that number today is 18 dead, 16 presumed dead, with 456 inquiries remaining.
Every situation is unique though. The Tsunami was spread out over thousands of miles and several countries. The number of inquiries following 9/11 was reduced to less than 3,500 within days. 5,500 inquiries after a full week in a concentrated population area represents a very high number of missing, and Brian Williams of NBC made a comment tonight that indeed the number of Americans killed in Haiti may be more than on Americans killed on 9/11.
5,500 would represent more Americans than have died in the Iraq War to date, the Afghanistan war to date, the September 11th attacks, or Hurricane Katrina. The number 5,500 will come down, but it may not come down as much as people hope it would. In a city of starving people with very little water with American citizens and soldiers running around the city, it is not hard for an American to reach communications. While I hope it is not, the death toll of Americans may be very high.
If the earthquake in Haiti turns out to be the largest loss of US citizen lives in the 21st century, or the second greatest natural disaster to kill Americans in history – only the 1900 hurricane of Galveston, Texas being more lethal; how does that change your opinion of what we have seen over the last week? Does it influence your opinion regarding the US response to date?
Several people have made various comments comparing Haiti to Hurricane Katrina. In Vice President Biden’s press conference Saturday at SOUTHCOM, he emphasized this was much worse than Katrina. To date, if the UN has really buried 50,000 bodies already, in the context of deaths alone the Haitian earthquake is already more than 50x worse than Katrina, and potentially as much as 5x worse just for American citizens.
Maybe if we recognize the scope of the Haitian earthquake in context, we will start to understand how important it is to get the Command, Coordination, and Cooperation of operations on the ground of Haiti under better control, and that should include fixing the void of US political leadership in Haiti so the press can get better answers what is going on.
The Navy is about to open up the port, but that doesn’t mean anything if the situation is uncoordinated on the ground and supplies make it to shore only to sit on the pier. The UN and Haiti appear to be making decisions that knowingly will lead to wounded people dieing over the next several days, potentially a lot of wounded. This should be speaking to just how critical the situation is in Haiti, but it is very murky and unclear. Execution of a distribution plan with the supplies soon expected to be delivered by sea could change the trends and meet the demands for food, water, medicine, etc..
Will the organization, coordination, and cooperation on the ground be in place by the time supply arrives by sea? Without better US political leadership to work with the UN and NGOs, the answer would appear to be no. We need to avoid such a political failure, because the fallout simply means the DoD will have to pick up the slack – again making our public diplomacy effort inside Haiti one with combat boots.
