PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

TIME magazine online asks the logical question: who caused the suspension of medical evac flights from Haiti that went on from Wednesday of last week until at least Sunday (1.31.10) night? The appearance given is that the military shutdown the flights because of the possibility that patients might be refused treatment at hospitals in Florida. Then, the Governor and a lot of other people got involved and said they weren’t to blame.

TIME

The U.S. and its international partners knew from the start that aiding the victims of Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake would be a logistical nightmare. Yet while their response has been laudable, less than tight coordination among government, nongovernmental and military forces has frequently undermined the effort. Right after the quake, for example, the U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson raced into Port-au-Prince Bay, only to find that the U.S., the U.N. and NGOs had gotten relatively scant relief supplies in place for its helicopters to deliver. The military made its own missteps too, rerouting Doctors Without Borders flights and giving the impression that its foot soldiers mattered more to the relief campaign than physicians did. (See TIME's video "Haitians Mourn and Begin Again.")

But things seemed to hit a dysfunctional low point over the weekend when all those relief components began blaming one another for a suspension of military medevac flights from Haiti to Florida for more than four days

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953379_1953494_1957926,00.html#ixzz0eJuaPWRg
 

TerryReport comment: Pending further information or clarification, we look to the White House. Who is in charge of the president’s response to Haiti? Are they really in charge, or merely carrying paper back and forth to other aides and the  president? Can they give an order or, at least, get in touch with the president to have an order approved and then make it stick? This whole thing looks waaay too much like 2005, post Katrina when no one was in charge for days on end and it cost human lives. Obama has less at stake there than Bush did in New Orleans, but these events should be a warning to him and his very top aides that changes need to be made, now and for the future.

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