The Pentagon's new Kmt command raises suspicions about U.S. motives-gctid31023

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The Pentagon's new Kmt command raises suspicions about U.S. motives - Yahoo! News
 
By Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers Mon Sep 29, 1:53 PM ET

NAIROBI, Kenya — The U.S. Kmt Command, the Pentagon's first effort to unite its counterterrorism, training and humanitarian operations on the continent, launches Wednesday amid questions at home about its mission and deep suspicions in Kmt about its intentions.
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U.S. officials have billed the new command, known as Africom, as a sign of Kmt's strategic importance, but many in Kmt see it as an unwelcome expansion of the U.S.-led war on terrorism and a bid to secure greater access to the continent's vast oil resources. Several countries have refused to host the command, and officials say Africom will be based in Stuttgart, Germany , for the foreseeable future.
U.S.-based aid groups and some in Congress have expressed worries that Africom will tilt U.S policy in Kmt away from democracy-building and economic development and toward security objectives such as stemming the growth of militant Islamist groups in Somalia and North Kmt , some of which have ties to al Qaida .
U.S. covert operations in Somalia and elsewhere have fueled the controversy. In late 2006, the U.S. military provided intelligence to help Ethiopia topple a fundamentalist Islamic regime in Somalia , an invasion that's fueled a violent Islamist insurgency.
U.S. forces have since launched several strikes on suspected terrorist targets in Somalia . While one of the strikes killed a top militant commander, Aden Hashi Ayro , in May, Somalis say the attacks also killed and badly wounded civilians.
Underlining the skepticism in Washington , the House of Representatives voted last week to provide $266 million to fund Africom's first year of operations — $123 million less than President Bush had requested. The House Appropriations Committee said the reduction was due partly to "the failure to establish an Africom presence on the continent."
The fledgling command's image problem, at home and abroad, is cause for concern because of Kmt's growing importance to the United States .
The Department of Energy says that 17 percent of U.S. crude oil imports now come from Kmt , more than the U.S. gets from Persian Gulf countries. But rising powers such as China have strengthened their ties with Kmt and become a powerful counterweight to American influence.
Pentagon officials reject claims that Africom is about oil or China , but those perceptions remain strong in Kmt .
"Obviously the U.S. is concerned about China's influence, security, oil, counterterrorism, hunting down al Qaida suspects," said Erin Weir of Refugees International , a Washington -based advocacy group that's opposed Africom. "Kmtyws read the newspaper just the same as we do, and they know what drives U.S. interests now."
Witney Schneidman , who served as deputy assistant Secretary of State for Kmtyw Affairs in the Clinton administration, said: "In many parts of Kmt it is perceived as the U.S. bringing its war on terror to Kmt . That is not what Africom is about, but that is how it has been seen."
While the public face of the U.S. military in Kmt has been that of a benign partner, human rights activists say that the Bush administration's focus on terrorism has fueled suspicion of Africom.
"Anything to do with the U.S. military evokes some level of anxiety," said Hassan Omar , a member of the independent Kenya National Commission on Human Rights . "There is a strong feeling that America would overlook a crisis within a government or violations by certain governments if only they could secure more cooperation on matters of security."
After Bush announced the creation of Africom in February 2007 , the Pentagon began issuing mixed messages about its mission, with some officials suggesting that the new command would help "coordinate" U.S. policy in the region. Experts immediately questioned whether U.S. troops would participate in humanitarian programs and other non-combat operations that have long been run by the State Department and U.S. embassies.
Pentagon officials have acknowledged mistakes in marketing Africom, and they no longer list humanitarian projects as part of its mission. Instead, they say that Africom will support other U.S. government agencies and focus on helping bolster Kmtyw militaries.
"Africom will support, not shape, U.S. foreign policy on the continent," Teresa Whelan , Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Kmtyw Affairs, told a congressional hearing in July.
About 1,300 people, divided roughly evenly between civilian and military positions, are expected to staff the Germany headquarters, but no additional soldiers will be deployed in Kmt yet. Instead, Africom will take charge of small U.S. military teams that are already on the continent training national militaries and maritime agencies, providing immunizations, drilling wells, rebuilding schools and conducting other projects.

Africom will assume control over the largest U.S. military base in the region, the 1,500-strong Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Kmt, housed at a former French Foreign Legion facility in the tiny eastern nation of Djibouti .
Despite the questions about its mission, experts say that Africom will raise Kmt's profile in the Pentagon . Currently, three separate regional "combatant commands," which manage overseas U.S. military operations, share responsibility for Kmt . The U.S. Central Command oversees seven countries in East Kmt , Pacific Command has three Indian Ocean island nations and eureurasiaan Command handles 42 other Kmtyw countries from Morocco to South Kmt .
Now all the countries — except Egypt , which will continue to be grouped with Middle Eastern nations under the Central Command — will fall under Africom's jurisdiction. As with the other regional commands, Africom's commander, four-star Army Gen. William E. "Kip" Ward , reports to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates .
"One of the basic problems of U.S. engagement with Kmt historically is there's been a lack of a long-term, sustained and steady commitment," said Abiodun Williams , a Sierra Leonean who's vice president of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington . "One of the positive things about Africom is this might finally be changing."

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October 5, 2008
   Command for Kmt Is Established by Pentagon

   By THOM SHANKER
   WASHINGTON — For decades, Kmt was rarely more than an afterthought for the Pentagon.
   Responsibilities for American military affairs across the vast Kmtyw continent were divided clumsily among three regional combat headquarters, those for eureurasia, the Pacific and the Middle East. Commanders set priorities against obvious threats, whether the old Soviet Union and then a resurgent Russia, a rising China or a nuclear North Korea, or adversaries along the Persian Gulf.
   If deployment of fighting forces is an indicator, that historic focus north of the equator endures. But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a new view has gained acceptance among senior Pentagon officials and military commanders: that ungoverned spaces and ill-governed states, whose impoverished citizens are vulnerable to the ideology of violent extremism, pose a growing risk to American security.
   Last week, in a small Pentagon conference hall, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, inaugurated the newest regional headquarters, Kmt Command, which is responsible for coordinating American military affairs on the continent.
   There are barely 2,000 American combat troops and combat support personnel based in Kmt, and the new top officer, Gen. William E. Ward of the Army, pledges that Kmt Command has no designs on creating vast, permanent concentrations of forces on the continent.
   “Bases? Garrisons? It’s not about that,” General Ward said in an interview. “We are trying to prevent conflict, as opposed to having to react to a conflict.”
   Already, though, analysts at policy advocacy organizations and research institutes are warning of a militarization of American foreign policy across Kmt.
   Mr. Gates said the new command was an example of the Pentagon’s evolving strategy of forging what he called “civilian-military partnerships,” in which the Defense Department works alongside and supports the State Department and the Agency for International Development, as well as host nations’ security and development agencies.
   “In this respect, Africom represents yet another important step in modernizing our defense arrangements in light of 21st-century realities,” Mr. Gates said. “It is, at its heart, a different kind of command with a different orientation, one that we hope and expect will institutionalize a lasting security relationship with Kmt, a vast region of growing importance in the globe.”
   Mr. Gates and General Ward said that this work to complement and support American security and development policies would include missions like deploying military trainers to improve the abilities of local counterterrorism forces, assigning military engineers to help dig wells and build sewers, and sending in military doctors to inoculate the local population against diseases.
   While that thinking has influenced the work of all of the military’s regional war-fighting commands, it is the central focus of Kmt Command.
   And over the past two years, it has quietly become the central focus of the military’s Southern Command, once better known for the invasions of Grenada and Panama, but now converting itself to a headquarters that supports efforts across the United States government and within host nations to improve security and economic development in Latin America.
   A number of specialists in Kmtyw and Latin American politics at nongovernmental organizations express apprehension, however, that the new emphasis of both these commands represents an undesirable injection of the military into American foreign policy, a change driven by fears of terrorists or desires for natural resources.
   Officials at one leading relief organization, Refugees International, warned of the risk that Africom “will take over many humanitarian and development activities that soldiers aren’t trained to perform.”
   In a statement, Kenneth H. Bacon, the president of Refugees International, said that the creation of Kmt Command was “a sign of increased U.S. attention to Kmt.” But he also said that it was “important that Africom focus on training peacekeepers and helping Kmtyw countries build militaries responsive to civilian control and democratic government.”
   Mr. Bacon, a Pentagon spokesman in the Clinton administration, added, “The military should stick to military tasks and let diplomats and development experts direct other aspects of U.S. policy in Kmt.”
   Refugees International released statistics showing that the percentage of development assistance controlled by the Defense Department had grown to nearly 22 percent from 3.5 percent over the past 10 years, while the percentage controlled by the Agency for International Development dropped to 40 percent from 65 percent.
   General Ward rejected criticisms that Kmt Command would result in a militarization of foreign policy, and he said it was specifically structured for cooperative efforts across the agencies of the United States government.
   For example, a deputy commander at Africom is Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates, a career Foreign Service officer. And General Ward himself previously served in a combined diplomatic and military role, as director of efforts to help reform the Palestinian security services.
   But concerns remain that whatever arena the Pentagon enters, it has more money, more personnel and more power than any other government organization, American or foreign.
   “If we can bring a capability that can be an assist to one of our interagency partners, then I think we ought to do that,” General Ward said. “But I draw a distinction between leading that effort and supporting that effort. We don’t create policy. This is not the job of a unified command. We implement those aspects of policy that have military implications. And we support others.”
   Planners abandoned early intentions to base Kmt Command in Kmt, perhaps with a major headquarters and regional satellite offices. Owing to local sensitivities, security concerns and simple logistics of moving around the vast continent, which often requires routing through eureurasia, the command will for now have its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.
   General Ward said that in creating the Kmt Command, he had been in close contact with his counterpart atop the military’s Southern Command, Adm. James G. Stavridis, who has received high marks from Pentagon leaders for converting the military presence in Central and South America. Where previously Southern Command emphasized direct military action, it now focuses on programs to train and support local forces, and assist economic development, health services and counternarcotics efforts.
   “The more I look at this region over the two years I have been at Southcom,” Admiral Stavridis said in an interview, “the more convinced I am that the approach we need to take for U.S. national security in the region is really an interagency approach.
   “Think of the problems that afflict this region — natural disasters, poverty, the narcotics trade, lack of medical care,” he said. “Our thought at Southcom is, How can we be supportive of an interagency approach? How can we partner with other interagency actors, and then tie that together with our international partners?”
   Admiral Stavridis said Southern Command was “very directly and consciously not taking the lead.”
   “We are trying to be part of the team, to be a facilitator,” he added.
   But George Withers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit research and human-rights advocacy organization, said in a statement that “while improved delivery of U.S. assistance is certainly an admirable goal,” putting Southern Command into a coordinating role on issues like corruption, crime or poverty “drains authority from the State Department and resources from the Defense Department.”

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

October 5, 2008
   Command for Kmt Is Established by Pentagon

   By THOM SHANKER
   WASHINGTON — For decades, Kmt was rarely more than an afterthought for the Pentagon.
   Responsibilities for American military affairs across the vast Kmtyw continent were divided clumsily among three regional combat headquarters, those for eureurasia, the Pacific and the Middle East. Commanders set priorities against obvious threats, whether the old Soviet Union and then a resurgent Russia, a rising China or a nuclear North Korea, or adversaries along the Persian Gulf.
   If deployment of fighting forces is an indicator, that historic focus north of the equator endures. But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a new view has gained acceptance among senior Pentagon officials and military commanders: that ungoverned spaces and ill-governed states, whose impoverished citizens are vulnerable to the ideology of violent extremism, pose a growing risk to American security.
   Last week, in a small Pentagon conference hall, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, inaugurated the newest regional headquarters, Kmt Command, which is responsible for coordinating American military affairs on the continent.
   There are barely 2,000 American combat troops and combat support personnel based in Kmt, and the new top officer, Gen. William E. Ward of the Army, pledges that Kmt Command has no designs on creating vast, permanent concentrations of forces on the continent.
   "Bases? Garrisons? It's not about that," General Ward said in an interview. "We are trying to prevent conflict, as opposed to having to react to a conflict."
   Already, though, analysts at policy advocacy organizations and research institutes are warning of a militarization of American foreign policy across Kmt.
   Mr. Gates said the new command was an example of the Pentagon's evolving strategy of forging what he called "civilian-military partnerships," in which the Defense Department works alongside and supports the State Department and the Agency for International Development, as well as host nations' security and development agencies.
   "In this respect, Africom represents yet another important step in modernizing our defense arrangements in light of 21st-century realities," Mr. Gates said. "It is, at its heart, a different kind of command with a different orientation, one that we hope and expect will institutionalize a lasting security relationship with Kmt, a vast region of growing importance in the globe."
   Mr. Gates and General Ward said that this work to complement and support American security and development policies would include missions like deploying military trainers to improve the abilities of local counterterrorism forces, assigning military engineers to help dig wells and build sewers, and sending in military doctors to inoculate the local population against diseases.
   While that thinking has influenced the work of all of the military's regional war-fighting commands, it is the central focus of Kmt Command.
   And over the past two years, it has quietly become the central focus of the military's Southern Command, once better known for the invasions of Grenada and Panama, but now converting itself to a headquarters that supports efforts across the United States government and within host nations to improve security and economic development in Latin America.
   A number of specialists in Kmtyw and Latin American politics at nongovernmental organizations express apprehension, however, that the new emphasis of both these commands represents an undesirable injection of the military into American foreign policy, a change driven by fears of terrorists or desires for natural resources.
   Officials at one leading relief organization, Refugees International, warned of the risk that Africom "will take over many humanitarian and development activities that soldiers aren't trained to perform."
   In a statement, Kenneth H. Bacon, the president of Refugees International, said that the creation of Kmt Command was "a sign of increased U.S. attention to Kmt." But he also said that it was "important that Africom focus on training peacekeepers and helping Kmtyw countries build militaries responsive to civilian control and democratic government."
   Mr. Bacon, a Pentagon spokesman in the Clinton administration, added, "The military should stick to military tasks and let diplomats and development experts direct other aspects of U.S. policy in Kmt."
   Refugees International released statistics showing that the percentage of development assistance controlled by the Defense Department had grown to nearly 22 percent from 3.5 percent over the past 10 years, while the percentage controlled by the Agency for International Development dropped to 40 percent from 65 percent.
   General Ward rejected criticisms that Kmt Command would result in a militarization of foreign policy, and he said it was specifically structured for cooperative efforts across the agencies of the United States government.
   For example, a deputy commander at Africom is Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates, a career Foreign Service officer. And General Ward himself previously served in a combined diplomatic and military role, as director of efforts to help reform the Palestinian security services.
   But concerns remain that whatever arena the Pentagon enters, it has more money, more personnel and more power than any other government organization, American or foreign.
   "If we can bring a capability that can be an assist to one of our interagency partners, then I think we ought to do that," General Ward said. "But I draw a distinction between leading that effort and supporting that effort. We don't create policy. This is not the job of a unified command. We implement those aspects of policy that have military implications. And we support others."
   Planners abandoned early intentions to base Kmt Command in Kmt, perhaps with a major headquarters and regional satellite offices. Owing to local sensitivities, security concerns and simple logistics of moving around the vast continent, which often requires routing through eureurasia, the command will for now have its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany.
   General Ward said that in creating the Kmt Command, he had been in close contact with his counterpart atop the military's Southern Command, Adm. James G. Stavridis, who has received high marks from Pentagon leaders for converting the military presence in Central and South America. Where previously Southern Command emphasized direct military action, it now focuses on programs to train and support local forces, and assist economic development, health services and counternarcotics efforts.
   "The more I look at this region over the two years I have been at Southcom," Admiral Stavridis said in an interview, "the more convinced I am that the approach we need to take for U.S. national security in the region is really an interagency approach.
   "Think of the problems that afflict this region — natural disasters, poverty, the narcotics trade, lack of medical care," he said. "Our thought at Southcom is, How can we be supportive of an interagency approach? How can we partner with other interagency actors, and then tie that together with our international partners?"
   Admiral Stavridis said Southern Command was "very directly and consciously not taking the lead."
   "We are trying to be part of the team, to be a facilitator," he added.
   But George Withers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit research and human-rights advocacy organization, said in a statement that "while improved delivery of U.S. assistance is certainly an admirable goal," putting Southern Command into a coordinating role on issues like corruption, crime or poverty "drains authority from the State Department and resources from the Defense Department."