The Sydney Morning Herald July 04, 2003
Bush may send peacekeepers to enforce truce
Under intense international pressure, the United States appears ready to send up to 2000 marines to Liberia to help enforce a fragile truce in its bloody civil war, officials say.
United Nations and African leaders have called in recent days for US troops to provide security to the war-terrorised population and help with humanitarian aid.
Two senior military officials said the Pentagon, which had opposed sending troops because of other commitments, had ordered planners to prepare detailed options for US troops to join an international peacekeeping force.
The order followed a flurry of activity, including talks between the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, and UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
President George Bush, due to visit Africa next week, may decide as early as today whether Washington will lead an international force to monitor a ceasefire between rebels and forces loyal to President Charles Taylor that have been locked in a three-year battle.
"We're exploring all options as to how to keep the situation peaceful and stable," Mr Bush said on Wednesday.
Fifteen international monitors left Ghana for Liberia on Wednesday to oversee the latest truce, the third since June 17. They included members of the Economic Community of West African States.
A final decision on US involvement is likely to be influenced by various factors, including whether Taylor heeds repeated calls by Mr Bush to step down.
But UN prosecutors said on Wednesday they would pursue Taylor on war crimes charges, even if he goes into exile. Taylor was indicted by a special UN-backed court in neighbouring Sierra Leone on June 4 for his role in the country's decade-long war.
He is accused of backing Sierra Leone's notoriously brutal Revolutionary United Front rebels by exchanging guns for gems.
Some former US diplomats said joining an international peacekeeping effort in Liberia would be a way for the US to show the world that it was willing to work with the UN and Europe after the rift over the invasion of Iraq.
It would also signal that the US was serious about helping to bring peace and prosperity to Africa, as Mr Bush prepares to travel to Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria.
Some Pentagon officials fear that US forces in Liberia could get caught up in a complex civil war at a time when the US military is already stretched thin, with about 146,000 troops in Iraq, 9000 in Afghanistan, 3300 in the Balkans and tens of thousands of others troops tied up in longstanding commitments in Germany and South Korea.
The military also remains haunted by the last substantial deployment by the US in Africa, an effort that led to the deaths of 18 of its troops in Somalia in 1993.
However, John Pike, a military analyst who is director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington think tank, said the number of troops that might be sent to Liberia "is chump change . . . way to the right of the decimal point".
Washington's apparent readiness to help in Liberia comes as Europe finds itself militarily involved on the continent, with the British having intervened in Sierra Leone and the French in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Reuters
Copyright © 2003, The Sydney Morning Herald
