NationStates Jolt Archive

Pentagon Spending $6M A Day On Relief
Associated Press
January 7, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is spending about $6 million a day to operate the fleet of ships, aircraft and other military resources that have joined the tsunami relief effort in south Asia, a spokesman said Thursday.

Army Lt. Col. Gary Keck, a Pentagon public affairs officer, said the $6 million per day covers a U.S. contingent of about 13,000 military personnel, of which about 12,000 are aboard 17 Navy ships in the region hit by the Dec. 26 earthquake and resulting tsunami.

The U.S. military's contribution to the humanitarian effort is possibly its largest in history; it is separate from the $350 million that President Bush has pledged in U.S. government assistance.

The latest ship to join the effort was the USNS Mercy, a hospital ship that set sail Wednesday evening from San Diego. It is initially staffed to support 250 patient beds but could be expanded to 1,000 beds with additional medical staff. The humanitarian organization Project HOPE has expressed interest in providing medical staff for the Mercy, which will take about 30 days to reach south Asia.

Still en route to the area is the USS Fort McHenry, with 400 Marines and sailors and six CH-46 helicopters aboard. It is expected to arrive off the coast of Indonesia in the next several days.

The Army, meanwhile, said Wednesday that it would send several CH-47 Chinook helicopters and possibly some UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from South Korea to serve as air ambulances. The Army also is dispatching four mortuary affairs teams from Fort Lee, Va., to help with recovery of human remains.

The biggest share of the estimated $6 million-a-day cost is for the USS Abraham Lincoln battle group, which was in port at Hong Kong when the tsunami struck and was the first U.S. Navy group to arrive on the scene last week. Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, has said it costs about $2.5 million a day to operate the Lincoln group, which has 17 helicopters aboard.

Another major force is Expeditionary Strike Group 5, led by the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship that arrived Thursday off the northwest coast of Sumatra with 1,300 Marines aboard.

Also joining the Navy effort is the high-speed transport vessel HSV 2 Swift, which deployed on Monday from Naval Station Ingleside in Texas, en route to Singapore.

I just thought this might be of some interest to those of the "America is so friggin' stingy" crowd. :)

Hehe, someone likes the number 6 at the pentagon;

6 Million dollars a day on the Tsunami relief.

6 Billion dollars a day on the war in Iraq

So? Scotland (a country of five million people, and not the richest in the world) is spending £1 million a day.

My above comment was a lie by the way, just making a joke.

OMG, why isn't it 6 trillion dollars a day on relief. Stingy bastards.
[/sarcasm]

It's useless to compare who is giving what. I mean, all of the donor countries are giving a very generous amount, and arguing about who gives what is not exactly conducive for a donor climate.

I'm surprised they bothered giving anything, it's not like the American Government have cared what the rest of the world thinks and they do have that ominous debt.

Maybe it's out of Christian goodwill?

I'm surprised they bothered giving anything, it's not like the American Government have cared what the rest of the world thinks and they do have that ominous debt.

Maybe it's out of Christian goodwill?
Maybe. You tell me. :)

Just to remove the misinformation I may have sown with my earlier remark, the real figures for war spending are just less than quarter of a billion dollars a day on average.

I think that remarking on amounts given in a negative way derides the effort made by those countries.

Every Dollar, Pound, Euro, Kroner, Rupee and Lira will be appreciated by these devastated countries. It goes to show how little you have to complain about in comparison, that it degenerates into a competition of giving.

They were already spending $6,000,000 a day on maintaining the fleet anyway- it was just doing something useful now.

I just thought this might be of some interest to those of the "America is so friggin' stingy" crowd. :)

Even I couldn't quite understand why people were attacking america for being stingy, especially 2 days later when no one knew the extent of the damage.

Even I couldn't quite understand why people were attacking america for being stingy, especially 2 days later when no one knew the extent of the damage.

nobody did :p