Dan and SAS,
You're exactly on point with this one. The Bush administration was blasted and rightly so for not deploying appropriate assets and capabilities when they were needed in the aftermath of Katrina. Now there is an aircraft that can assist in ways that no other aircraft can in the Haiti disaster (self deploying direct to remote areas), and yet they sit Stateside. Sad...
Obviously lessons have not been learned by the new administration...
The truth is that this is not a case of tiltrotors vs. helicopters -- both are needed to get the job done. In this situation helicopters are much more important as getting aid that is stacking up at the Port-au-Prince airport is far more critical than the supplemental help that could be directly deployed by tiltrotors.
The press is inaccurately reporting that the weakness is that helicopters are not doing the job of moving aid that has been delivered to the airport out to those that need it. The real problem is that the secure distribution centers that the helicopters need to deliver the aid to are not in place. If you drop food, water, clothing, etc., into a vacant lot they will be hoarded by those strong enough to gather them. The net result being that the aid will not be distributed to those who desparately need it.
Sad but true...