U.S. command in Africa met with wariness

DAKAR, Senegal — A new command takes over all U.S. military operations in Africa today, a program that many on the continent fear has a hidden agenda skewed by the war on terror and a self-interested scramble for resources.

Africom is also facing skeptical U.S. lawmakers who slashed its budget by a third last week and said the command's rollout over the last year had been "badly bungled."

Before Africom was created a year ago, U.S. military programs on the continent had been divvied up among three other commands more concerned with NATO and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new command is inheriting responsibility for a Centcom-run base in Djibouti, where 1,800 troops are deployed to keep Horn of Africa terror networks in check. It also takes over European Command's Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative and dozens of other military- and maritime-training programs.

"Africans believe Africom is aimed at promoting America's interests, not Africa's," said Wafula Okumu, a Kenyan analyst at South Africa's Institute for Security Studies. Most Africans don't trust their own militaries, which in places like Congo have turned weapons on their own people.

"They don't trust Africom, either, because it's a military force," Okumu said. There is also "a suspicion America wants to use us, perhaps make us proxies" in the war on terror.

Africom's deputy for military operations, Vice Adm. Robert Moeller, said counterterrorism is a priority, but it is not the only one.

Some key areas of Africa — such as Somalia's pirate-infested coastline — will remain under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Central Command headed by Gen. David Petraeus.

International warships now patrol waters off the Somali coast and have created a special security corridor under a U.S.-led initiative.

Moeller said "a secure and stable Africa is very, very much in U.S strategic interests."

It's clear why: West Africa's Gulf of Guinea already supplies more crude oil to the U.S. than the Persian Gulf. And failed states such as Somalia have become havens for radical al-Qaida-linked militants who bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Commanders say Africom will bring a focused approach to the continent, which had never been a priority before. But even some U.S. lawmakers have doubts.

Rep. John Tierney, D-Mass, who chairs the House national security and foreign affairs subcommittee, said the new command's rollout had been "badly bungled," its mission not made clear enough to African leaders.

Resistance to Africom among African governments has been so strong that commanders abandoned initial ambitions to install a headquarters on the continent. It is based in Stuttgart instead, with about two dozen Africom liaison officers posted at embassies.

Over the weekend, Congress slashed Africom's 2009 budget by a third to $225 million. It also ordered Defense Secretary Robert Gates to report back by April 1 on how the command can be improved.

Erin Weir of Refugees International says Africom is part of a growing trend toward "militarization" of U.S. foreign policy, driven more by the war on terror than by development needs.

Over the last decade, the Washington-based group says the percentage of Pentagon-controlled development assistance abroad skyrocketed from 3 percent to 22 percent, while USAID's share dropped from 65 to 40 percent.

"Africom has become a lightening rod for a bigger concern, which is that U.S. foreign policy is being dictated almost entirely by the Department of Defense," Weir said.

Africom officials say such worries are unfounded. The organization says it aims to support, not shape U.S. policy. And of the $9 billion America spends annually in sub-Saharan Africa, the Pentagon's share is just 3 percent.