President Barack Obama's plan to contain the Ebola outbreak presents the U.S. military with a logistical challenge with few precedents, one that it will be under pressure to execute quickly while ensuring that the 3,000 military personnel involved are protected from the deadly virus.
Mr. Obama on Tuesday warned that the epidemic could not only infect "hundreds of thousands of people,'' but carry wide security implications, even though chances of an outbreak in the U.S. are "extremely low.''
"It's a potential threat to global security if these countries break down, if their economies break down, if people panic," Mr. Obama said after a briefing at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has deployed more than 100 staff to the affected countries, one of the largest deployments in its history.
Mr. Obama said the epidemic of the virus is "spiraling out of control…spreading faster and exponentially."The American military has experience responding to humanitarian crises abroad, including the 2010 earthquake and cholera outbreak in Haiti and the 1994 East African refugee crisis created by the Rwandan genocide.
But the Ebola crisis in West Africa presents a unique set of challenges, according to J. Stephen Morrison, head of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The operation will require the military to fuse its experience in responding to natural disasters with its training in biowarfare to minimize the risks of Americans contracting the disease. Personnel will bring medical assistance and training, logistical expertise and engineering experience to set up 17 field hospitals with 100 beds each, more than tripling current capacity.
"This is unprecedented as a public-health operation led by the U.S. military," Mr. Morrison said.
A defense official said the Pentagon anticipates having the Ebola treatment units running "in the next several weeks.'' The official said the centers would be turned over to Liberia and staffed by local and international health-care providers, not U.S. military personnel.
In addressing the health crisis, the operation might also help to counter extremism across the continent, said retired Army Gen. Carter Ham. U.S. forces have taken part in a growing tempo of counterterrorism operations in Africa in recent years.
Public-health and humanitarian-aid experts cautioned that the success of the plan will depend on how quickly the U.S. can get the new treatment centers up and staffed. Because of the serious disease risks, this military effort is likely to take longer than previous humanitarian-relief efforts undertaken by the U.S., Mr. Morrison said.
"There are grave consequences to acting without preparation in something like this," said Michael VanRooyen, director of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and a physician experienced in working in such crises. He called Mr. Obama's plan "aggressive and comprehensive."
The World Health Organization's official toll is 4,963 cases, including 2,453 deaths, but epidemiologists say the true toll is likely three or four times greater.
Experts said the plan can work only if other countries also step up aid, which so far falls far short of the $987 million the United Nations said on Tuesday is needed for to combat the Ebola outbreak.
"This is a good start, but it's only a start," said Nils Daulaire, a former assistant secretary for global affairs for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and former U.S. representative on the WHO's executive board. "It shouldn't be up to just the U.S. This is an issue that requires a multinational response."
Pledges of aid are starting to roll in. More than 60%, or $200.2 million, of Ebola-related humanitarian aid recorded by the U.N.'s Financial Tracking Service as of Monday has been given or pledged since the beginning of September. The service tracks emergency humanitarian aid announced by donors or recipients but doesn't include all money spent on the outbreak, such as much of the new U.S. spending.
New pledges include one from the Chinese to dispatch a 59-person mobile-laboratory team to Sierra Leone with epidemiologists, doctors and nurses, the WHO said Tuesday.
In Congress, Republicans said the administration had responding slowly to date, but GOP leaders said they support the plan and will look to enhance it. A stopgap spending bill that Congress is considering this week includes the full $88 million requested by the White House to address the outbreak.
Mr. Obama planned to send Congress a request on Wednesday for an additional $500 million for his Ebola response plan from funds that lawmakers already appropriated for overseas contingencies.
"I think in the coming weeks you're going to see the Congress and the administration take further steps to look at how we can best contain this very horrible disease," House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) said Tuesday.
In a rare moment of praise for the White House, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said he backed Mr. Obama's efforts. "What the administration's doing is correct," said Mr. McConnell. "The Ebola funding is important," he said, noting that he planned to vote for the spending bill.
Liberia, founded by freed American slaves, has a profound and broad fondness for the U.S., and Liberians welcomed the news on Tuesday of the intensified American response.
"The opinion in the street is this is welcome, very much appreciated," said Archie Ponpon, a resident of the crowded West Point neighborhood in Monrovia, Liberia, a flashpoint for violence where police have been sent to quarantine residents who don't believe Ebola is present. "It's resuscitating the hopes of people.…Liberian people are saying, 'America is our friend.' "
"Look, the way we're going to win the war on Ebola is if we're going to break the chain of transmission," said James Dorbor Jallah, the national coordinator of Liberia's Ebola Task Force. "It's a good start, but I think a lot more can be done," he said, adding that local health workers need the capacity to test whether someone is infected with the disease.
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