Ex-presidents to lead aid effort
Bush names Clinton, father to raise funds
WASHINGTON -- President Bush, seeking to highlight America's concern over the Asian disaster, named his father and his predecessor yesterday to spearhead a private fund-raising campaign to help victims of last month's tsunamis, calling on Americans to ''contribute as they are able to do so."
The unusual pairing of two former presidents -- George H.W. Bush, a Republican, and Bill Clinton, a Democrat -- provides the White House with a high-profile display of public compassion after complaints that Bush was late in offering sympathy and money to the Indian Ocean nations affected by the disaster. International aid agencies estimated the death toll will exceed 150,000.
The United States has committed $350 million for the humanitarian crisis, and the two former presidents will help raise additional private funds from individuals and corporations.
''In the coming days, presidents Clinton and Bush will ask Americans to donate directly to private charities already providing help to the tsunami victims," Bush, flanked by his father and Clinton, said during a White House announcement yesterday. ''I've asked the former presidents to solicit contributions both large and small."
Clinton -- who drew accolades in Asia for offering condolences, before Bush had spoken on the disaster -- said the amount that could be raised is virtually unlimited.
''If you give money, even if it's a small amount of money, it'll aggregate up. We'll send it to the aid agencies on the ground. And then they'll spend it right there for what's most needed, and you won't have to worry about the cost and the time delay of physically getting other things overseas," Clinton told MSNBC.
The international community has pledged more than $2 billion so far to help the region, and officials said the long-term needs of the destroyed areas will be great. But Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, en route to Bangkok to survey the damage, indicated that the immediate crisis was not a cash-flow problem; logistical difficulties are frustrating aid distribution.
''There is no shortage of money at the moment," Powell told reporters on the flight to Thailand. ''I think what we're going to find is that the major challenge is going to be the retail distribution of aid."
Clinton also noted that the Sri Lankan ambassador had told him yesterday that ''the whole airport [there] is covered in crates that have already been sent there, and they're having some difficulty distributing it.'
Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts followed the president's lead, ordering flags to be flown at half-mast in the state and urging Bay State residents to contribute to the victims. ''In a time of unspeakable tragedy, this is one more way to show the true compassion of the people of our state," Romney said in a statement.
Cash donations are preferable to offers of used clothing or goods, since the latter are expensive to transport and may not be appropriate for the victims in certain areas, said Suzanne Brooks, director of the Center for International Disaster Information, a nonprofit group.
Fifteen Americans have been confirmed dead in the disaster, and 4,000 to 5,000 US citizens are still unaccounted for after the tsunamis that affected nations from Africa to southeast Asia, Powell said.
Consular officers in the region have been ''grinding this number down at the rate of several hundred a day," and the number of missing Americans is likely to diminish as they get in touch with their families, the secretary said.
Aside from burying the dead and feeding and medicating the living, aid workers are seeing ''real psychological problems among many of the survivors," said Andrew Natsios, administrator of the US Agency for International Development.
''People are going into shock, basically. They are paralyzed. They can't act," Natsios told reporters on Powell's fight.
Bush's public attention to the tsunami disaster represents a marked shift from a week ago, when the vacationing president was quiet about the crisis. Only by mid-week did Bush comment on the disaster and make an initial offer of $35 million in government aid. Later in the week, as the scope of casualties and property damage mounted, he increased the amount to $350 million, a sum both Powell and lawmakers in Congress say could grow higher. The president also dispatched his brother, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida, to Thailand with Powell to survey the damage.
This week, Bush ordered all American flags to be flown at half-mast. Following his announcement of the new fund-raising team, Bush joined Laura Bush, his father, and Clinton at the embassies of Indonesia, Thailand, India, and Sri Lanka.
''He certainly realized that this is the tragedy of his time in office, if not in our generation, in terms of natural tragedies. This really is a powerful statement," said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign policy specialist with the Brookings Institution. After spending Dec. 26 -- the day the earthquake and tsunamis hit -- ''kicking back and realizing this was one of the few days he could have off," Bush ''certainly has every intention of making up for lost time," O'Hanlon added.
Hurst Hannum, an international law professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, said the appeal for private funds was somewhat misplaced. ''Perhaps it's just part of his continuing attempt to privatize the government," Hannum said. ''One can't help but assume that it is an attempt to refurbish his image, which has been hurt yet again by a failure to react."
Officials, including Clinton, defended the Bush administration's response, saying the president moved quickly to address what Powell called an unprecedented natural disaster whose impact has spread daily. Powell said that US ambassadors in the region declared emergencies almost immediately, giving them the authority to release approximately $100,000 in assistance from contingency funds, and that help from the US military followed soon afterward.
''I don't think the American people should be given the impression that their president and their government was not hard at work on this from day one," Powell said.
''I do not think it's fair," Clinton said of criticism that Bush did not act quickly enough or that the United States had not initially been generous enough. ''America's got a good record, and the president's doing a good job and he asked us to help. We're just trying to help."
Clinton and George H.W. Bush will do media interviews and travel, probably domestically, to raise money for the disaster victims, said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
Donors can contribute through a program coordinated by USA Freedom Corps, a White House volunteer office.
Powell said the administration was looking at getting more aid assistance directed at employment. Susan Milligan can be reached at milligan@globe.com. 