Associated Press
WASHINGTON — U.S. military airplanes have been positioned in Europe to help with an airlift of food and other relief supplies for Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.
Additional aircraft have been flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany in preparation for the mission, but crews have not yet been told when they would leave, U.S. officials said.
President Bush has directed $320 million in immediate humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. The effort is aimed at helping Afghans survive the coming winter, as well as generating goodwill toward the United States as the Bush administration pushes its campaign against Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. He is being sheltered by the ruling Taliban government in Afghanistan.
"We will deliver food and seeds, vaccines and medicines by truck, and even by draft animals," Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.
"Conditions permitting, we will bring help directly to the people of Afghanistan by air drops."
Air drops are expected to be a small part of the mission, with supplies also going over the country’s rugged terrain by mule and truck.
Civil war and a three-year drought have led to famine and forced millions of Afghans to leave their homes. The crisis has worsened and many have fled since the United States threatened to retaliate for the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
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