It is not the plan of the United States government to permanently base its troops on the African soil
The US government said this on Thursday while giving details about its proposed Africa Military Command, AFRICOM.
In a press briefing in New York just before the visit of the President Umaru Yar�Adua to the White House on Thursday, a senior US Diplomat and the Deputy Commander of AFRICOM in charge of Civil-Military Activities, Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates disclosed that the Americans had no intention to have Garrison troops stationed in Nigeria or anywhere in the continent.
Her words: �I want to state for the record that there is no intention to have Garrison troops on the continent. There is no intention to have a base with Garrison troops.�
Empowered Newswire quoted Yates as saying what the US envisioned was �We would have some sort of regional hub or offices so that we could work more effectively with the military, whether it�s by a region or connected to organisations. This is what is under discussion and under construction this year specifically.�
However, there would still be US troops in and out of the continent.
According to the US diplomat �when we speak of troops � when there are exercises, certainly troops will go as they have been doing for the last decade. We sent a group of people into Niger; they worked with the Niger military. They were there for a month and then they left and returned to their bases in Europe primarily.�
Yar�Adua had announced at the White House on Thursday that Nigeria would now partner with the US on AFRICOM
Said he, �We shall partner with AFRICOM to assist not only Nigeria, but also the African continent to actualise its peace and security initiative, which is an initiative to help standby forces of brigade-size in each of the regional economic groupings within the African continent.�
This was in spite of the fact that the National Council of State had raised objections to the idea only a few weeks ago.
Yates said already the US European Command had an on-going and �really enriched engagement with African militaries on the continent certainly for the last 10 years.�
The idea of AFRICOM, she added, is an effort to reorganise within the US State Department �so that we can be more effective in our engagements.�
AFRICOM, he noted, was also not being set up as a separate command to respond to any immediate crises in Africa �because I think what we have learned is sustained engagement, sustained engagement with African militaries, listening to what their priorities are is what we want to be doing.�