\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n
What the military will say to a reporter and what is said behind closed doors are two very different things — especially when it comes to the U.S. military in Africa.\u00a0 For years, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has maintained a\u00a0veil<\/a>of secrecy about much of the command\u2019s\u00a0activities<\/a>\u00a0and mission\u00a0locations<\/a>, consistently downplaying the size, scale, and scope of its efforts.\u00a0 \u00a0At a recent Pentagon press conference, AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez adhered to the typical mantra, assuring the assembled reporters that the United States \u201chas little forward presence\u201d on that continent.\u00a0 Just days earlier, however, the men building the Pentagon\u2019s presence there were telling a very different story — but they weren\u2019t speaking with the media.\u00a0 They were speaking to representatives of some of the biggest military engineering firms on the planet.\u00a0 They were planning for the future and the talk was of war.<\/p>\n I recently experienced this phenomenon myself during a media roundtable with Lieutenant General Thomas Bostick, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.\u00a0 When I asked the general to tell me just what his people were building for U.S. forces in Africa, he paused and said in a low voice to the man next to him, \u201cCan you help me out with that?\u201d\u00a0 Lloyd Caldwell, the Corps\u2019s director of military programs, whispered back, \u201cSome of that would be close hold\u201d — in other words, information too sensitive to reveal.<\/p>\n The only thing Bostick seemed eager to tell me about were vague plans to someday test a prototype \u201cstructural insulated panel-hut,\u201d a new energy-efficient type of barracks being\u00a0developed<\/a>\u00a0by cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.\u00a0 He also assured me that his people would get back to me with answers.\u00a0 What I got instead was an \u201cinterview\u201d with a spokesman for the Corps who offered little of substance when it came to construction on the African continent.\u00a0 Not much information was available, he said, the projects were tiny, only small amounts of money had been spent so far this year, much of it funneled into humanitarian projects.\u00a0 In short, it seemed as if Africa was a construction backwater, a sleepy place, a vast landmass on which little of interest was happening.<\/p>\n Fast forward a few weeks and Captain Rick Cook, the chief of U.S. Africa Command\u2019s Engineer Division, was addressing an audience of more than 50 representatives of some of the largest military engineering firms on the planet — and this reporter.\u00a0 The contractors were interested in jobs and he wasn\u2019t pulling any punches.\u00a0 \u201cThe eighteen months or so that I\u2019ve been here, we\u2019ve been at war the whole time,\u201d Cook told them.\u00a0 \u201cWe are trying to provide opportunities for the African people to fix their own African challenges.\u00a0 Now, unfortunately, operations in Libya, South Sudan, and Mali, over the last two years, have proven there\u2019s always something going on in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n Cook was one of three U.S. military construction officials who, earlier this month, spoke candidly about the Pentagon\u2019s efforts in Africa to men and women from URS Corporation, AECOM, CH2M Hill, and other top firms.\u00a0 During a paid-access web seminar, the three of them insisted that they were seeking industry \u201cpartners\u201d because the military has \u201cbig plans\u201d for the continent.\u00a0 They foretold a future marked by expansion, including the building up of a \u201cpermanent footprint\u201d in Djibouti for the next decade or more, a possible new compound in Niger, and a string of bases devoted to surveillance activities spreading across the northern tier of Africa.\u00a0 They even let slip mention of a small, previously unacknowledged U.S. compound in Mali.<\/p>\n The Master Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n After my brush off by General Bostick, I interviewed an Army Corps of Engineers Africa expert, Chris Gatz, about construction projects for Special Operations Command Africa in 2013.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll be totally frank with you,\u201d he said, \u201cas far as the scopes of these projects go, I don\u2019t have good insights.\u201d<\/p>\n What about two projects in Senegal I had stumbled across?\u00a0 Well, yes, he did, in fact, have information about a firing range and a \u201cshoot house\u201d that happened to be under construction there.\u00a0 When pressed, he also knew about plans I had noted in previously classified documents obtained by TomDispatch for the Corps to build a multipurpose facility in Cameroon.\u00a0 And on we went.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ve got better information than I do,\u201d he said at one point, but it seemed like he had plenty of information, too.\u00a0 He just wasn\u2019t volunteering much of it to me.<\/p>\n Later, I asked if there were 2013 projects that had been funded with counter-narco-terrorism (CNT) money.\u00a0 \u201cNo, actually there was not,\u201d he told me.\u00a0 So I specifically asked about Niger.<\/p>\n Last year, AFRICOM spokesman Benjamin Benson confirmed to TomDispatch that the U.S. was conducting intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or ISR, drone operations from Base A\u00e9rienne 101 at Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, the capital of Niger.\u00a0 In the months since, air operations there have only\u00a0increased<\/a>.\u00a0 In addition, documents recently obtained by TomDispatch indicated that the Army Corps of Engineers has been working on two counter-narco-terrorism projects in Arlit and Tahoua, Niger.\u00a0 So I told Gatz what I had uncovered.\u00a0 Only then did he locate the right paperwork.\u00a0 \u201cOh, okay, I\u2019m sorry,\u201d he replied.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019re right, we have two of them… Both were actually awarded to construction.\u201d<\/p>\n Those two CNT construction projects have been undertaken on behalf of Niger\u2019s security forces, but in his talk to construction industry representatives, AFRICOM\u2019s Rick Cook spoke about another project there: a possible U.S. facility still to be built.\u00a0 \u201cLately, one of our biggest focus areas is in the country of Niger.\u00a0 We have gotten indications from the country of Niger that they are willing to be a partner of ours,\u201d he said.\u00a0 The country, he added, \u201cis in a nice strategic location that allows us to get to many other places reasonably quickly, so we are working very hard with the Nigeriens to come up with, I wouldn\u2019t necessarily call it a base, but a place we can operate out of on a frequent basis.\u201d<\/p>\n Cook offered no information on the possible location of that facility, but recent contracting documents examined by TomDispatch indicate that the U.S. Air Force is seeking to purchase large quantities of jet fuel to be delivered to Niger’s Mano Dayak International Airport.<\/p>\n Multiple requests for further information sent to AFRICOM\u2019s media chief Benjamin Benson went unanswered, as had prior queries about activities at Base A\u00e9rienne 101.\u00a0 But Colonel Aaron Benson, Chief of the Readiness Division at Air Forces Africa, did offer further details about the Nigerien mini-base.\u00a0 \u201cThere is the potential to construct MILCON aircraft parking aprons at the proposed future site in Niger,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>he wrote, mentioning a specific type of military construction funding dedicated to use for \u201cenduring\u201d bases rather than transitory facilities.\u00a0 In response to further questions, Cook referred to the possible site as a \u201cbase-like facility\u201d that would be \u201csemi-permanent\u201d and \u201ccapable of air operations.\u201d<\/p>\n Pay to Play<\/strong><\/p>\n It turns out that, if you want to know what the U.S. military is doing in Africa, it\u2019s advantageous to be connected to a large engineering or construction firm looking for business.\u00a0 Then you\u2019re privy to quite a different type of insider assessment of the future of the U.S. presence there, one far more detailed than the modest official pronouncements that U.S. Africa Command offers to journalists.\u00a0 Asked at a recent Pentagon press briefing if there were plans for a West African analog to Djibouti\u2019s Camp Lemonnier, the only “official” U.S. base on the continent, AFRICOM Commander General David Rodriguez was typically guarded.\u00a0 Such a \u201cforward-operating site\u201d was just \u201cone of the options\u201d the command was mulling over, he said, before launching into the sort of fuzzy language typical of official answers.\u00a0 \u201cWhat we’re really looking at doing is putting contingency locating sites, which really have some just expeditionary infrastructure that can be expanded with tents,\u201d was the\u00a0way he put it<\/a>.\u00a0 He never once mentioned Niger, or airfield improvements, or the possibility of a semi-permanent “presence.\u201d<\/p>\n Here, however, is the reality as we know it today.\u00a0 Over the last several years, the U.S. has been building a\u00a0constellation<\/a>\u00a0of drone bases across Africa,\u00a0flying<\/a>intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions out of not only Niger, but also Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the island nation of the Seychelles.\u00a0 Meanwhile, an airbase in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso,\u00a0serves<\/a>\u00a0as the home of a Joint Special Operations Air Detachment, as well as of the Trans-Sahara Short Take-Off and Landing Airlift Support initiative.\u00a0 According to military documents, that \u201cinitiative\u201d supports \u201chigh-risk activities\u201d carried out by elite forces from Joint Special Operations Task Force-Trans Sahara.\u00a0 U.S. Army Africa documents obtained by TomDispatch also\u00a0mention<\/a>\u00a0the deployment to Chad of an ISR liaison team.\u00a0 And according to Sam Cooks, a liaison officer with the Defense Logistics Agency, the U.S. military has 29 agreements to use international airports in Africa as refueling centers.<\/p>\nClick here to see a larger version<\/a><\/em><\/strong> As part of the webinar for industry representatives, Wayne Uhl, chief of the International Engineering Center for the Europe District of the Army Corps of Engineers, shed light on\u00a0shadowy<\/a>\u00a0U.S. operations in Mali before (and possiblyafter<\/a>) the elected government there was overthrown in a 2012 coup led by a U.S.-trained officer.\u00a0 Documents prepared by Uhl reveal that an American compound was constructed near Gao, a major city in the north of Mali.\u00a0 Gao is the\u00a0site<\/a>\u00a0of multiple Malian military bases and a \u201cstrategic\u201d airport\u00a0captured<\/a>\u00a0by Islamist militants in 2012 and retaken by French and Malian troops early last year.<\/p>\n AFRICOM\u2019s Benjamin Benson failed to respond to multiple requests for comment about the Gao compound, but Uhl offered additional details.\u00a0 The project was completed before the 2012 uprising and \u201cincluded a vehicle maintenance facility, a small admin building, toilet facilities with water tank, a diesel generator with a fuel storage tank, and a perimeter fence,\u201d he told me in a written response to my questions. \u201cI imagine the site was overrun during the coup and is no longer used by U.S. forces.\u201d<\/p>\n America\u2019s lone official base on the African continent,\u00a0Camp Lemonnier<\/a>, a former French Foreign Legion post in Djibouti, has been on a decade-plus growth spurt and serves a key role for the U.S. mission. \u00a0\u201cCamp Lemonnier is the only permanent footprint that we have on the continent and until such time as AFRICOM may establish a headquarters location in Africa, Camp Lemonnier will be the center of their activities here,\u201d Greg Wilderman, the Military Construction Program Manager for Naval Facilities Engineering Command, explained.<\/p>\n \u201cIn 2013, we had a big jump in the amount of program projects,\u201d he noted, specifically mentioning a large \u201ctask force\u201d construction effort, an oblique reference to a $220 million Special Operations compound at the base that TomDispatch first\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0on in 2013.<\/p>\n According to documents provided by Wilderman, five contracts worth more than $322 million (to be paid via MILCON funds) were awarded for Camp Lemonnier in late 2013.\u00a0 These included deals for a $25.5 million fitness center and a $41 million Joint Headquarters Facility in addition to the Special Operations Compound. \u00a0This year, Wilderman noted, there are two contracts — valued at $35 million — already slated to be awarded, and Captain Rick Cook specifically mentioned deals for an armory and new barracks in 2014.<\/p>\n Cook\u2019s presentation also indicated that a number of long-running construction projects at Camp Lemonnier were set to be completed this year, including roads, a \u201cfuel farm,\u201d an aircraft logistics apron, and \u201ctaxiway enhancements,\u201d while construction of a new aircraft maintenance hangar, a telecommunications facility, and a \u201ccombat aircraft loading area\u201d are slated to be finished in 2015.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s a tremendous amount of work going on,\u201d Cook said, noting that there were 22 current projects underway there, more than at any other Navy base anywhere in the world.<\/p>\n And this, it turns out, is only the beginning.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the master plan,\u201d Cook said, \u201cthere is close to three quarters of a billion dollars worth of construction projects that we still would like to do at Camp Lemonnier over the next 10 to 15 years.\u201d\u00a0 That base, in turn, would be just one of a constellation of camps and compounds used by the U.S. in Africa.\u00a0 \u201cMany of the places that we are trying to stand up or trying to get into are air missions.\u00a0 A lot of ISR… is going on in different parts of the continent.\u00a0 Generally speaking, the Air Force is probably going to be assigned to do much of that,\u201d he told the contractors.\u00a0 \u201cThe Air Force is going to be doing a great deal of work on these bases\u2026 that are going to be built across the northern tier of Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n Hearts and Minds<\/strong><\/p>\n When I spoke with Chris Gatz of the Army Corps of Engineers, the first projects he mentioned and the only ones he seemed eager to talk about were those for African nations.\u00a0 This year, $6.5 million in projects had been funded when we spoke and of that, the majority were for \u201chumanitarian assistance\u201d or HA construction projects, mostly in Togo and Tunisia, and \u201cpeacekeeping\u201d operations in Ghana and Djibouti.<\/p>\n Uhl talked about humanitarian projects, too.\u00a0 \u201cHA projects are small, difficult, challenging for the Corps of Engineers to accomplish at a low, in-house cost\u2026 but despite all this, HA projects are extremely rewarding,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThe appreciation expressed by the locals is fantastic.\u201d\u00a0 He then drew attention to another added benefit: \u201cEach successful project is a photo opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Uhl wasn\u2019t the only official to touch on the importance of public perception in Africa or the need to curry favor with military \u201cpartners\u201d on the continent.\u00a0 Cook spoke to the contractors, for instance, about the challenges of work in austere locations, about how bureaucratic shakedowns by members of African governments could cause consternation and construction delays, about learning to work with the locals, and about how important such efforts were for \u201cwinning hearts and minds of folks in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n The Naval Facilities Engineering Command\u2019s Wildeman talked up the challenges of working in an environment in which the availability of resources was limited, the dangers of terrorism were real, and there was \u201ccompetition for cooperation with [African] countries from some other world powers.\u201d\u00a0 This was no doubt a reference to increasing Chinese\u00a0trade<\/a>,\u00a0aid<\/a>,\u00a0investment<\/a>, andeconomic ties<\/a>\u00a0across the continent.<\/p>\n He also left no doubt about U.S. plans.\u00a0 \u201cWe will be in Africa for some time to come,\u201d he told the contractors.\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s lots more to do there.\u201d<\/p>\n Cook expanded on this theme. \u201cIt\u2019s a big, big place,\u201d he said. \u00a0\u201cWe know we can\u2019t do it alone.\u00a0 So we\u2019re going to need partners in industry, we\u2019re going to need\u2026 local nationals and even third country nationals.\u201d<\/p>\n AFRICOM at War<\/strong><\/p>\n For years, senior AFRICOM officers and spokesmen have downplayed the scope of U.S. operations on the continent, stressing that the command has only a single base and a very light footprint there.\u00a0 At the same time, they have limited access to journalists and refused to disclose the number and tempo of the command\u2019s operations, as well as the locations of its deployments and of bases that go by other names.\u00a0 AFRICOM\u2019S public persona remains one of humanitarian missions and benign-sounding support for local partners.<\/p>\n \u201cOur core mission of assisting African states and regional organizations to strengthen their defense capabilities better enables Africans to address their security threats and reduces threats to U.S. interests,\u201d says the command.\u00a0 \u201cWe concentrate our efforts on contributing to the development of capable and professional militaries that respect human rights, adhere to the rule of law, and more effectively contribute to stability in Africa.\u201d\u00a0 Efforts like sniper training for proxy forces and black ops missions hardly come up.\u00a0 Bases are mostly ignored.\u00a0 The word \u201cwar\u201d is rarely mentioned.<\/p>\n TomDispatch\u2019s recent investigations have, however, revealed that the U.S. military is indeed pivoting to Africa.\u00a0 It now averages far more than a\u00a0mission a day<\/a>\u00a0on the continent, conducting\u00a0operations<\/a>\u00a0with almost every African military force, in almost every\u00a0African country<\/a>, while building or building up camps, compounds, and \u201ccontingency security locations<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0The U.S. has taken an active role in wars from\u00a0Libya<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0Central African Republic<\/a>, sent special ops forces into countries from\u00a0Somalia<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0South Sudan<\/a>, conducted\u00a0airstrikes<\/a>\u00a0andabduction missions<\/a>, even put boots on the ground in countries where it\u00a0pledged<\/a>it would not.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have shifted from our original intent of being a more congenial combatant command to an actual war-fighting combatant command,\u201d AFRICOM\u2019s Rick Cook explained to the audience of big-money defense contractors.\u00a0 He was unequivocal: the U.S. has been \u201cat war\u201d on the continent for the last two and half years.\u00a0 It remains to be seen when AFRICOM will pass this news on to the American public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" U.S. Officials Talk Candidly (Just Not to Reporters) about Bases, Winning Hearts and Minds, and the \u201cWar\u201d in Africa by\u00a0Nick Turse, Tom Dispatch click here for original article What the military will say to a reporter and what is said behind closed doors are two very different things — especially when it comes to the 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\n![\"gaomali_small](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.tomdispatch.com\/images\/managed\/gaomali_small.jpg?w=640\" "\\"\\"")
\nU.S. Facility near Gao, Mali.\u00a0 This austere compound is thought to have been overrun by Islamist forces in 2012.\u00a0 Credit: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.<\/em><\/address>\n