# Posted 6:32 AM by Patrick Belton  

HAITI UPDATER: 300 Marines are now in Port-au-Prince, with Secretary Rumsfeld reporting that the U.S. deployment there is likely to reach 1,500 to 2,000, while lasting no more than three months before handing over peacekeeping responsibilities to the United Nations. The Pentagon has not yet made statements about the rules of engagement governing the deployment (whether, for instance, troops will be permitted to fire on looters, or only in self defense). The Washington Post is reporting that the plan for political stabilization of Haiti will continue to draw upon the Caricom plan formulated by the Caribbean nations before Aristide's depature, calling for an independent prime minister and unity cabinet to be chosen through compromise among Haiti's political movements, and with representatives of the Lavalas party and Prime Minister Yvon Neptune taking part in Aristide's stead. The U.N. is planning to send a team to Haiti within the next several days to assess requirements for its eventual peacekeeping mission, as well as the effects of political instability on possible efforts to ameliorate the humanitarian situation. The NY Times reports that the constitutionally mandated legislative ratification of the succession to office of interim president Boniface Alexandre, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, cannot happen because the legislature is not at present meeting. Rebel leader Guy Philippe seems to hope to make his rebel force into the army of his nation (at present Haiti's army is disestablished). Both Philippe and rebel leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain (a former death squad leader and assassin) have expressed support for the US deployment.

The Globe points to the irony that the Bush administration, so vitally against nation building in candidature, is now engaged wholeheartedly in the creation of democratic structures of governance in failed states, and winning support for this policy with a skeptical electorate. This is not, incidentally, the first time a president came into office to adopt policies he had campaigned against in his predecessor - for only one example, as a candidate Clinton attacked the first President Bush mercilessly for his Realist, great-powers-comity stance toward China which left no room for human rights considerations; then, after a year, he adopted precisely the same policy under the guise of engagement. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion