Posted on Thu, Jul. 10, 2003
Bush 'won't overextend' troops for Liberia
BY G. ROBERT HILLMAN
Dallas Morning News
PRETORIA, South Africa - Facing growing worldwide demands on U.S. military forces, President Bush said Wednesday that he intends to honor his commitment to African leaders to help enforce a tenuous cease-fire in Liberia but will not push America's military beyond its limits.
"We won't overextend our troops, period," he said during a joint news conference with South African President Thabo Mbeki.
Again, Bush stopped short of committing troops to Liberia, saying he was awaiting an assessment from an advance military team in the war-torn country.
But he made it clear that he intended to continue to support the training of African peacekeeping forces. "It's in our interest that we continue that strategy," he said, "so that we don't get overextended."
The U.S. military is already deployed in large numbers in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea and the Philippines, among other places.
As he travels across Africa this week, Bush is increasingly finding that his messages of trade, aid and health care to combat the AIDS epidemic ravaging the continent are competing with persistent questions from African leaders and others about his commitment to help ensure stability in war-torn Liberia.
On Tuesday in Senegal, the issue arose during Bush's meeting with President Abdoulaye Wade and other West African leaders. And on Wednesday in Pretoria, it arose in a meeting with Mbeki and again during their news conference.
"He asked whether or not we'd be involved, and I said, 'Yes, we'll be involved,"' Bush said. "And we're now determining the extent of our involvement."
While the South African president welcomed the U.S. commitment, he emphasized that "we're not saying that this is a burden that just falls on the United States."
"It really ought to principally fall on us as Africans," Mbeki said. "Of course, we need a lot of support, logisticswise, to do that, but the will is there."
Bush again called on Liberian President Charles Taylor, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity in neighboring Sierra Leone, to leave the country. But in Liberia, there were no signs of a quick Taylor departure to Nigeria, where he has been promised asylum, or to anyplace else.
Bush is ending his five-day, five-country sweep of Africa on Saturday in Nigeria. And aides indicated it would take considerably more time for members of the military team to complete their assessment in Liberia.
Nelson Mandela, the revered civil rights leader who fought apartheid to become president of South Africa, has been harshly critical of Bush's decision to invade Iraq. And for that or whatever other reasons, the two men are not meeting this week. Mandela, the State Department noted, is out of the country during Bush's visit.
There have been protests against Bush in Senegal and South Africa, though none disrupting his trip.
At a Ford auto plant, though, where he swept through an assembly line in a campaign-style, hand-shaking, backslapping photo opportunity, Bush was greeted enthusiastically.
And in a round-table discussion with Ford executives, he pressed his case for a five-year, $15 billion global AIDS program and listened intently to descriptions of the company's aggressive program to fight the disease, which infects one of every five South African adults.
Bush flies to Botswana today for a half-day visit that includes short tours of a new trade hub and a wild game preserve. He will return to Pretoria in the afternoon.
On Friday, he'll stop in Uganda on his way to Nigeria, where he'll address an African conference Saturday before flying back to Washington.
On his agenda, in addition to trade, aid and health care, is $100 million in new money to fight terrorism, particularly in East Africa, where Osama bin Laden's terrorist network has been active.
"We are determined to fight and to join our friends to fight terrorists throughout this continent and throughout the world," Bush said.
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