Jim Inhofe: “on February 6 of 2007, the administration announced their intention to create a new unified command, the United States…”

“on February 6 of 2007, the administration announced their intention to create a new unified command, the United States African Command, or AFRICOM. The U.S.-Africa command is a partnership between military and civilian communities that will focus on existing programs such as the training of peacekeeping forces that enable African nations and regional organizations to improve security on the continent. The National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, said: AFRICOM is a command that would be established for Africa . . . It would be a partnership, really, between military and civilians, and its principal focus would be to continue some of the activities that we are already doing to try and train peacekeeping forces so that countries in Africa and regional organizations in Africa can take more of a role in dealing with the conflicts and the problems on the continent. It is ironic that we have these COMs, these commands all over the world. Yet Africa is divided into three commands: the Pacific Command, the European Command, and the Central Command. Africa has now become, in my opinion, the most significant continent that we need to pay more attention to. I think I am uniquely qualified to talk about this. Two days ago, I made my 97th African country visit. The last country we were in this last week--there were some five countries--was Ethiopia, a very significant part of it.…”