Haiti Disaster Opens New Front for Overstretched U.S. Military

As the United States was rushing troops, warships and rescue supplies to earthquake-ravaged Haiti Monday, gunmen and suicide bombers half a world away mounted coordinated attacks on Afghanistan's government in Kabul. Suicide bombers attacked ministry buildings and gun battles blazed for four hours as U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai gamely swore in new cabinet members at the nearby presidential palace.

The twin crises -- a long-term humanitarian disaster nearby and a distant war seemingly spinning out of control -- bookend the immense security challenges facing the United States as the Obama administration completes its first year in office.

It was just six weeks ago, as Obama announced his decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, that the president acknowledged his struggle to respond to the multiple crises that seem to press in from all sides.

"As president, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests,'' Obama declared in a speech at West Point.

But, he added pointedly, "I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces. I don't have the luxury of committing to just one. ''

That was before Haiti.

U.S. officials now anticipate a large and long-term U.S. intervention in Haiti, including a major security role that will demand a commitment of troops and resources from an already stretched military. The U.S. Army currently has 95,000 soldiers in Iraq, 43,000 in Afghanistan (along with 35,000 U.S. Marines, sailors and airmen), 18,000 in Korea and 132,000 deployed elsewhere, from Kosovo and Kuwait to Qatar. Tens of thousands more troops are headed to Afghanistan this spring and summer.

Altogether, before Haiti's earthquake struck Jan. 12, more than half the Army's 556,680 active-duty soldiers are already deployed or forward-stationed overseas.

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Now, 3,500 soldiers of the 82^nd Airborne Division have been sent to Haiti, along with 1,700 Marines of the 22^nd Marine Expeditionary Unit who embarked on the helicopter assault carrier USS Bataan and two amphibious ships for an uncertain duration. The 22^nd MEU had just returned last month from a seven-month deployment. It is one of six similar units in the Marine Corps.

On Monday, a C-17 transport plane flying out of Pope Air Force Base, N.C., air-dropped 14,000 individual prepackaged meals and 14,000 quarts of water into a secured area in Port-au-Prince. Dropping cargo by parachute is a quick way to avoid congestion at the airport, but has not been done in Haiti until now because of the difficulty in identifying and securing drop zones.

At this point, at least, U.S. officials are struggling to handle the immense demands of the crisis in Haiti and cannot say how long the military intervention will last.

"We're going to be here as long as needed,'' Lt. Gen. Ken Keen, the top U.S. military commander in Haiti, said on Sunday. That followed Obama's promise to the Haitian people Friday that "we will do what it takes to save lives and to help them get back on their feet.''

Meantime, other crises simmer:

-- In Iraq, sectarian violence and political turbulence are rising with the approach of parliamentary elections set for March 7. Last week, Iraqi police intercepted suicide bombers on their way to bomb several government buildings, attacks that were meant to be followed by waves of political assassinations.

-- A counterterrorism struggle is heading up in Yemen, where a resurgent al-Qaeda group armed and dispatched suspected suicide bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on a Northwest Airlines flight into Detroit on Christmas Day. Obama has promised not to send U.S. troops, but U.S. military advisers are helping in training and operations of Yemen's security forces. On Friday, Yemen claimed an attack had killed six al-Qaeda operatives in an air strike, including Qassim al-Raimi, one of the most wanted militants. Al-Qaeda denied the claim on Monday.

-- An ugly series of suicide bombings in Afghanistan centered on crowded marketplaces have killed dozens of civilians in Garedez, where a police headquarters was also overrun, and in Musa Qaleh and Garmsir in southern Afghanistan. Garmsir is a river town that U.S. forces have been attempting to secure for almost two years. The United Nations reported last week that almost 6,000 Afghan civilians were killed in 2009, two thirds of them by Taliban insurgents using suicide bombers, IEDs, assassinations or executions.

-- In the ongoing war with insurgents in Pakistan, a suspected U.S. drone attack is said to have killed 15 people in South Waziristan, the extremist stronghold along the border with Afghanistan. The use of unmanned attack aircraft has been highly successful against the extremist leadership, U.S. officials say, but the attacks also have generated rising anti-American anger among Pakistani politicians and public.

In Haiti, meanwhile, U.S. and international officials were still struggling to comprehend the size and scope of the disaster and the tasks of treating the injured, clearing rubble and providing security and other essential services in the months ahead.

"We will be here, obviously, for the long haul,'' Tim Callaghan, the point man for U.S. aid efforts in Haiti, said Monday.

With Haitian security forces badly scattered and unable to communicate, concerns were focused Monday on the security situation, with reports of scattered looting. At the Port-au-Prince airport, U.S. troops pushed back crowds of Haitians frustrated that piles of relief aid were sitting undistributed because of clogged roads.

In addition to the U.S. troops pouring into the region -- the Marines are mostly remaining on shipboard offshore for now -- there are about 9,000 United Nations peacekeepers from 17 countries deployed across Haiti.

But Rear Adm. Mike Rogers, director of intelligence for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, insisted Monday that Port-au-Prince is "stable'' despite what he said were "isolated'' instances of looting. "In most cases I would characterize this as people making sure they get access to food and water,'' he said in a conference call with reporters.

For now, he said, "There is nothing in the security environment that is significantly inhibiting our ability to execute the missions'' of rescue and distributing relief supplies.