WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Friday acknowledged the limits of its initial relief efforts in Haiti, while promising a quick ramp-up in delivery of water and other badly needed supplies.
The State Department raised the confirmed U.S. death toll from the earthquake to six and said 15 other Americans are presumed to have died. A department spokesman predicted the U.S. toll will rise.
The administration’s promises of help on the way turned Friday to grimmer talk: predictions that the situation in Haiti will likely get much worse before it gets better.
It might be an effort to pre-empt criticism of President Barack Obama’s performance or the speed of U.S. aid, a possible attempt to forestall the kind of public relations disaster that plagued the Bush administration in the days after Hurricane Katrina’s onslaught along the Gulf Coast in 2005.
