U.S. to Withdraw Military Aid Effort

The U.S. military, which is the largest group helping tsunami survivors, will immediately start withdrawing troops from the relief efforts, the U.S. Pacific commander said Thursday.

The announcement by Adm. Thomas Fargo prompted a pledge from aid agencies to assume a greater role in the relief effort for the more than 1 million tsunami survivors.

U.S. warships and helicopters “played a crucial role ... they’re still playing that role,” said Rob Holden, a member of a health assessment team from the United Nations, the U.S. military and other groups. “What we’re trying to do ... is civilianize the humanitarian operations because we’re aware that we won’t have military assets forever.”

Fargo, speaking in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, said the U.S. military would “start right now transferring functions to the appropriate host nations and international organizations.”

He noted that the humanitarian missions in Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and other countries affected by the Dec. 26 tsunami had moved from the “immediate relief phase ... toward rehabilitation and reconstruction.”

The admiral said the withdrawal of the 15,000 American troops probably would be completed within 60 days, apparently in time to meet a target set by Indonesian officials that foreign troops leave Aceh province on Sumatra island by the end of March.

At a news conference, Fargo said the U.S. military would “respond to specific requests of host nations,” adding that Washington was “committed to what clearly will be a long-term recovery effort.”

The U.S. Navy and Marines have delivered nearly 3.5 million pounds of supplies -- about 150,000 pounds a day -- since starting operations Jan. 1.

The U.N. World Food Program has distributed 5,600 tons of food to about 400,000 people in Aceh alone, said its Asia director, Tony Banbury.

“We will get food aid to everyone who needs it,” he said.

In another development, an Indonesian soldier in Aceh fired into the air during a U.S. aid delivery, narrowly missing the helicopter’s rotor blades, witnesses said.

The soldier apparently was trying to control a crowd of survivors lunging for supplies.

“Every now and then, you hit a crazy LZ,” or landing zone, said Petty Officer 2nd Class Derrick Smith, 22, of Wichita Falls, Texas, a SH-60 Seahawk crewman from the destroyer Shoup. “Sometimes you can’t even land; you just push food out.”

At a U.N. conference in Kobe, Japan, wealthy nations pledged about $8 million for a network of detection buoys in the Indian Ocean to warn coastal residents of tsunamis. The pledges are enough to cover costs of the network for the first year.

Salvano Briceno, director of the U.N. International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, said a basic warning system could be in operation within 18 months. Experts have said such a system could have saved thousands of lives Dec. 26.

A Pacific system already in place eventually could extend to the Mediterranean, Caribbean and other seas, U.S. officials said.