The Foreign Service Journal, November 2005

Kurtzer on Sept. 9, “The government may or may not decide to pursue it [the aid], in view of the fact that the costs to the American taxpayer of Katrina are likely to be enormous in the period ahead.” Traditional adversaries of the United States like Cuba, Venezuela and Iran have also offered their help. Cuba has sent 1,100 physicians, and Venezuela has donated food supplies and humanitarian relief. Less sin- cere is Iran’s offer to provide 20 mil- lion barrels of crude oil, which is conditional on the U.S. lifting trade sanctions. The United States has rejected this and all other condition- al offers. Multilateral organizations have also provided assistance to the recov- ery effort. NATO’s contribution is sig- nificant, both in monetary terms and as evidence of its continued transition toward humanitarian and peacekeep- ing missions. To provide for disaster relief, NATO has utilized the Euro- Atlantic Disaster Response Coor- dination Center, created in 1998 as the focal point for coordinating disas- ter relief efforts in the Euro-Atlantic partnership. Daily situation reports can be found at the EADRCC Web site ( http://www.nato.int/eadcc/ 2005/katrina/index.htm ), w ith de- tailed information on the contribu- tions of donor states. The EADRCC has also been working in close coordination with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to alleviate the condition of displaced people along the Gulf coast, much as it did for those affected in Asia follow- ing last December’s tsunami. Relief- web, a Web site administered by UN- OCHA, provides a wealth of docu- ments on Katrina relief ( http://www. reliefweb.int/rw/dbc.nsf/doc108? OpenForm&rc=2&emid=TC- 2005-000144-USA ). A collection of maps can also be found of the affect- ed areas. Predictably, scandal has erupted alongside all of the help. CI Host, the largest private Web-hosting firm worldwide, reports that over 4,000 Katrina-related scam Web sites have been created since Sept. 1. Accord- ing to their figures, 60 percent of all Katrina fundraising Web sites are fraudulent. Tips on how to avoid scam Web sites are available, among other places, at the FBI cyber investi- gations Web site ( http://www.fbi. gov/cyberinvest/escams.htm ). Government agencies working with foreign donors have begun to produce tangible results. These same efforts are also being directed toward Hurricane Rita and its after- math. Having struck only weeks after Katrina, Rita has underscored the need to learn, and institutionalize, Katrina’s many tough lessons. n — Daniel Zussman, Editorial Intern C Y B E R N O T E S u 18 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 50 Years Ago... What we have set out to do is to create an institute for the Foreign Service of the United States that in its field will compare favorably with the War Colleges of the Armed Forces, as there has never been an institute equipped to do for diplomacy what the War Colleges do for defense. — From: “The New FSI Training Program” by Harold B. Hoskins, FSJ, Nov. 1955.