NEWS TRANSCRIPTS from the United States Department of Defense
Presenter: Ryan Henry, Principal Deputy Undersecretary Of Defense For Policy
June 21, 2007
DoD Special Briefing on Africa Command with Mr. Ryan Henry from the Pentagon Briefing Room, Arlington Va.
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(excerpt) "From my perspective, there were three significant takeaways from the trip. First, that counterterrorism was a top security concern for the countries that we met with on this trip. They were interested in how AFRICOM would help support their counterterrorism efforts, how current programs and initiatives would be impacted. What we said, that it was our intent not to make any dramatic changes as Africa comes on line, but to see how we can be more effective by integrating civilian parts of the U.S. government that will be resident on AFRICOM's staff.
"The countries -- secondly, the countries were committed to the Africa Union as the continent's common security structure, and they advised us that AFRICOM should be established in harmony with the AU's regional security structure. We responded that we were investigating on how best to do that, as AFRICOM's goal is not to lead the security efforts on the continent but rather to support existing African countries and organizations take the lead and be successful.
"Finally, we received positive feedback about the design and mission of AFRICOM, which brings together the diplomatic, developmental and defense aspects of U.S. foreign policy in one regional unified command headquarters. While it will not represent the developmental and the diplomatic aspects solely on the continent, it will be in support of other U.S. government efforts going on there.
"African leaders agreed with us that the security challenges in Africa are interwoven issues of economic development, responsive governments, rule of law, disease prevention and disaster response. They saw AFRICOM's integrated approach as a more constructive way for the Department of Defense to partner with African organizations and help bring about long-term peace and security. "
Transcript at: http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3997
