U.S. sees long-term role in Haiti recovery

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - The United States will support Haiti's long-term recovery from last week's devastating earthquake and aid workers were doing their best to get quick relief to millions of victims, U.S. officials said on Saturday.

"We're going to be here providing the support for a long time," Rajiv Shah, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told Reuters.

"This is a tragic, tragic circumstance," Shah said. "The scale and the destruction and the human consequence of what has happened is just unparalleled."

Shah, who accompanied Haitian public health minister Alex Larsen on a hospital visit in Port-au-Prince on Saturday, said the United States was prepared to support Haiti's health system for an "extended period of time" if the Haitians asked.

Haitians and relief organizations have complained about bottlenecks in getting food, water and medical attention to the estimated 3 million people needing aid after the January 12 quake. The United States has taken a lead role in relief efforts.

Craig Fugate, administrator of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, who accompanied Shah on his second visit to Haiti since the quake, said the problem was with Haiti's infrastructure.

The poorest country in the Americas even before the quake, Haiti has only a small international airport and limited roads, many of which were damaged by the quake or blocked by rubble.

Fugate said it was natural that relief agencies would complain if their shipments had not been allowed through first.

"When you're dealing with a limited pipeline, you're not going to get everything in the order that everybody's going to agree to, and that's your challenge," he told Reuters.

Fugate said things would improve dramatically once Haiti's severely damaged port was repaired, but that there was still much work to be done.

"While a lot of people are focused here in Port-au-Prince, we know that many other areas as you move toward the outskirts were impacted. We also know that people have moved away from the city and those supports are going to have to be built," he said.

"By no means at this point, is anybody claiming that we've got everything coming, everything's ready to go and we're all set. This is still working, but logistics and distance and the lack of the infrastructure to get it here quickly was the single limiting factor, that was our challenge," Fugate said.

(Editing by Eric Beech)