WASHINGTON - About $92 million of the $350 million that the Bush administration pledged for tsunami relief assistance has been spent so far, a U.S. government official said Friday.
The money has been provided to United Nations organizations and private relief groups, according to Tom Fry of the U.S. Agency for International Development, who spoke by telephone from Utapao, Thailand, with reporters at the Pentagon. The rest of the $350 million will be allocated as relief organizations submit proposals for specific projects, he said.
“When those proposals come in we review those and then if the Pentagon agrees with them, we will then fund those agencies and organizations to continue this work,” Fry said.
Separately, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, told reporters during a flight to South Asia on Thursday that he hopes the U.S. military’s role in the relief mission will be finished well before the end of March. He was responding to a statement by Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who said all foreign troops would be out of the country by March 31.<snip>
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6826601/
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