U.S. Africa Command Trims Its Aspirations

The U.S. Africa Command, designed to boost America's image and prevent terrorist inroads on the continent, has scaled back its ambitions after African governments refused to host it and aid groups protested plans to expand the military's role in economic development in the region.

Africom, due to begin operations Oct. 1, will now be based for the foreseeable future in Stuttgart, Germany, with five smaller regional offices planned for the continent on hold while the military searches for places to put them.

Nonmilitary jobs, created within Africom to highlight new cooperation between the Pentagon and the State Department, have been hard to fill and will initially total fewer than 50 of 1,300 headquarters personnel. Plans to broaden the military's more traditional overseas training and liaison responsibilities to include development and relief tasks were curbed after U.S.-funded aid groups sharply objected to working alongside troops.

"I think in some respects we probably didn't do as good a job as we should have when we rolled out Africom," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said recently, adding that "I wasn't there" when the command was conceived by his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, and approved by President Bush.

Washington Post