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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.


Cap'n Bill Says:
A very worthwhile post. Looks like the political distractions in the USA have trumped the need for a CIC’s direct attention in this vast relief operation.. Sometimes EGO can get in the way of top-notch performance.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:16 amUSNVO Says:
Didn’t the Secretary of State go to Haiti to ensure we didn’t have any problems. I guess that didn’t work out so well.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:36 amgalrahn Says:
I look at it more like this:
I don’t know how much direct attention the CIC should or should not be applying to the situation, but he needs someone who can speak for him in Haiti. There are serious questions that people can only speculate answers to, questions that apply to who lives and dies – fairly serious stuff.
The arrangement under which these questions come from appear to be a produce of the SecState visit. What arrangements were made? US citizens are being removed from Haiti at a remarkable rate, something that almost certainly had to do with Hillary Clinton’s visit. However, no one knows what those arrangements are.
I don’t really have much of a problem with the job of the CIC in Haiti, because we clearly have a plan. My problem is more with the media, who has been reduced to speculating and projecting assumption of the plan than actually following up and getting answers. What is the plan? This is not the same as the Bush failure in Katrina, not even close – the fact there appears to be a plan here is a huge difference.
This isn’t a question of asking what the hell Michael Brown is doing, rather a question of asking who the hell is the Michael Brown in Haiti.
Right now at every level in Haiti our public diplomacy wears combat boots. That is an issue that needs to be addressed.
January 20th, 2010 at 8:28 amMatt Armstrong Says:
Galrahn,
As always, superb. The apparent absence of the State Department is, as you point out, more than just who has the logistic capabilities and personnel. The defect is the result of several factors: State’s structure, planning (or more accurately, lack of), and leadership. We know the Defense Department is organized for contigency operations, plans for them, even doctrinally, and has a forward orientation and can quickly take action.
Contributing to the lack of attention is the issue of leadership. Until recently, the Western Hemisphere regional bureau (State’s very loose equivilent to DOD’s SOUTHCOM) was leaderless. The same was true of USAID until very recently. Either of these should be the “Michael Brown” for today. This is not the role or purpose of the regional bureau, so he’s out. And with USAID simply a former shell of its former self, is no more than a contracting agency.
As for the local State staff, embassies are mere shells themselves, gutted of personnel and increasingly staffed by non-State personnel. You may recall that several years ago an idea was floated that State should charge rent to agencies for space because a) they took up so much space and b) State needed the money.
American public diplomacy continues to wear combat boots. In Iraq and Afghanistan it was because the military was given the leadership role as State was pushed or drifted to the background. In Haiti, State shows that it does not have the ability or mindset to be in the front.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:52 amAirlift: a distraction? » Taylor Empire Airways Says:
[...] galrahn. “Obama’s Public Diplomacy From Haiti Wears Combat Boots.” US Naval Institute blog, 19 January [...]
January 20th, 2010 at 11:01 amMike M. Says:
I think there are a couple of issues here.
First, I concur that the State Department has fallen down…again.
Second, the ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ is Goldwater-Nichols. It should surprise nobody that the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marines were ready for disaster relief, but the Army was less so. The theater command structure is oriented toward geographical areas, not missions. The US might do well to establish a ‘Disaster Command’ to serve as a single point of contact for worldwide disaster relief. Kindly note that this organization should have both military and civilian personnel…and it might be a Very Good Idea to have a policy of the commander being a civilian with active-duty experience.
January 20th, 2010 at 11:51 amAndy (JADAA) Says:
Gal:
Wow, you raise a lot of points here. If I may, let me address just a few:
Reserves now serve at the behest of their so-called “Gaining Command.” If that command doesn’t say “We need ‘em,” they ain’t coming, no matter how much knowledge, expertise and absolute willingness they have. ACB-2 in Little Creek mobilized theirs right away. This issue goes, once again sadly, to the very heart of the relationship the Navy Reserve has had with the regular Navy for a very long time: Some commanders “get it,” and some do not. I do note a small piece on the news wires where CinC had to authorize the activation of the Reserves to satisfy certain legislative requirements. Some Commands may have used that lack of authorization to put off getting their Reserve units up and operating. Unfortunately, based upon my experiences, CNAVRES will eventually release a PAO piece telling us all how utterly smoothly everything went and bury the warts and lessons learned from all but a select few.
PaP Harbor and the Dutch ship: Time was, not that very long ago, the Navy had combined Navy-CG Active/Reserve units designed to come in and become defacto harbor masters, port control and security C3I. They were sublimated into the Naval Coastal Warfare (MIUW) community in a rice bowl fight going back to the mid-1990′s. They were designed to be pre-Expeditionary, i.e. near-First Responders but had a very small logistical tail, i.e. small footprint but not too self-sustaining. I’m no longer in the loop so I’m not sure if they are there yet, no one has thought of them or if they even exist any more because “someone” decided they weren’t needed in our modern-21st Century net-centric, blah, blah, blah world. It would be nice if someone could enlighten us on current practice and doctrine on that subject.
“Civilian Figurehead in Charge” (at least I guess that’s what you’re calling for, I’m honestly unclear here): That requires a couple of things: Someone who knows what she or he is doing and a bunch of spokespersons to tell the wolves, er, media how great a job we’re doing. On the one hand, strategic communication for overarching soft power messaging is useful. On the other hand, right now do we need those folks’ logistical burden to take the place of food and water for those who really need it? I’m not being snarky here, it’s a trade off that ought to be considered one way or the other. Right now, given that State gets away with allowing its FS personnel to refuse to serve where they don’t want to (e.g. Iraq and Afghanistan) if they disagree with their ultimate employer’s foreign policy, I’m not surprised they aren’t putting someone out there as “Person in Charge.” And as has been pointed out elsewhere, USAID is just a contracting outfit now. Best bet would be an actual FEMA professional, but I’m betting other “expert communicators” are saying “no” because we all have the perception that was generated for political purposes the last time FEMA was in charge of a major disaster.
If you really, really want a person there to be an ostensible HMFIC, I’d second previous suggestions of ADM Allen or GEN Honore.
VR,
January 20th, 2010 at 12:24 pmAndy
Matt Armstrong Says:
It should be noted that USG lost one person in Haiti: Victoria DeLong, a front-line public diplomacy of the State Department.
January 20th, 2010 at 3:04 pmXBradTC Says:
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?
Why shouldn’t the DoD be the lead agency? They’re the ones who are going to move stuff, and further, no other agency has shown any competency at all for operating on this scale. And the DoD is very used to liason with other governments, and has been gaining experience with working with NGOs in the last few years.
January 20th, 2010 at 6:32 pmUltimaRatioReg Says:
Brad,
In a country that has an Ambassador or Chief of Mission, and the US Military has been invited by host government, State traditionally drives the bus. Can be somewhat of a paradigm change, but in the end has its advantages. Not that this is an instance of US Forces deploying under Title 22. Then, State would foot the bill. Not bloody likely.
January 20th, 2010 at 6:47 pmXBradTC Says:
URR, if State or USAID were actually behind the wheel, I wouldn’t criticize. But look at what’s going on:
http://xbradtc.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/this-is-frustrating/
January 20th, 2010 at 6:49 pmUltimaRatioReg Says:
I didn’t say they were looking out the windshield, but they are at the wheel.
Myriad reasons why State should be in charge.
How well they do? Another story.
State has been a dismal flop of late, certainly in Iraq during my time there, and AFG, by tales told, as well.
Matt Armstrong’s comments above, and Galrahn’s, are pertinent. The State Department hasn’t exactly been positioned for success institutionally. Some good folks, but miracles are hard to do.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:28 pmXBradTC Says:
State has been a dismal flop of late, certainly in Iraq during my time there, and AFG, by tales told, as well.
If State wants to run the show, let ‘em earn it.
January 20th, 2010 at 7:48 pmUSNVO Says:
Biggest reason that I can see why State needs to be in charge, besides all of those pesky things like US Code, inter-agency agreements and such, is that in the specific situation of Haiti, we have to deal with the Haitian Government, UN, other agencies of the US government, and a myriad of NGOs. The worse possible thing you can do is plop down a few type A personalities wearing uniforms who start telling everyone what to do. Much as we may dislike it, we need the active cooperation of these groups, and culturally, they do not always see the world the way the military does. We need a diplomatic face on the crisis, someone not in uniform but with good staff, someone who will listed to the NGOs, UN, Haitian Government, and other groups. Feel their pain, smooze with them, pat them on the head, and then tell the type A, make it happen people what they want done. And then get out of the way and run top cover.
January 21st, 2010 at 4:26 amUltimaRatioReg Says:
USNVO,
You win the concert tickets. Some of that ‘top cover’ includes bi-lateral legal status in case US military personnel have to fire upon/detain a Haitian national. Among other things, which you have outlined. Some of the “advantages” I alluded to above.
Besides, NGOs hate US military, no matter how many times we save their lives. (And, it seems, even moreso after we do…?)
January 21st, 2010 at 7:20 amBronwen Morrison Says:
While I am not on the ground (but have colleagues who are as an implementing partner of USAID), I have no insight regarding the report that US Army was asked to stop handing out food at a tent city by an aid agency (with inference that it was USAID). I would like to comment however that NGOs and US military forces have worked together on humanitarian response for years. The comment by the Instapundit reader that declared NGOs hate the military and would not work with them on the ground in 2002 Afghanistan is a) comparing apples to oranges b) a sweeping generalization that is largely out of date 8 years on. In 2002 Afghan, there was no humanitarian disaster and as such NGOs and Military did not have mandate to work together. In July 0f 2008, USAID finally distributed a new mandate for civil military coordination in ALL aspects of its work – not just disaster assistance. Prior to 2008, there have been many NGOs that have worked quite closely with the military in stability operations – from Bosnia to East Timor to Afghan to Iraq. I work with (and have worked with) many who have done so and personally have done so.
No doubt the press relations by USAID is woefully poor. There is a top USAID official on the ground – with former Haiti experience as USAID director and also former Ambo and fluent French speaker. There are 800 Office of Foreign Disaster Response officials on the ground. Here is a bit of background on the top USAID official on the ground – On January 15, the Administrator appointed Ambassador Lewis Lucke as Coordinator for Disaster Response and Reconstruction in Haiti , with overall responsibility for managing USG support for the disaster relief and reconstruction effort on the ground and coordination with our partners in Haiti . He is based at the Humanitarian Assistance Combined Coordination Center established to coordinate relief and reconstruction efforts with the U.S. military, UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti , Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Department of State (DOS), NGOs, Government of Haiti, and foreign governments.
From 2004 to July 2006, Lewis Lucke served as U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Swaziland . Prior to joining the DOS, Ambassador Lucke was a career Senior Foreign Service Officer who served for 26 years with USAID.
Ambassador Lucke was the first USAID Mission Director to Iraq , where he managed a $4 billion reconstruction and economic development program in 2003-2004. The program was USAID’s largest ever and the largest reconstruction effort funded by the United States since the Marshall Plan.
From 1978 to 2006, Ambassador Lucke served in the U.S. Foreign Service in 10 countries: Mali , Senegal , Costa Rica , Tunisia , Bolivia , Jordan , Haiti , Brazil , Iraq , and Swaziland . He served as USAID Mission Director in his last five posts in Bolivia , Jordan , Brazil , Haiti , and Iraq . Ambassador Lucke is fluent in French
January 21st, 2010 at 9:37 ameastriver Says:
Galrahn, thanks for a great post.
State is in charge per a Presidential directive of 2005.
When some of the dust has settled, both State and DOD should send some bright people over to DHS to have a close look at the Incident Command System. This had its genesis in the ’70s in California wildfires, where multiple agencies and NGOs at different levels had difficulty cooperating. Sound familiar?
Today it is a US domestic standard, been embraced by other nations, and recommended by the UN as an international standard. USCG has had it translated into, I think, eight languages, and distributes it widely. It’s their major-incident bible; maybe why they seemed to be the only ones during Katrina who seemed to know what they were doing.
Establishment of this system, or a variant, for US international disaster response would be a laudable goal for both the striped-pants brigade and the uniforms.
A second laudable goal might be some preplanning. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to establish that, say, Caribbean basin nations are at risk for hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanic events. Figuring out in advance what we can and will do, and setting up a few action menus would save time and circumvent some indecision.
January 21st, 2010 at 1:39 pmIn Today’s News « Budget Insight Says:
[...] Obama’s Public Diplomacy From Haiti Wears Combat Boots 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. [...]
January 21st, 2010 at 2:47 pmOffiziere.ch » Ein Rückblick auf die militärische Katastrophenhilfe in Haiti Says:
[...] in large public and private tech project strategy development and implementation in “Obama’s Public Diplomacy From Haiti Wears Combat Boots“, Blog des US Naval Institute, [...]
February 7th, 2010 at 4:48 amObama’s Public Diplomacy From Haiti Wears Combat Boots | Military boots Says:
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