Military Still Short on Soldiers in Haiti

(CBS)  Food, water and medicine is finally beginning to get to the millions who need help in Haiti, but it's still flowing more slowly than anyone would like. CBS News correspondent David Martin has more on the continuing bottleneck in Port-au-Prince.

An Air Force cargo plane can in one swoop drop 14,000 meals and 4,000 gallons of water to people on the ground.

So why not do more drops? Why is the next drop not scheduled until tomorrow morning?

"It takes forces on the ground to secure the areas where those drops must go in and to organize the people to avoid a chaotic distribution when those supplies come in," said Maj. Gen. Daniel Allyn, deputy commander of U.S. response team in Haiti.

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"Troops on the ground" is the answer to almost every question about why it's taken this long to distribute supplies. When the troops arrive, people get help and supplies start moving.

A contingent of 3,5000 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Brigade was supposed to be there this weekend - but many of them are still loading up back in North Carolina -- loading up not just themselves but also the equipment needed to distribute supplies when they arrive

"It does us no good to have massive amounts of supplies in Haiti if we don't get them out to the people - and that's our focus," said Col. Sean Mateer of the 18th Airborne Corps.

Eight hundred marines along and 80 Humvees started landing this morning, but it will take 24 to 48 hours to get them all ashore.

Navy doctors and Coast Guardsmen went in to provide medical care to a Haitian infant but there is no sign of the state of the art field hospitals which have saved so many lives in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Israel and four other countries have set up such hospitals, but U.S. officials say the Haitian health ministry told them it doesn't want any more.

Tomorrow, the hospital ship Comfort - with eight operating rooms ready to go - will arrive to take some of the burden off overwhelmed Haitian hospitals.

One medical group, Doctors without Borders, has complained bitterly that patients have died because planes carrying life saving medicines have been prevented from landing. U.S. officials insist the Haitian government decides which planes can land.

[billkol]

If anyone out there, who is reading this, has any influence, please get pain medicine and antibiotics to the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Deschapelles. Haiti. The have none! The hospital is overwhelmed with seriously injured patients! Many patients have infection and open wounds.

[GTR5]

I keep reading of complaints about the US forces there from journalists who have contributed absolutely nothing to the effort, nor will they ever contribute anything of value. A little Thank You guys would be more appropriate.

[RandyD828]

I?m very disturbed with the media reports outlining all the short falls in the Haiti relief efforts, not once have I heard about the hundreds of flights in and out of Haiti or the hundreds of tons of relief supplies flown in. Not to mention the hundreds of military members on the ground and at sea in support of the relief effort. Yet I here how little the United States is doing, I was just wondering how many pounds of relief supplies have been flown into Haiti via the News Crew Helicopters or the efforts they ?The news teams? have done to help the hundreds of thousands of effected people. Kudos go out to all those that are helping so many without any recognition or support of the media.

No two disasters are ever the same with the exception of the devastation. Logistic problems are enviable at every disaster. Why is the news media not reporting what IS being done, not what their biased reporters feel should be done. I would love to see their professional qualifications to handle and be responsible for the supervision of a disaster, or see how they handle Logistics without the necessary supplies or equipment. If they don?t have the necessary background, then I suggest they report the facts of what IS happening and leave their personal opinions on the plane. In a nut shell, I am upset with the news media reporting ethics.

I now visit the military web sites (Air Force, DOD and Navy) to get the facts since the media is having trouble reporting them.