NATO chiefs ordered alliance ships and aircraft today to deliver European aid to hurricane-stricken regions of the United States after delays in delivering assistance.
An emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels agreed to send two to three ships with a capacity equivalent to around 600 long trucks for bulky equipment. Boeing-707 jets from a small fleet of NATO aircraft will deliver smaller aid items.
"The reason is the immense suffering in the hurricane-stricken regions of the US. It was a very quick and very easy decision," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters after the meeting.
Asked about the irony of NATO's largest and richest member asking for help from its smaller allies, de Hoop Scheffer said: "The suffering is so huge. That is the beginning and end of this operation."
A NATO official said Norway had confirmed it would provide one ship and that it was negotiating with Denmark for another. US ambassador to NATO Victoria Nuland thanked NATO allies for their support "to help ensure that the enormous outpouring of humanitarian offers...can get to those in need quickly."
"This NATO alliance, forged over 60 years ago to protect the European continent, has once again proven its value to the American people," she said in a statement.
Mr De Hoop Scheffer said the NATO aircraft could be sent in a matter of days but the ships that are providing the bulk of the transport would take more time.
The first of the ships will take a few days to get to a European port before being loaded and starting its trans-Atlantic crossing of 10-12 days, he said.
NATO, together with the European Union, is already acting as a clearing house for European offers of help to Katrina victims, ranging from medical supplies, tents, water purification and high-speed pumps to diapers, gloves and coats.
US President George W. Bush is under fierce criticism for his government's slow response to the hurricane, a disaster which the mayor of New Orleans says may have killed 10,000 in his city. Some European officials have cited snags in getting aid through.
One Swedish plane laden with aid was kept waiting this week because it lacked approval to land in the United States. The United States asked allies at an emergency meeting in Brussels yesterday to study "a stronger logistical and transport role" for the 26-nation defence alliance in shifting the mass of pledged European humanitarian aid.
For NATO, the mission is an early outing of assets belonging to its much-vaunted NATO Response Force - an 18,000-strong rapid reaction force designed to allow it to reach trouble spots and humanitarian disasters around the globe in a matter of days.
The NRF - a response to criticism that NATO is slow to act - is based on troops and equipment earmarked from national armies. It is due to reach full strength in October 2006.