The earthquake-damaged National Palace is seen from the air Saturday in Port-au-Prince.

Haiti ? With the National Palace uninhabitable and his own home destroyed, Haitian President Rene Preval is trying to run his country from a dilapidated police station near the heavily damaged national airport.

The U.S. military controls his airport. International aid workers fret about a lack of government control. The Haitian police force is severely overworked.

Saturday brought Preval’s troubles into sharp focus. He convened his Cabinet ministers in a circle of plastic chairs under an open sky and hustled to welcome U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Preval also urged aid donors to stop arguing.

“This is an extremely difficult situation,” he told The Associated Press after one meeting. “We must keep our cool to coordinate and not throw accusations at each other.”

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, with a history of corruption, political infighting and negligent administrations, resulting in decades of poor-to-mediocre services for ordinary citizens, half of whom live on less than $1 a day.