By JEFF ZELENY and BRIAN KNOWLTON, New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/world/americas/11prexy.html

WASHINGTON — Even as the United States mil­i­tary with­draws the forces it sent to Haiti after its dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake in Jan­u­ary, Pres­i­dent Obama on Wednes­day promised a last­ing com­mit­ment to aid and assistance.

“The sit­u­a­tion on the ground remains dire,” Mr. Obama said after meet­ing with Pres­i­dent René Pré­val of Haiti at the White House. “And peo­ple should be under no illu­sions that the cri­sis is over.”

Pen­ta­gon offi­cials said Wednes­day that about 10,000 Amer­i­can mil­i­tary per­son­nel were still in Haiti, down from a peak of 22,000. About 4,700 are based on land and 5,300 at sea.

Navy offi­cials said ear­lier that the hos­pi­tal ship Com­fort would leave the area on Wednes­day for its home port, Bal­ti­more. The med­ical crew of the huge hos­pi­tal ship treated 871 patients, includ­ing 540 of the crit­i­cally injured who were brought on board in the first 10 days the ship was off the Hait­ian coast.

The two lead­ers stood side by side in the Rose Gar­den on Wednes­day after­noon after a pri­vate meet­ing in the Oval Office, where Mr. Obama received an update on con­di­tions in Haiti and promised not to aban­don its peo­ple. He said the United States “has been proud to play a lead­ing role” in the inter­na­tional response to the earth­quake and would con­tinue its part­ner­ship on the long road to reconstruction.

“As you declared dur­ing last month’s national day of mourn­ing, it is time to wipe away the tears — it is time for Haiti to rebuild,” Mr. Obama said, look­ing at Mr. Pré­val. “And to you and to the Hait­ian peo­ple, I say today, as you embark on the heavy work ahead, you will con­tinue to have a steady and reli­able part­ner in the United States of America.”

The two lead­ers praised the work of the Amer­i­can search and res­cue teams that went to Haiti in the days imme­di­ately after the earth­quake. Mem­bers of sev­eral of the teams were in Wash­ing­ton on Wednes­day for the occasion.

Mr. Pré­val thanked Amer­i­cans for com­ing to Haiti’s aid with finan­cial and mil­i­tary assis­tance and human­i­tar­ian relief after the earth­quake, which killed more than 230,000 peo­ple and left more than one mil­lion home­less. He said the dis­as­ter should serve as a warn­ing for the world.

“Dear friends, we must draw the lessons from what occurred in Haiti,” Mr. Pré­val said. “These are lessons for all of mankind. The Haiti earth­quake was imme­di­ately fol­lowed by the earth­quake in Chile, as well as other earth­quakes through­out the world.”

Mr. Obama paid trib­ute to the many non­govern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions help­ing in Haiti and also to the uni­formed Amer­i­can forces who were sent there imme­di­ately after the dis­as­ter. The hos­pi­tal ship was among the most vis­i­ble sym­bols of that aid, although it could deal with only the most urgent and com­plex cases among the count­less thou­sands of Haitians need­ing med­ical care.

While docked in Haiti, the 894-foot ship pro­vided the most sophis­ti­cated med­ical care avail­able there, but it has not had any patients for more than a week, the Navy said.

“The sit­u­a­tion on the ground in terms of the med­ical sit­u­a­tion has improved,” said Jose Ruiz, a civil­ian spokesman for the United States South­ern Com­mand. “Demand for med­ical care is not exceed­ing the capac­ity of facil­i­ties on the ground.”

Mr. Ruiz said that the duties of the remain­ing Amer­i­can forces included help­ing to dis­trib­ute aid, remove rub­ble and com­plete engi­neer­ing assess­ments of dam­aged struc­tures. With the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment and the police, as well as United Nations peace­keep­ers, reassert­ing con­trol in the streets, the Amer­i­can forces were largely in a sup­port­ing role, he said.

Gen. Dou­glas M. Fraser, the com­man­der of the South­ern Com­mand, said this week that “our mis­sion is largely accomplished.”

But some Haitians have expressed con­cern that the troop depar­tures could sig­nal a decline in inter­na­tional inter­est in Haiti and pos­si­bly point toward a resur­gence of secu­rity concerns.

Mean­while, a large team has been work­ing in Haiti to develop a long-range recon­struc­tion and devel­op­ment plan for the coun­try in time for a donors’ con­fer­ence, which is sched­uled for March 31 at the United Nations in New York.