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Transcript: Gen. Fraser Press Briefing on U.S. Military Haiti Relief Ops

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS100116-04
Release Date: 1/16/2010 12:57:00 AM

By U.S. Southern Command Public Affairs

MIAMI (NNS) -- TRANSCRIPT: Gen. Fraser press briefing on U.S. military Haiti relief ops

U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND (SOUTHCOM) BRIEFING BY GENERAL DOUGLAS FRASER (USAF), COMMANDER, U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND

SUBJECT: HAITI EARTHQUAKE RESCUE EFFORTS

LOCATION: MIAMI, FLORIDA

TIME: 3:20 P.M. EST

DATE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 2010

GEN. FRASER: (In progress.) The United States continues to provide great support to the citizens of Haiti. Right now, United States Southern Command and the Department of Defense have 4,200 personnel in or on Haiti, supporting JTF Haiti.

And before I go on, let me just express for the citizens of Haiti, to give them an idea of the situation, and ask them for help to help us help them. Specifically, if the citizens of Haiti will just remain in place and remain calm, help is on the way.

In addition, if you need medical support, if you need food, if you need water, there are nongovernmental organizations out throughout the communities. Coordinate with them. They will put you into their system to coordinate how to get that support to you.

And finally, the government of Haiti is broadcasting now over the radio where to go for distribution, how to get food, how to get medicine, how to get water. So we ask you to use those places, to go to those places. That's where you can find that support, and that's where supplies will be delivered to you. So that effort is ongoing right now.

In addition to 1,000 personnel that we have from the 82nd Airborne who arrived today, there will be more personnel coming over the weekend, combined with almost 4,300 personnel who will arrive on Monday. Those are part of the Amphibious Ready Group that will arrive on Monday; includes the complement of the ship, as well as 2,200 Marines.

Our efforts continue to support the urban search-and-rescue and provide delivery of relief supplies.

We're continuing to work very closely with the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti and providing international relief organizations and Haiti officials with the much needed help within the communities.

We continue to support and control the airport at -- the international airport there. We're able to support about 90 flights a day in and out of there. And we're following the priorities that the government of Haiti has set up to support that airlift capability going in there.

There are unmanned aerial aircraft, as well as manned aircraft, providing reconnaissance over Haiti so that we have a good feel for what the situation is there.

The U.S. Navy ship USS Carl Vinson, the Navy carrier, is 11 miles off the coast of Haiti with 19 helicopters embarked.

There are 18 nations participating in the relief effort, and there is a very close and a very coordinated effort amongst all the nations in providing support to Haiti.

Our assessment teams are hard at work. We're working across the country, as well as within the region, to figure out how best to provide support to Haiti.

As you understand, the piers and the port capability has been determined to be unserviceable. We're bringing in an underwater survey team to survey the piers to understand how much damage was done to that and understand how much construction we'll have to do in the future.

We're also very fully committed and working very, very diligently to bring all the support capabilities, all the capabilities of the United States government, to support Haiti. I've been very impressed throughout this situation, from my own standpoint, from my experience over many years in the United States Air Force, with the support that we're receiving from the Department of Defense, the coordination that's happening within the United States government to provide all the support and capability and capacity of the United States government to support the citizens of Haiti.

The -- as you know, the secretary of Defense has said, all I need to do is ask, and he'll provide capabilities. And he is very true to that word. Whenever I ask for capability or support, it's right there, right away. So it's -- it is the full weight of effort of the United States government behind this effort.

With that, I'll take your questions.

Q Good afternoon, General. How are you doing? I'm Bill.

The question is, what are your first efforts once you get on the ground, in regards to the amount of casualties and how we're dealing with that, from your aspect?

GEN. FRASER: From our aspect, we're focused on providing relief supplies. There are other parts of the international effort that are dealing with the casualties on the ground.

So the international community is dealing with that. We will support them in whatever manner that they need. But right now we're in a supporting effort to what they're doing.

Q How frustrated are you? Because you guys are used to being able to do anything. And now you seem like, you know, you're fighting against nature here still three days later.

Are you in any way frustrated? Or does this compare to any other events you've had in your career?

GEN. FRASER: We're treating this as a challenge. And we're overcoming obstacles as we find them. So we saw the initial effort as trying -- as going in and making sure we could get access to the airfield, because that was where we were going to provide immediate relief.

Then it was getting vessels offshore, so that we could remove some of the strain on the assets and capability and capacity going into Haiti. We could deliver supplies and deliver effort from another alternative position.

Now we're expanding that effort, with the support of the government of the Dominican Republic, looking to see how we can provide an additional support base in the Dominican Republic, that we can then now transfer supplies over land.

So we're looking at every avenue possible to bring supplies as rapidly and as effectively as we can into the region. So it really is a monumental challenge. The Department of Defense, the whole United States government, is up to the challenge. And we will face it head on and we'll conquer it.

STAFF: (Off mike.)

Q Hi. Is security in the streets a concern right now?

GEN. FRASER: What I'm told is the security situation in the city and in the country remains calm. The United Nations mission, MINUSTAH, has been providing that security for a number of years. They continue to provide that security, and the situation remains calm.

STAFF: (Off mike.)

Q Thank you, sir. How much of the relief supplies have actually made it out of the airport? And why not do air drops?

GEN. FRASER: I don't have a -- specifics on how much of the relief effort has gone out, because there are many organizations providing relief in their own manner as they work that. So we're just now being able to provide that relief effort, just because we have the capability to do that. And so it's just now starting to leave the airfield. I don't have numbers with me on exactly what that is.

We are looking at whether or not it makes sense to airdrop. But airdrop is dangerous for people on the ground, because when people see things falling, they will run to where that is. And so it can actually cause more problems than it causes -- helps. So we find that providing care and providing supplies on the ground, where we can control the capacity, is better for the safety of everybody involved.

Q Can I follow up? You had said that Haiti has determined how these planes would land. What are the complications -- first, what's Haiti's priorities, and then what are the complications for getting the aid out of the airport?

GEN. FRASER: Well, the infrastructure is very challenging in Haiti. As you know, the -- because of the earthquake, roads are -- have a lot of rubble and obstructions. There are a lot of citizens; vehicles and gas. So we're working through all those challenges to do that. That's why we brought in helicopters, so that we could get out and be able to distribute that capacity. That's why the ships are important, because we can get fuel off of the ships, and we're not reliant on the fuel capacities on the ground there. So all of that supports the international effort.

Haiti is focused on bringing in and making sure we get relief supplies in, that we get medical support in, to make sure that we're able to take care of the citizens of Haiti.

So that's -- that's the relief efforts that are coming in.

Q (Off mike.)

GEN. FRASER: Yes. The helicopters are out delivering supplies as I speak right now.

Q They're landing. They're not --

GEN. FRASER: Yes. They are landing. So we're working in conjunction with the helicopters that are coming off the carrier as well as the other ships. We have soldiers from the 82nd Airborne helping distribute in conjunction with OFDA and USAID. So all the parts of the U.S. government are managing this effort and distributing those supplies.

STAFF: (Off mike.)

Q General, do you have any timelines in terms of the airport distribution networks being set up? I mean, weeks? And then also the seaport, as well?

GEN. FRASER: Right now we're focused on getting as much capability into the region as quickly as possible. And we're still in a process of assessing just what the damage is, just what the needs of the country are. So I don't have a specific timeline for you right now because we don't have a good idea of the full extent of the requirement.

STAFF: (Off mike.)

Q Yeah. Can you just tell us -- I mean, are you disappointed and sort of surprised by how long it's taking to get the supplies in? Is that what you expected when you first heard the news of the earthquake? Did you think it was going to be this hard?

GEN. FRASER: I expected it to be at least this hard when we first heard about it. That's why as soon as we got news of an earthquake -- because I'd visited Haiti about three months ago, so I had an understanding of what the situation was like.

And we knew that there was a single airfield where we could use capacity. We had a limited capacity, even when the port was running, of what the port could support. But it was a pretty significant earthquake. And so we expected that we were going to have really challenged from an infrastructure. So we started moving ships almost immediately after we found out that there was a catastrophe in Haiti.

And so we've been working all along to try and expand our capability, realizing that the infrastructure was going to be challenging and that we needed to get as much capability and as much flexibility as we could to the region to support the supply.

Q (Off mike) -- mistakes were made or anything could have been done differently to help -- to ensure that the supplies would be there by now?

GEN. FRASER: No, I don't. It's -- as I've said, we've had a lot of experience throughout the Department of Defense working with this and within the United States government, from disasters within our own country to supporting disasters in other countries.

So we've gained a lot of experience over a number of years. We've learned a lot of things. We've incorporated a lot of those.

Every situation is different. Every situation is unique. We have to handle the situations as we find them. But as I said earlier, it is -- I've been very impressed with the support across the government of the United States in supporting this effort.

STAFF: (Off mike.)

Q Hi, General. On that same note, I wonder if you could explain the reasons why the response is crafted the way it has been. There's now some public criticism asking why hundreds of journalists were able to get boots on the ground so fast but the military's role was more of getting the logistics, only sending elite teams, not massive -- or not intermediate-sized on-the-ground aid deliverers. Is that because it's -- that's something that the government has decided is an AID role? Is it something that -- like you said, by experience? Why is that? Why was it not the military that was the first in there on the ground with aid supplies just as soon as, you know, Anderson Cooper could get in there?

GEN. FRASER: It's a monumental challenge. And as we go into it, we go into it with the understanding that we've got to support a lot of other activity that comes in. So we've got to set up the basis to make sure we can get supplies and capability in as efficiently and as effectively as possible. And so we were uncertain, as we were going in, whether or not the airport was even available to use. So we were looking at various options on how to make sure we could get there with an airport that wasn't operational or was, and then be able to set up very quickly to provide the relief efforts that are -- that are happening.

So we -- you saw that we had an effort that went in, assessed the airport very quickly, opened the airport and was operating very quickly, in a 24-hour situation.

And the same thing goes for the ships. We knew, because of limited infrastructure, that we had to get ships in place so that we could relieve the strain on the airport. Because we assessed that we're -- we were going to need to do that.

And so -- and moving those ships from various distances to get there, it just takes time. And so across the board, we looked at all the options, looked to provide ourselves with as much flexibility as we could, provide relief as quickly and as widespread as we could.

STAFF: Final question -- (off mike).

Q Hello, sir. I know this is very complicated, very challenging, but do you have any idea when people are going to still -- are going to start getting food or supplies -- I mean the people from Haiti?

GEN. FRASER: They're getting them right now. Those food --

Q So that's not a challenge anymore?

GEN. FRASER: -- and that -- and that has been -- no, it is still a challenge, because the supplies are coming in. We're getting supplies in through the air.

But the airfield by itself will not sustain the long-term requirements because there are so many people in need. That's why we're bringing in the capability with ships, why we're looking at how we get supplies across the shore, because we don't have a port in which we can do that. So that's why the carrier came in with helicopters, so that we had the ability to get supplies out on a wide basis, as quickly as possible.

That's where, as we bring in the Marine expeditionary unit, it provides not only forces but it has heavy equipment that we can help move around -- we can help start moving rubble from roads. We can help make the distribution capability much more effective.

And so the relief is happening right now. It's happening as quickly and as effectively as we can make it happen. And that will just grow over time as we get more capability there.

Q Have any idea how many people have been helped so far?

GEN. FRASER: I do not have any -- again, because there are many different organizations who are providing support, so I don't have any accounting of what each of those organizations have been through.

Q (Inaudible.)

GEN. FRASER: Thank you. Thank you very much.