Bush seeks to ease worries of US military power in Africa

President Bush watched a Tee Ball game with students at the Ghana International School in Accra yesterday. From Ghana, Bush will fly to Liberia today and then back to Washington. (Charles Dharapak/Associated Press)

ACCRA, Ghana - In a country teeming with resources the world covets, President Bush sought yesterday to soothe African fears about American interests on the continent. He said the United States isn't aiming to make Africa into a base for greater military power or a proxy battleground with China.

The desire for Africa's vast raw materials - oil, gold, diamonds, minerals, crops, and more - has a long and often violent and exploitative history.

That's especially true in this tropical, resource-rich nation on the shores of West Africa, the first place in sub-Saharan Africa that Europeans arrived to trade, first in gold, then slaves, and now the site of a new offshore oil discovery.

So it came as little surprise that Bush's talk about how US generosity has made strides against disease and poverty encountered some skepticism here about the underlying American agenda.

Some of those questions arose during Bush's appearance with Ghana's leader at Osu Castle, once a hub of slave-trading and now the seat of government.

With no prompting at a news conference, Bush sought to deal with suspicions about the creation of a new US military command dedicated to Africa.

Nations such as Libya, Nigeria, and South Africa have expressed fears the plan signals an unwanted expansion of American power on the continent or is a cover for protecting Africa's oil on behalf of the United States.

Bush said Ghana's president, John Kufuor, bluntly told him in private that "you're not going to build any bases in Ghana."

"I know there's rumors in Ghana, all Bush is coming to do is try to convince you to put a big military base here,' " Bush said. "That's baloney. Or as we say in Texas, that's bull. I want to dispel the notion that all of a sudden America is bringing all kinds of military to Africa."

Instead, Bush said the new command - unique to the Pentagon's structure - was aimed at more effectively reorganizing US military efforts related to Africa under one hierarchy, and to strengthen African nations' peacekeeping, antitrafficking, antiterror, and other efforts.

For now, the administration has decided to continue operating AFRICOM out of existing US bases on the continent and directing it from Stuttgart, Germany.

From Ghana, Bush will fly to Liberia today and then back to Washington.

He also has visited Benin, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

Bush said "we haven't made our minds up" about whether to "develop some kind of office somewhere in Africa" as a headquarters. But war-wrecked Liberia is the only African nation that has offered to host it.

Kufuor said Bush's explanation "should put fade to the speculation."

On China, Bush insisted "we can pursue agendas without creating a sense of competition."

Still, he made his argument clear: that the United States is the better and kinder partner, because it aims to improve African lives while nations like China focus on commercial opportunity.

In an indirect swipe at Beijing, Bush suggested African leaders set standards such as the employment of African workers or keeping value-added processes on the continent for countries seeking to do business here - and promised the United States would meet them.

But there is no question that American economic interests matter here. On energy alone, a fifth of US oil comes from Nigeria. Ghana's oil discovery last year matters, even if it won't rival that.

Jennifer Cooke, an authority on Africa for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Bush's altered approach to foreign aid is in part a counterargument to China's formidable presence.