BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) – The U.S. military is likely to wrap up its relief efforts for tsunami victims in Indonesia this month, a Navy commander said Saturday, a move that would end the biggest American military operation in Southeast Asia since the Vietnam War.

The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln has already left the waters off Sumatra, where at least 112,000 people were killed in the Dec. 26 tsunami. The ship spent one month leading a massive helicopter relief mission into devastated villages on the island’s western coast.

Rear Adm. William Douglas Crowder, the commander of the Lincoln’s battle group, said 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. military personnel remain deployed, mostly offshore, as part of the multinational relief effort.

Speaking on the flight deck of the Lincoln after it docked at Singapore’s Changi Naval Base for a visit, Crowder said he expected those forces to end their missions “in a couple of weeks,” but would not give an exact date.

“I don’t think it will be a long time,” he said.

Other countries, including Australia, France and Japan, also sent military forces to help in the aid effort. The U.S. contingent was the largest, at one stage numbering up to 15,000 people.

Indonesia welcomed the foreign help but has said it will be ready to take control of the relief operation by late March, when the foreign troops should leave. The presence of foreign forces is sensitive because of a rebel conflict in the ravaged province of Aceh.

Meanwhile, Spain’s first confirmed death in the tsunami was a reminder of the disaster’s global scope and the slow pace of tallying the victims.

Even as recovery efforts entered their seventh week, workers in Aceh were recovering from 500 to 1,000 corpses daily.

Spain’s Foreign Ministry announced overnight that forensic doctors had identified the body of a Spanish man who disappeared from the Thai island resort of Phuket during the tsunami.

The death toll from 11 tsunami-hit nations ranged Saturday from 159,976 to 178,100 – more the 112,000 in Aceh alone. Estimates of the missing range from 26,400 to 142,100. Most are presumed dead, but officials say it’s too early to add them to the toll.

In Washington, President Bush announced plans to send two former presidents – his father and Bill Clinton on a goodwill visit to tsunami-hit Indonesia,

Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Maldives from Feb. 19-21.

Clinton also has been named a special U.N. envoy to promote reconstruction.

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who is expected to be re-elected in national elections Sunday, said he would host a dinner for Bush and Clinton on Feb. 19.

Tsunami survivors were among those who prepared Saturday to vote.

Thongyong Sawangsok said she would travel from the refugee camp where she is staying to a polling station near her home on Khao island, where husband and baby daughter died when the waves struck.

“I don’t want to see that place again, but my feeling is that I have to go vote,” she said.

One of the most pressing medical needs is to ensure that pregnant women stay healthy – and deliver safely – in the squalid relief camps and ruined villages.

Most pregnant women in Aceh are eating too little protein and could have underweight babies or become anemic and bleed to death during labor, health officials say.

“The (pregnant) women here are in a bad shape,” said Henia Dakkak, a specialist with the U.N. Population Fund in Aceh. “If we don’t start to do something in a few weeks, then we are endangering people’s lives.”

The Lincoln will stay in Singapore for several days before heading to the Pacific and the U.S. mainland. Its homeport is Everett, Washington.

“We’re transitioning from the acute care, the emergency response, the humanitarian aid, to a phase of more structured reconstruction and rehabilitation,” Crowder said of U.S. efforts in Aceh.

The new phase includes medical care provided by the hospital ship USNS Mercy, he said.

Lt. Commander John Daniels, a public affairs officer, said the U.S. forces in Aceh developed a close relationship with the Indonesian military during relief operation. He said the conflict between the Indonesian military and separatist rebels in Aceh “did not hinder or impede our mission in any way.”

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