U.S. troops depart Haiti, but much work remains to be done

THE LAST 314 American troops from Operation Unified Response, the U.S. military's emergency mission to post-earthquake Haiti, were airlifted from the island Tuesday, bound for Army bases in North Carolina and Texas. Their departure marked the end of an extraordinary humanitarian relief effort, lasting about 140 days and involving, at its peak in February, more than 22,000 soldiers, sailors and Marines under the U.S. Southern Command. Now that the full-time presence of American boots on the ground is ending, it's critical that the administration not repeat this nation's long, sad history of on-again, off-again attention to Haiti's suffering -- even with another calamity a mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico monopolizing Washington's attention.

The U.S. troops, the largest contingent of an international response to Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake, have done a commendable share of the unglamorous grunt work of relief and reconstruction. Even as they prepared to depart in recent weeks, the remaining personnel worked with the United Nations and the U.S. Agency for International Development in nine camps housing Haitians who lost their homes in the temblor. Clearing rubble from ditches and drainage canals is not the stuff of headlines. But it helps minimize the chances of severe flooding and further misery for desperately poor people during Haiti's heavy spring rains -- and during the hurricane season that began officially Tuesday.

More than 230,000 people died in Haiti's earthquake, and hundreds of thousands more were injured. The international response has been wide-ranging and, so far, sustained. More than $500 million of Haiti's international debt has been forgiven, representing more than half the total. Billions more have been pledged for short- and medium-term reconstruction. And the international effort to provide Haitians with emergency supplies has been largely successful in affording hundreds of thousands of displaced people with at least the rudiments of shelter, clean water and food.

But the scale and scope of what remains to be done are daunting. An estimated 1.5 million people -- more than 15 percent of the population -- remain without permanent dwellings. Many of them are in camps plagued by mean conditions made worse by the rains. Tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of children remain out of schools that were destroyed. Piles of rubble are everywhere. The tarps and tents rushed to the country after the quake will not last forever; nor will the patience and resilience even of long-suffering Haitians.

The Obama administration's request for some $1.6 billion in additional aid for Haiti is pending in Congress, which should act quickly to ensure ongoing American support for the hemisphere's poorest nation. At the same time, the Haitian government, which has been overwhelmed by the scope of the disaster, still needs to prove that it is up to the task of carrying out basic chores of administration. These include establishing a system by which property disputes can be adjudicated and land can be designated for new construction to house the homeless. They also include organizing parliamentary elections that were postponed by the earthquake as well as presidential elections before the end of the year.

All this is complicated, to say the least, by the destruction of government buildings that housed paper records. But that cannot be an excuse for inaction. Haiti has an unhappy history of explosive political violence. The risk now is that history will repeat itself, especially if Haitians feel abandoned and adrift.