The aim is to have approximately 10,000 US troops in the area to participate in the rescue operation, spokesman Jose Ruiz of the US Southern Command said. World leaders have promised massive amounts of assistance to rebuild Haiti since Tuesday's quake killed as many as 200,000 people and left its capital, Port-au-Prince, in ruins.
Aid workers struggled to get food and medical assistance to the survivors, many of them injured and living in makeshift camps on streets strewn with debris and decomposing bodies. But nearly a week into the crisis the aid was only just starting to get to those in need.
The country's president said on Sunday US troops will help UN peacekeepers keep order on Haiti's increasingly lawless streets, where overstretched police and UN peacekeepers have been unable to provide full security. Speaking on ABC's "This Week," the commander of the US military operation in Haiti, Lieutenant General Ken Keen said: "We are here principally for a humanitarian assistance operation, but security is a critical component. ... We are going to have to address the situation, the security.
Former US President Bill Clinton, the UN Special Envoy to Haiti, was to meet on Monday with Haitian President Rene Preval, whose cabinet met outside police headquarters on Sunday in a circle of white plastic chairs. Clinton was to bring aid supplies and determine more about what Haiti needs. Logistical logjams and streets piled with debris have slowed the delivery of medical and food supplies, but there were signs of progress on Sunday as international medical teams took over damaged hospitals and clinics where seriously injured and sick people had lain untreated for days.
Rescue teams also raced against time to free survivors from the rubble of collapsed buildings, with more successful rescues reported on Sunday. UN peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said the United Nations Security Council would be asked on Monday to approve an increase in the number of UN troops and police in Haiti.
Another UN official said an additional 1,250 blue helmets would be sought to help the Haiti contingent, which suffered dozens of dead and missing in the 7.0 magnitude earthquake. In an indication of the sensitivity of US soldiers operating in a Caribbean state where they have intervened in the past, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused Washington of "occupying Haiti undercover."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was in the Haitian capital on Sunday, called it "one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades" and urged Haitians to be patient. Ban visited a makeshift settlement for survivors opposite the collapsed presidential palace, and people in the crowd shouted to him. "Where is the food? Where is the help?"