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 Breaking News...New U.S. African Command to airlift equipment to Darfour peacekeepers
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Special to World Tribune
New U.S. African Command to airlift equipment to Darfour peacekeepers
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration, in one of its last acts in office, has ordered an airlift of military equipment to an international peace-keeping force in Sudan.
The administration approved the delivery of 240 containers of heavy equipment to Sudan's war-torn Darfour province. Officials said the equipment would bolster the joint African Union-United Nations peace-keeping force in Darfour.
Much of the equipment would be airlifted by the new U.S. African Command, or Africom. Officials said Africom would transport about 75 tons of water tankers, fuel tank trucks, forklifts and other oversized cargo from Kigali, Rwanda, to Darfour aboard two C-17 Globemaster-3 aircraft.
"I have provided a waiver to the State Department so they can begin to move 240 containers worth of heavy equipment into Darfour, and that the Defense Department will be flying Rwandan equipment into Darfour to help facilitate the peace-keeping missions there," President George Bush said.
Under the decision, the Defense Department and the State Department would cooperate to help the AU-UN force. Officials said the State Department would deliver the equipment to the UN while the Pentagon would transport material from the African state of Rwanda.
Officials said Bush was responding to warnings that the 15,000-member peace-keeping force could not fulfill its mission in Darfour. The force has been hampered by a failure of donor states to fulfill pledges of manpower and equipment, particularly aircraft.
"The U.S. military has been working in Africa for a number of years now," Africom spokesman Vince Crawley said. "Africom wants to add value to what the U.S. military has been doing."
Crawley said the U.S. airlift was expected to begin by February 2009. The mission marked the the first large-scale peace-keeper support mission for Africom since it became fully operational in October 2008.
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