JAN 17: USAID'S SHAH RESPONDS TO HONORE'S CRITICISM

JAN 17, ABC’S “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” with host Jake Trapper

TRAPPER: Dr. Shah, we’re running out of time, but I want to get your thoughts on some quotes from retired Lieutenant General Russel Honore, who was brought onboard to take control of the response to Hurricane Katrina. He told USA Today, “The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid. What we saw instead was discussion about, well, we’ve got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are. And any time I hear that, my head turns red. I was a little frustrated to hear that USAID was the lead agency. I respect them, but they’re not a rapid deployment unit.”

Very quickly, should the military have been in charge of this effort, instead of USAID?

SHAH: Well, let me refer back to that quote, because I think it’s -- it’s somewhat inaccurate. We -- we -- immediately after this happened, the president pulled everyone together and said, “Look, I want you all to work together, I want you to move quickly, and I want you to be aggressive and be coordinated.” And that’s exactly what we did.

So USAID sent a disaster assistance response team and search-and- rescue teams right away. We did that also with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a number of other partners so that we could increase the scale of that effort and deploy quickly.

In parallel and right away, we began securing commodities, 600,000 humanitarian daily rations for food, units that produce 100,000 liters of water a day. We’ve already got four in. We have six more on the way from Dubai, and a number of others things in medicine and -- and tarps and tents, so we could get commodity flow moving. That happened in parallel. We didn’t wait.

And in terms of engaging the military and the response, that happened from the very beginning. The reason we’re going to have all these military assets there that will expand our distribution capability this coming week is because we acted to make that happen immediately after this disaster occurred.

TRAPPER: OK.

SHAH: And the president was very clear about his expectations, and I was with General Keen yesterday in Haiti, and we spoke about what it’s going to take to meet that. It’s going to take a strong and coordinated effort.

TRAPPER: All right, Dr. Shah, General Keen, thanks so much for joining us, and good luck to both of you on what looks like a very, very tough job.

SHAH: Thank you.