16 January 2005	Sunday	05 Zilhaj 1425

BANDA ACEH, Jan 15: The United States will end its military's Asian tsunami relief operations as soon as possible but not before the job is done, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said on Saturday.

"Our goal is to put ourselves out of business as quickly as possible," Mr Wolfowitz told reporters after visiting US troops helping the aid effort in the Indonesian province of Aceh, the area worst hit by the Dec 26 disaster.

Asked about a three-month timeframe set by Indonesia for foreign military forces helping the relief effort to leave the country, Mr Wolfowitz said: "I think the date that you mentioned is more of a target than a deadline."

"Let me emphasize the most important goal is to make sure the survivors here are properly taken care of. I think that's what everyone agrees has to be done. "We can have targets and we can have goals within that but we have to achieve the mission and the mission is to make sure that suffering is relieved and the reconstruction gets going."

Prior to his Thursday departure to the region, Mr Wolfowitz told reporters he hoped the US military's operations would be finished by the end of March. While in Aceh, Mr Wolfowitz took a helicopter flight around Banda Aceh. -AFP