New U.S. African Command to airlift equipment to Darfour peacekeepers
WASHINGTON Ñ 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.
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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.