Washington:
US President Barack Obama on Thursday promised $100 million along with more US troops for the relief effort in Haiti, vowing that the United States would stand with the impoverished nation as it grappled with the devastation of its capital city.
The Pentagon sent 125 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and said that by the end of the week their number would grow to 3,000. Military officials said their primary mission would be to provide security as aid began to arrive.
Those Army troops will be supplemented in the coming days by 2,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., who are scheduled to arrive in Haiti by Monday.
Saying he wanted to "speak directly to the people of Haiti," Obama gave a brief address from the White House that was one of the sharpest displays of emotion of his presidency. "You will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten," he said, and stopped to compose himself. "In this, your hour of greatest need, America stands with you."
He said the financial aid was only a first installment and would grow over the coming year. "Help is arriving," he said. "Much, much more help is on the way."
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said Obama had asked former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to help coordinate a global relief effort for Haiti, reprising the roles that Clinton and the elder George Bush performed after the 2004 Asian tsunami.
"The losses that have been suffered in Haiti are nothing less than devastating, and responding to a disaster of this magnitude will require every element of our national capacity," Obama said. "This is one of those moments that calls for American leadership."
Obama stood flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Vice President Joe Biden; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and Rajiv Shah, Obama's coordinator of the government's response to the Haiti earthquake.
Clinton had interrupted her trip to the South Pacific to return to work on the earthquake response, and Gates canceled a trip this weekend to a security conference in Australia to oversee the Pentagon's relief efforts from Washington.
Pentagon officials said that the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson would arrive offshore by Friday. The carrier, which has 19 helicopters on board, will serve as a staging platform for relief flights to Haiti. It also has the ability to produce fresh water and has three operating rooms and a number of hospital beds.
The moves put an American stamp on the global relief effort. U.S. forces on Thursday secured the airport in Port-au-Prince and started an airlift of medicine, water and other needed items. White House officials, aware of how an administration can be tainted by slow response to a natural disaster, said they had maintained what Clinton called "a full court press" in responding to the earthquake.
"The United States is providing a lot of the glue that is keeping people communicating and working together as we try to assert authority, reinstate the government and begin to do what governments have to do to rebuild and reconstruct this damaged country," Clinton said in an interview on the Fox News program "Fox & Friends."
Gibbs described as "utterly stupid" remarks by the religious broadcaster Pat Robertson that Haiti was cursed by a pact it had made with the devil, and as "really stupid" remarks by Rush Limbaugh that Americans should not donate to relief efforts in Haiti because they already donate to Haiti through their income taxes.
"I think in times of great crisis, there are always people that say really stupid things," Gibbs said in response to Limbaugh's remarks. "I don't know how anybody could sit where he does, having enjoyed the success that he has, and not feel some measure of sorrow for what has happened in Haiti."