More on the U.S. and Foreign Aid: Taking Cash From Sri Lanka

Apropos of my post last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rice has made a point of publicly thanking foreign countries for their contributions to the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Here is an excerpt from her news conference:

. . we have, in fact, had offers from more than 70 countries around the world. We are now putting those offers to good use. We have used Canadian airlift. Singaporean helicopters were in the area and have helped with people. We have offers from France and those supplies will be taken up. We have a need, as a matter of fact, for – in some parts of the devastated areas — for meals ready-to-eat, the MREs, and we have gone out to countries to ask for more of those. We’ve had cash contributions.

I just want to say that people have said without fail that the United States is a compassionate country that has helped so much when there has been devastation around the world that they want give back to the United States. And that should make us feel good as Americans to know that people acknowledge how much we have been able to help and that they now want to help us.

The United Nations has mobilized their disaster experts. I want to thank Secretary General Kofi Annan for that. Their people are sitting with our people in Washington to plan out UN support. So there’s just a lot.

And if I could just close with one story that is particularly heartening to me, the small country of Sri Lanka, which has just gone through its own devastation because of a tsunami, is one of the cash contributors to this effort. And that says something about the heart of the world as well as the heart of America.