"Next year, even more American troops are likely to be on hand": The 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division will not deploy to Africa. Instead, the brigade acts as a single source to provide U.S. Army personnel to support activities already tasked to our Army service component, U.S. Army Africa. Previously, the requirements were distributed across the entire U.S. Army. Under this new construct, these same requirements will be filled from a single unit allowing personnel from this brigade to establish a level of expertise on the African continent. This change will not increase the number of Soldiers on the continent, but simplifies our internal processes for identifying Soldiers to support existing missions.
We must note that reports that leap to the conclusion that "3,000 Soldiers will deploy to Africa" are inaccurate. Small teams -- whose numbers typically range from 3-12 -- would be drawn from this unit to conduct deliberately planned engagements, training events, and exercises. Once or twice a year, to support a large-scale exercise, they may send a few hundred. This process is evolving. But, when their missions are complete, they return home. This can be compared to the SPMAGTF-12 cited in the article, whose Marines are not only doing great work for Uganda and Burundi and other partner nations, but also America, Americans, and American interests.
"Mercenary cargo carriers to skirt diplomatic clearance issues": The choice of words is interesting and unfortunate. This is only one example where somewhat inflammatory language is used to make a point but at the expense of the credibility of the report. What exactly is a mercenary cargo carrier? Federal Express, DHL, Ethiopian Air, and other reputable air cargo companies we use to transport material? The choice to use contract carriers is based exclusively on cost and efficiency. And, to be very clear, we are always required to obtain diplomatic clearance and complete all customs formalities. It would be highly inappropriate and unethical to attempt to "skirt" country clearances. To do that would be an egregious violation of our values. In fact, since these actions appear to constitute criminal activity, we would be appreciative if Mr. Turse can provide us specific details, documents, or other evidence, in order to provide our Criminal Investigative Command (CID) a basis of information to start an investigation. To be perfectly clear, AFRICOM does not condone this type of behavior, anything you can do to provide us the needed evidence would be appreciated.
"Emergency Troop Housing": All of the military construction projects you outline are included in the Defense Authorization Acts of FY 2010 and 2011 and are a matter of public record. However, the 300 additional Containerized Living Units (CLUs) are being built for people already living at Camp Lemonnier, either in tents or in other substandard housing, not for new arrivals.
We appreciate Mr. Turse contacting us for information and running our input in the final article. He followed up with us with a list of questions that required much more time than the one business day he gave us to answer. It took several days to conduct the research necessary to answer his questions; unfortunately, he chose to publish the story prior to receiving the answers, which he knew we were working on. If he had waited, we would have provided the information requested, which could have better informed his story. It takes time to gather information about locations in seven different countries.
Finally, I would encourage you and those who have interest in what we do to review our Website, www.AFRICOM.mil, and a new Defense Department Special Web Report on U.S. Africa Command at this link http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2012/0712_AFRICOM/.
Please do not hesitate to contact us in the future if you have any questions or need any additional information.
Sincerely,
Tom Davis,
Colonel, U.S. Army
Director of Public Affairs
United States Africa Command
Nick Turse's Response:
From: Nick Turse
To: Tom Davis
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