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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/26/AR2010112604889.html

Pentagon hunting for a home for Africom

The Pentagon is reopening a worldwide search for a home for its Africa military command, which still lacks a permanent headquarters three years after it was created.

Army Gen. Carter F. Ham, the Obama administration's nominee to take charge of the U.S. Africa Command, or Africom, told a Senate committee last week that he would launch the search if he is confirmed. The command is based in Stuttgart, Germany, partly because African leaders strongly objected to the prospect of an expanded U.S. military presence on their continent.

"I think I should approach this, if confirmed, essentially with a blank piece of paper," Ham told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Among the options, Ham said, would be to move Africom headquarters - and its 1,500 jobs - to the United States, where lawmakers are already eyeing the post as a economic boon for their districts.

One possibility is southwestern Virginia, where state officials have seized on it as a potential consolation prize for the anticipated loss of the U.S. Joint Forces Command.

In a cost-cutting move announced by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in August, the Pentagon is planning to shutter the Joint Forces Command, which is based in Norfolk and employs about 6,000 government workers and contractors.

In a meeting Tuesday with Virginia lawmakers who are lobbying him to preserve the Joint Forces Command, Gates said he was open to the possibility that the state be considered as the new home for Africom.

"Secretary Gates agreed to include Norfolk in any future review to decide on a permanent home for Africom headquarters," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

Gates tried to take the sting out of the expected closure of the Joint Forces Command by telling the Virginia delegation that not all of its 6,000 jobs would be eliminated. "Functions determined to be of importance and retained will likely remain in the Norfolk and Suffolk area," Morrell said.

The Bush administration announced in 2007 that it would create Africom to improve military relations with countries that historically have gotten short shrift from Washington. The decision was spurred, in part, by concerns that Islamist extremists could find a refuge in poor, loosely governed areas of the continent.

The announcement, however, drew criticism at home and abroad. Diplomats complained that the Pentagon was militarizing U.S. government relations in Africa. And many African countries, citing memories of colonial oppression, recoiled at the idea of a large U.S. military footprint in their backyard.

A U.S. delegation that visited Africa in June 2007 to seek a home for the command headquarters got a chilly reception, even from allies otherwise on friendly terms with the Pentagon.

"The African countries looked at it as a threat," Maj. Gen. Abdeljebbar Assaoui, Morocco's director of intelligence and counterterrorism, said at a security conference this month at McDaniel College in Westminster, Md. "It was made very clear that no one wanted the presence of any foreign military, especially the U.S., anywhere in Africa."

Former U.S. officials acknowledged that the home-hunting process was mishandled.

"AFRICOM is doing good things today, but unfortunately it got off to a horrible start," said Carlton W. Fulford, a retired Marine Corps general who served as director of the Defense Department's Africa Center for Strategic Studies from 2003 to 2006.

"It is a textbook case of how you can get off on the wrong foot if you're not good with public relations and explaining who you are and what you do, and we didn't," he said.

Previously, military relations with Africa were the responsibility of the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, so the Africa Command made its tentative home there, too.

In October 2008, Gates called off the search and said the Pentagon would wait until early 2012 to decide on a permanent headquarters. The current commander, Gen. William "Kip" Ward, subsequently said he expected the headquarters to remain in Stuttgart indefinitely.

Pentagon officials have not said why they are reopening the search now. But Ham said he would consider all options, including locations in Africa.

The U.S. military already has one base on the continent, in Djibouti. But the only country that has expressed interest in hosting the command headquarters is Liberia.

Some analysts said it didn't make sense to locate the headquarters in Africa because there are few cities that could easily absorb 1,500 expatriates and their dependents.

"That large of an expat community would just create a shock in the local community," said J. Peter Pham, a member of the advisory board for Africa Command and senior vice president of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy. He said the odds that the Pentagon would choose an African site were low. "I would personally put it at between slim and none."

He also advised against moving the headquarters to the United States, saying it was "not practical" because of the lengthy travel times to Africa.

But some U.S. lawmakers counter that it's impractical and expensive to keep so many military personnel in Germany. They note that the U.S. Pacific Command is headquartered in Hawaii, the Central Command in Tampa and the Southern Command in Miami.

"Norfolk and its adjoining communities have first-class facilities to accommodate AFRICOM's mission," Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) said in a statement. He asserted that relocating the headquarters to Virginia would "save billions of dollars in the long term."


Eric D. Schwerin
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eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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