Samoa and Tonga

I'm excited about this year's Pacific Partnership. As you may recall, I canceled the deployment of the USS Dubuque because the crew had succumbed to the H1-N1 virus that was going through the ship, and we made the decision that Dubuque could not be our Pacific Partnership platform this year.

In regrouping and deciding how to approach Pacific Partnership, we were able to come up with another platform, the USNS Richard E. Byrd, which is a replenishment ship but with great capacity to assist us, I think, in the medical, dental, veterinary and engineering efforts that this Pacific Partnership calls for. It will cause us to be a little more expeditionary, but I think, nonetheless, we'll be very effective in meeting what our ambassadors and what these countries hope to gain in this year's Pacific Partnership mission.

Our first two stops are Samoa and Tonga. I have not visited Samoa and I know this is the first time that Pacific Partnership has, so we have great expectations that we'll be able to assist that small nation in meeting their needs. I have visited Tonga in the past, and I know that the small islands that make up Tonga will benefit greatly from what Richard E. Byrd and our fly-in effort for this year's Pacific Partnership will impart.

We very much look forward to accomplishing what Pacific Partnerships in the past, I think, have accomplished, and that is not only to bring humanitarian assistance and relief in the various areas to these small island nations but also to improve our teaming with non-government organizations that are helping us in the Pacific Partnership and improve our teaming with the foreign militaries that are bringing docs, veterinarians, and the engineers to bear on this so that, at the end of the day, we'll be better partners both with Samoa and Tonga, and we'll be better partners with the various participants to join us in the 2009 Pacific Partnership mission.