Global Policy Forum

By Mike Allen

President Bush said for the first time yesterday that he plans to send troops to help stabilize Liberia, but he said he has not decided how many and did not say if they would have a combat role. Bush, during an Oval Office meeting with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, stopped short of committing the combat troops Annan said are needed to preserve the unsteady truce in Liberia. Other possibilities include deployment of headquarters, transport or medical units. "We'll participate with the troops," Bush said. "We want to help."

Administration officials said the most likely scenario is the deployment of a small contingent of peacekeepers that would allow the United States to take a leadership role without overextending the military. "We would be there to facilitate and then to leave," Bush said. "Any commitment we had would be limited in size and limited in tenure." A U.N. official said Annan, who has strongly urged the United States to send peacekeepers to ensure an orderly transition from the government of President Charles Taylor, left with increased hope that Bush will mobilize a quick but substantial operation that would include troops in a combat role.

Bush said they had "had a meeting of minds" on Liberia, which was settled by freed U.S. slaves and has been torn by civil war. Annan, speaking with Bush at his side, expressed satisfaction with "the approach the U.S. government is taking" and said they had "more or less agreed to a general approach on the Liberian issue." The mission would be the first time the United States has sent the military for crisis intervention in Africa since President Bill Clinton withdrew troops from Somalia after the 1993 deaths of 18 commandos during fighting in Mogadishu.

Administration officials said Bush envisions a small number of troops being sent to back up a 15-nation regional group, the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS. The group would run the operation until the United Nations could take over. "We want to enable ECOWAS to get in and help create the conditions necessary for the cease-fire to hold," Bush said. "Our job would be to help facilitate an ECOWAS presence, which would then be converted into a U.N. peacekeeping mission."

Under Annan's plan, a formal U.N. peacekeeping force -- known as blue helmets -- would take over after the multinational force had stabilized the area around Monrovia, the capital. Bush said he and Annan "discussed how fast it would take to blue-helmet whatever forces arrived, other than our own, of course. We would not be blue-helmeted." Annan's plans calls for the arrival of a vanguard of 1,000 to 1,500 troops from the West African nations to prolong a June 17 cease-fire. Then Taylor would leave, which Bush reiterated yesterday as a condition for U.S. assistance. "Eventually, U.N. blue helmets will be set up to stabilize the situation, along the lines that we've done in Sierra Leone," Annan said. "Once the situation is calmer and stabilized, U.S. [troops] would leave and the U.N. peacekeepers would carry on the situation."

Bush's comments postponed again a decision that some in the administration had expected before his five-nation trip to Africa last week. He said he is still awaiting the full findings of U.S. military assessment teams in the region. In Monrovia, members of a U.S. military team that has spent the last week surveying Liberia's security and humanitarian needs said the enthusiastic reception they received should encourage a U.S. presence. The 32-member team has been cheered at every stop in the capital city, whose population of 1.5 million has been swollen by as many as half a million people who fled fighting elsewhere. "My personal feeling is I think some American involvement would be well-received here," said Lt. Cmdr. Terrence Dudley, spokesman for the multiservice assessment team. "It seems to me Liberia is looking for some kind of American leadership. Whether troops on the ground or diplomatic is left to higher authority."

Before meeting with Bush, Annan suggested that Bush should make up his mind. "I hope the decision will be coming shortly," Annan said. The session was the first time Bush and Annan had met since Dec. 20, before the most bitter part of the run-up to the Iraq war. Bush referred to Annan as "Kofi," then apologized for his informality. But aides on both sides said they took the moment as a sign that the relationship had healed.

J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the decision is problematic for Bush because if he makes a minimal commitment and fighting breaks out, "he will be blamed for having done too little to be effective." Morrison said skeptics fear that Bush could commit a large force that would fail and cause more violence. Princeton N. Lyman, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and to Nigeria, said Bush appears to be focusing on a plan that would call for a few hundred troops to organize West Africans and help with command and control. Lyman, who specializes in Africa policy studies for the Council on Foreign Relations, said he believes that the minimal approach would be a mistake. "When you try to do these things in a minimal way, you often end up with more violence and the need to come in with a larger force later," he said.

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