Yesterday's Leftovers #2 For 3/8/10: US Troops Reportedly Leaving Haiti, But The Contractors Have Their Eyes On Staying

AP's Andres Leighton

US troops are leaving Haiti it appears.

There are some Haiti citizens here who aren't looking forward to this, seeing the troops as invaluable in their arrival towards the pain they have encountered in Haiti:

"I would like for them to stay in Haiti until they rebuild the country and everybody can go back to their house," said Marjorie Louis, a 27-year-old mother of two, as she warmed a bowl of beans for her family over a charcoal fire on the fake grass of the national stadium.

More praise for the troops from the locals, an end result a lot of people from different backgrounds didn't predict would happen with the troops.

"They should stay because they have been doing a good job," 35-year-old Lesly Pierre said as his family prepared dinner under a tarp at an encampment in Petionville. "If it was up to our government, we wouldn't have gotten any help at all."

U.S. soldiers said they had nothing but warm encounters with the Haitian people.

"They're real good people. They just want help," Army Private First Class Troy Sims, a 19-year-old from Fresno, California, said as he prepared to board a flight back to the U.S. "I feel that us being here helped a lot. If we weren't here, things probably would have gotten out of control."

But while the troops leave, the contractors are just starting to make their way in:

U.S. contractors with experience clearing Baghdad after bombings and New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina recognize that there are fortunes to be made moving Haiti's debris from point A to point B. They are scrambling to partner with local construction firms to secure access to workers and heavy equipment and to align themselves with the Haitian business leaders who have connections to the government and the international donor consortiums that will write the big checks. When Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met recently with Haiti's president, René Préval, the two discussed rubble removal and what Brazilian companies could offer, according to a participant in the meeting.

"Fortunes to be made" they say.

It's the only thing on these people's minds instead of facilitating a ravished nation.