Bush enlists dad, Clinton to seek aid

WASHINGTON — President Bush enlisted his predecessor, Bill Clinton, and his father on Monday to tap "the good heart of the American people" for corporate and private aid to tsunami victims as U.S. warplanes and naval vessels spearheaded the largest global relief effort in the nation's history.

Reaching into remote parts of Indonesia's devastated island of Sumatra, U.S. helicopter pilots operating from the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier offshore rescued 60 survivors, some clinging desperately for life, while other flights ferried in food, water and medicine.

A second group of ships with two dozen helicopters and 2,100 Marines was expected to arrive in the waters near Sumatra as early as today, U.S. officials told reporters here, in an effort to get badly needed supplies and medical assistance to victims cut off from relief by the damage to bridges and roads.

Aided by around-the-clock flights of massive long-range Air Force cargo jets, the military forces hoped to respond to the key problem facing aid providers: logistics, namely delivering and distributing some $2.1 billion in promised global aid in remote areas, many of which are inaccessible by road.

"There is no shortage of money at the moment," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters shortly after arriving in Thailand with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as part of an aid assessment mission to the region.

"A lot of aid is now pouring in," said Powell, "but I think the real challenge will be the distribution of aid out of ports and off the airfields."

At the State Department, officials said U.S. military aircraft had ferried 430,000 pounds of emergency medicine, food and shelter to regional airports, but it would take days to deliver the supplies to some of the more remote portions of Sumatra.

"We've reached many of the isolated areas of Aceh. In the next couple days we'll reach many, many more," said James Kunder, deputy assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. "I'm hoping that within a matter of days we'll be able to tell you that we've reached every isolated area."

With the American flag flying over the White House at half staff in remembrance of the estimated 150,000 people killed in the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami, Bush charged George H.W. Bush and Clinton with reaching out for private donations to leverage the $350 million in humanitarian and relief aid the administration has already pledged.

"The devastation in the region defies comprehension," Bush told reporters at the White House.

"We mourn especially the tens of thousands of children who are lost," he said. "We hold in our prayers all the people whose fate is still unknown."