U.S. military faces Africa cuts, sees Somalia, Mali successes
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US Embassy in Benghazi after the State Department-allowed terrorist makeover.
By Peter Apps
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. military forces in Africa may lose well over a tenth - or some $40 million - from their 2014 budget, the U.S. Africa Command said on Thursday, although it saw success against militants in Somalia and Mali.
The bulk of such cuts will fall on headquarters and training programs, AFRICOM commander General David Rodriguez said, most likely forcing smaller exercises.
The size of AFRICOM headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, is to be reduced by some 20 percent.
The planned cuts are part of broader across-the-board U.S. spending restrictions dubbed "sequestration" and imposed after Congress failed to agree deficit reduction measures.
AFRICOM - set up in 2007 to coordinate U.S. military activity on the continent - retains some 5,000 troops in Africa at any time, primarily in Djibouti. Much of their focus is on building local military capability and training forces for missions such as the African Union mission AMISOM in Somalia and its U.N. counterpart in Mali.
"The budget is going to be reduced ... although I would expect that the number of places where we have exercises will remain approximately the same," Rodriguez told a press briefing in London.
"We've had to reduce the size of some of these exercises and change the nature of some ... to involve fewer troops."
After the September 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, however, Rodriguez said AFRICOM and the State Department had stepped up security at some embassies and improved its information sharing and emergency protocols. . . .
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