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US starts to plan for Sudan
eflAn interagency meeting convened last week from top Bush administration advisers, known as the deputies committee, asked the State Department and Pentagon to begin making contingency plans for the cost and size of an international military mission to the Darfur province of Sudan. A senior State Department official told the Sun over the weekend that a larger peacekeeping operation could be assembled for Darfur and ready for deployment by the end of August, coinciding with the deadline for Sudan's compliance with the U.N. resolution. Compliance. Right. In anticipation of a possible peacekeeping force, the Pentagon has already sent two military planners to work with Nigerian and Rwandan officers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on how to craft a mission to help return the Darfuri refugees to their homes. The State Department has approached the Pacific Architecture and Energy military contractor for possible help in providing helicopters and other logistical support for a potential peacekeeping operation. That contractor already provides the monitors and helicopters to observe the ceasefire between the north and south. While administration officials say that it is highly unlikely American troops will actually be part of any potential multinational peacekeeping force for Sudan, they also say that Washington is willing to provide equipment, military planners, and foot some of the bill for these operations. Sounds like a plan. President Clinton's Africa director for the National Security Council, John Prendergast, said this thinking makes sense bureaucratically but is flawed in the case of Sudan. "The point is the bureaucratic argument will always be, 'Let's get our foot in the door and then let's ramp up later,'" he said. "But we are in an astronomically abnormal circumstance. We are responding to a genocide, and therefore that process needs to be fasttracked in a way that does not yet seem to be happening." Yeah, Clinton sure was quick & decisive in the Balkans... Posted by: someone 2004-08-02 |
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