House Raises Questions Over Troop Deployment To Africa

By Adrianna McGinley

Department of Defense and State officials faced stiff questions from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over the deployment of roughly 100 U.S. troops to central Africa in an effort to train African forces to combat the Lord’s Resistance Army, a known terrorist group in the region.

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto and Assistant Defense Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Alexander Vershbow did their best to fend off questions from both Democrats and Republicans on the committee over the role U.S. troops will have in the mission and the cost to tax payers.

“The cost is really an important factor because the United States can’t afford to pay the price to win everyone else’s freedom in the world,” Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said.

Members agreed the organization and its leader, Joseph Kony, needed to be taken down, but expressed concern regarding the total estimated cost and duration of the mission, the possibility of U.S. troops being engaged in combat and the lack of a concrete exit strategy.

“The president has demonstrated leadership in Libya and the fight against terrorism,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said. [But] what is the strategic interest of the United States in doing this? I mean, there are lots of unpleasant people in the world. There are lots of insurgencies and terrorist movements in the world. The United States obviously cannot try to dethrone every one of them.”

Vershbow defended the mission saying the “advise and assist” model is well established and has proven successful in the past. The Defense official assured that there will be a clear exit within a reasonable amount of time.

“We have made very clear that this is not an open ended commitment. As part of the decision to deploy our advisers, we agreed that there would be a review after several months in order to assess whether our advisers are making sufficient progress toward our objectives,” Vershbow said. “Continuing this deployment is contingent upon a number of factors including a sustained commitment and sustained cooperation by the regional governments in addressing the LRA threat.”

Even with insecurities over specific logistical concerns, the members of the committee agreed on the importance of dismembering the group deemed a terrorist organization by the United States in 2001.

“Kony’s removal won’t guarantee peace, but it is the one thing that makes peace possible in that region,” Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said.

Coons Wants U.S. To Continue Aiding Post-Gaddafi Libya

By Adrianna McGinley

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told reporters Thursday that it would be a good idea for the United States to continue assisting Libyan rebels as they look forward to a world without Moammar Gaddafi.

Numerous outlets are reporting today that Gaddafi was captured and killed in a remote area near his hometown of Sirte this morning. U.S. officials have yet to confirm anything, but Libyan National Transitional Council officials are saying that Gaddafi was killed after NATO warplanes reigned fire on his convoy, which then reportedly enabled rebel forces to attack him on the ground.

Coons shared his assessment of what America’s policy should look like regarding Libya during a press conference in the Capitol on Thursday.

“Our engagement in Libya, which takes a different turn today, can and should remain one that is scaled appropriate to the needs of the Libyan people to now quickly transition to a stable democracy,” Coons said.

“How things move forward in Libya will send critical signals to the rest of the region and to the world, so I do think the United States has a real and strong interest in continuing to be engaged.”

Coons spoke following a closed-door meeting held by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which focused on President Obama’s decision last week to order American forces to Central Africa to combat the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Coons said he backs administrative action to deploy roughly 100 troops there with the purpose of providing training to African forces battling the LRA, a reigning terrorist militant group led by Joseph Kony.

“I support and think this modest, reasonable action was an important next step in what has been a multiyear effort,” Coons stated.

Current and former commdanders give outlook of slow progress in Iraq

Iraq was the topic of the day at the Pentagon, where current and former commanders took time to update the press on operations in Iraq and the outlook for troop levels and military strategy in the future.

Gen. James Dubik, commander of Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, explained about the transfer of power from Coalition to Iraqi security forces. He explained the substantial growth in the forces that has occurred between June and December of 2007. While limited number of Iraqi security units, army and national police, are conducting and, in some cases, leading operations, the coalition, and primarily the United States remains responsible for weapons and logistical support, or what Dubik called enabling forces. He said that the challenge of handing over the capabilities and of speeding up the vetting process for growing the ranks remains.

Another important appearance was made by former second-in-command in Iraq Gen. Ray Odierno. Odierno has been moved out of Iraq and replaced by Gen. Lloyd Austin as Multinational Corps commander. Odierno was able to draw some conclusions for the press corps about the progress in Iraq over his 15 months as a commander. He said that there have been large security gains on account of the surge, though he said that these gains have not reached a point where they are totally irreversible. However he did say that he was comfortable with planned troop reductions and that that point where gains were irreversible did not have to be reached before the troop dawn downs could continue as scheduled. Within the next week the number of brigade combat teams will be reduced to 18 and then down to 15 by July of 2008.

Odierno did take a rare step into politics saying that any presidential candidate should consider the strategy of assessment of all conditions before acting on draw down. Odierno said it was too early to talk about what specific withdrawal plans from the candidates would look like because as he said, "a lot can change in Iraq in 10 months."



Odierno has insight on the subject of Iran, specifically president Ahmadinejad's recent visit to Baghdad. When U.S. visitors have come to Baghdad in the past there is often some kind of security situation, specifically rocket attacks by what Odierno called "Iraninan surrogates." The reason why Ahmadinejad was able to walk around more freely, said Odierno, was because those militant groups were not attacking. He said he hopes that Iraqis will continue to see Iranian meddling and recognized that it is their training and directions to surrogate militant groups that are causing problems for Iraqis.

He said that overall the surge was a success, not only because of the increase in numbers but the change in tactics. He credited the decrease in abilities of al-Qaida in Iraq to the fact that coalition forces were in the neighborhoods and that the Sons of Iraq program had made supporters of coalitions forces more recognizable.