Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
FNC
September 30, 2008
Special Report With Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM
BRIT HUME: The U.S. military’s new African Command becomes fully operational Wednesday. American officials say the establishment of AFRICOM reflects the continent’s increasing strategic and economic importance.
Correspondent Greg Palkot reports.
GREG PALKOT: U.S. Marines in the desolate East African country of Djibouti on the lookout for militants, weapons, just plain trouble. The area, one more hot, gritty front of the war on terror.
MARINE: We always plan for the worst and plan accordingly.
PALKOT: Starting tomorrow, these Marines and fellow troops, doing a range of tasks, will be under a new U.S. military command called AFRICOM. It combines parts of three regional commands covering 53 African nations, involves the State Department and others, and gives priority to a continent of growing importance to the U.S.
Heading up the command: four-star Army Gen. William Kitt Ward. He’s been a man on the hot seat in places like Somalia, the scene of American deaths and a U.S. pullout following the Black Hawk Down incident 15 years ago. Ward told us he’s determined to get it right.
GEN. WILLIAM WARD [AFRICOM Commander]: The continent of Africa is important to global security, to our security, to the stability of the world.
PALKOT: The U.S. military operation in Djibouti is a key element in the AFRICOM mission. It’s gone from just a ship off the coast to a sprawling base of some 2,000. No wonder, the immediate region, a very, very tough neighborhood indeed.
Osama bin Laden was based in nearby Sudan in the ’90s; the USS Cole was hit by terrorists in Yemen in 2000; next door, Somalia is now an al Qaeda hideout; there’s high stakes piracy offshore; and there’s a deadly new branch of al Qaeda in Northern Africa.
BRIG. GEN. ROOSEVELT BARFIELD [Combined Joint Task Force]: The big danger is a spread of the kind of extremism and other types of bad actors that are happening in the other parts of the world.
PALKOT: The fear that AFRICOM might attract rather than deter terrorists is one of the reasons why the command was unable to find a suitable African country willing to host its headquarters. For now, it’s in Germany.
DANIEL KALINAKI [Uganda Monitor Newspaper]: Having an American base could also potentially, you know, make you a target for, you know, the terror groups.
PALKOT: AFRICOM stresses it is for war prevention, not war fighting. It says small teams of U.S. military trainers working to improve the skills of national armies can lead to more secure and stable settings where terrorists can’t thrive. Or if the bad guys are there, locals do the counterterrorism work themselves, keeping the U.S. out of the fight.
WARD: All parts of the globe are in fact susceptible and vulnerable unless care is taken to help assure stability.
PALKOT: Including Africa?
WARD: Including Africa.
PALKOT: AFRICOM is a combat command, though. If there is trouble and Africans can’t handle it, we’re told its troops and hardware could head into action.
In Djibouti, Africa, Greg Palkot, Fox News.
September 30, 2008
Special Report With Brit Hume (FNC), 6:00 PM
BRIT HUME: The U.S. military’s new African Command becomes fully operational Wednesday. American officials say the establishment of AFRICOM reflects the continent’s increasing strategic and economic importance.
Correspondent Greg Palkot reports.
GREG PALKOT: U.S. Marines in the desolate East African country of Djibouti on the lookout for militants, weapons, just plain trouble. The area, one more hot, gritty front of the war on terror.
MARINE: We always plan for the worst and plan accordingly.
PALKOT: Starting tomorrow, these Marines and fellow troops, doing a range of tasks, will be under a new U.S. military command called AFRICOM. It combines parts of three regional commands covering 53 African nations, involves the State Department and others, and gives priority to a continent of growing importance to the U.S.
Heading up the command: four-star Army Gen. William Kitt Ward. He’s been a man on the hot seat in places like Somalia, the scene of American deaths and a U.S. pullout following the Black Hawk Down incident 15 years ago. Ward told us he’s determined to get it right.
GEN. WILLIAM WARD [AFRICOM Commander]: The continent of Africa is important to global security, to our security, to the stability of the world.
PALKOT: The U.S. military operation in Djibouti is a key element in the AFRICOM mission. It’s gone from just a ship off the coast to a sprawling base of some 2,000. No wonder, the immediate region, a very, very tough neighborhood indeed.
Osama bin Laden was based in nearby Sudan in the ’90s; the USS Cole was hit by terrorists in Yemen in 2000; next door, Somalia is now an al Qaeda hideout; there’s high stakes piracy offshore; and there’s a deadly new branch of al Qaeda in Northern Africa.
BRIG. GEN. ROOSEVELT BARFIELD [Combined Joint Task Force]: The big danger is a spread of the kind of extremism and other types of bad actors that are happening in the other parts of the world.
PALKOT: The fear that AFRICOM might attract rather than deter terrorists is one of the reasons why the command was unable to find a suitable African country willing to host its headquarters. For now, it’s in Germany.
DANIEL KALINAKI [Uganda Monitor Newspaper]: Having an American base could also potentially, you know, make you a target for, you know, the terror groups.
PALKOT: AFRICOM stresses it is for war prevention, not war fighting. It says small teams of U.S. military trainers working to improve the skills of national armies can lead to more secure and stable settings where terrorists can’t thrive. Or if the bad guys are there, locals do the counterterrorism work themselves, keeping the U.S. out of the fight.
WARD: All parts of the globe are in fact susceptible and vulnerable unless care is taken to help assure stability.
PALKOT: Including Africa?
WARD: Including Africa.
PALKOT: AFRICOM is a combat command, though. If there is trouble and Africans can’t handle it, we’re told its troops and hardware could head into action.
In Djibouti, Africa, Greg Palkot, Fox News.