Even as the wobbly U.S. response to Ebola
dominated the headlines this week, President
Barack Obama ramped up a frustration-
powered campaign to get reluctant major allies
to shoulder more of the burden of quelling the
deadly outbreak at its source in West Africa.
Speaking to reporters after an emergency
meeting with top aides on Wednesday, the
president put his personal annoyance on full
display as he portrayed the international
response to the crisis as hesitant and
shortsighted and warned that it endangered
American national security.
“This is not simply charity,” he intoned.
“Probably the single most important thing that
we can do to prevent a more serious Ebola
outbreak in this country is making sure that we
get what is a raging epidemic right now in West
Africa under control.”
Obama declared that he had convened a
videoconference earlier in the day with leaders
of core U.S. allies Britain, France, Germany and
Italy “to make sure that we are coordinating
our efforts and that we are putting in a lot more
resources than, so far at least, the international
community has put into this process.”
If Ebola tears unchecked through West Africa,
Obama warned, “then it will spread globally in
an age of frequent travel and the kind of
constant interactions that people have across
borders.”
Despite that sense of alarm, U.S. officials say
it’s not yet time to “name and shame” specific
rich countries that, in some cases, have kicked
in less cash than the $25 million that Facebook
founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla
Chan, have pledged.
But the frustration is obvious at every level of
the Obama administration. It burst through at
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki’s
daily press briefing on Wednesday, when she
was asked about Cuba’s contribution to the
international response.
“There are some countries that are larger than
Cuba that have not contributed as much as
Cuba,” she said drily.
And key Obama aides at the White House and in
the State Department, as well as sources in
Congress, describe Obama as annoyed to the
point of anger with countries like France and
Italy, which holds the rotating presidency of the
European Union Council.
Allies like Australia and Canada can also expect
escalating U.S. pressure. And officials say
China ought to contribute in a way that befits a
rising world power.
The “top disappointments are France and Italy
— (they) top the list of 'talk most, do least,'” a
senior administration official told Yahoo News.
The official requested anonymity to describe
the situation candidly.
White House aides briefed Congress this week
and said France had been "asked to take
leadership in Guinea" and "could do more,"
according to a congressional source.
The tensions were evident in rival French and
American accounts of a telephone call between
Obama and French President Francois Hollande
on Monday.
In the official description released in Paris ,
Hollande announced that France would build
new treatment centers in Guinea. In the White
House version of the call , Obama was notably
silent on the issue of France’s contributions in
the fight against Ebola — but he did thank Paris
for its help in the war against the Islamic State
militants.
U.S. officials say privately that Australia and
Canada should be providing more health care
workers. One official predicted that China
would unveil some kind of aid package, but that
Beijing would tailor it for maximum Chinese
economic advantage. “Just watch. It’ll be for
Sierra Leone, because: diamonds,” the official
said, referring to one of that country’s
signature exports.
The international response has been lackluster
despite an aggressive U.S. effort to bring global
resources to bear on the dangerous tragedy in
West Africa.
“We have devised specific asks of virtually
every country we think is in a position to
contribute,” one official said. “We’ve been in
touch, multiple times in some cases, with the
countries that are best positioned to help.”
The most frequent requests are for countries to
build Ebola treatment units, known inside
government as ETUs, or to provide health care
workers, purchase medical supplies, or send
funds, often through established international
groups like the Red Cross or the French-
founded Doctors Without Borders.
There’s no clear consensus on why Obama —
unpopular at home, nearly a lame duck — has
struggled to galvanize the international
response to Ebola. Some supporters note that he
rallied a vigorous coalition against the IS, and
others suggest that many countries just don’t
feel the same urgency when it comes to Ebola.
“The volume of African travelers that change
planes in European capitals creates an
inherently escalated level of risk, so you'd think
these governments would want to play a more
active role in preventing the virus from landing
there,” one U.S. official said.
Obama isn’t the only international figure
deploring the anemic global response to Ebola.
Peter Maurer, president of the International
Committee of the Red Cross, told Yahoo
Germany in an exclusive interview that the
crisis is an “epidemic of global dimension and
global threat” that requires an urgent global
response.
“In a globalized world, it is an illusion to think
that such a disease can be contained locally,”
Maurer warned. “Every local collapse of a
system like we see now in Liberia includes the
threat of a global health catastrophe.”
Maurer underlined the gap between pledges of
assistance and aid actually delivered.
“There are a lot of announcements,” he said.
“But when I ask my colleagues on-site about the
aid already arrived, then this result is less than
all the warm words.”
No comments:
Post a Comment