U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Visits Aceh Province
Paul Wolfowitz
January 15, 2005
by Kevin Caruso
Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary, took a tour of the Aceh province of Indonesia and was deeply disquieted at what he saw.
“I can’t believe the scale of it; the devastation. And I only saw a small part,” said Wolfowitz, who was ambassador to Indonesia in the late 1980s.
He said he needs to assess what the U.S. military needs to do in the reconstruction of the province. Over 15,000 U.S. military personnel have been deployed to the area.
The Aceh province has been devastated in every way. Almost all of the 110,000 Indonesians killed in the disaster were in Aceh. And the environment has been gutted.
U.S. military personnel continue to work diligently in the distribution of aid and the reconstruction of the region.
