6 August Fayetteville (NC) Observer - Bureaucracy, Turf Battles Slow Progress by Kevin Maurer.

Senior special operations officers believe that the creation of an African Command would alleviate the cumbersome bureaucracy that is slowing progress on the Horn of Africa.

Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa was created in 2002 to stop the influence of radical Islamists coming over the border from Somalia. The task force oversees an area roughly a third of the size of the continental United States and has or had forces working in Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania and Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula.

But much of the Horn of Africa task force’s time is taken up by turf battles with the embassy, host nations and regional commands...

The creation of an Africa Command would allow one unit to set U.S. military policy for the region and create a cadre of planners who understand the region and have relationships with the host nations and embassies.

Africa is divided among three regional combatant commands.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, owns the Horn of Africa and Yemen. European Command controls sub-Saharan Africa, and Pacific Command controls all of the islands in the Indian Ocean...

Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, said an Africa Command would have some advantages.

Under a regional command structure, the staff would serve longer tours and “institutional” relationships between the command and the host nations and embassies would be created, Whelan said.

Unlike deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan where staff officers deploy in one unit, individual soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines deploy to the Horn of Africa staff for tours of six months to one year.

“This is where people come to check off their war on terror box,” said a senior noncommissioned officer.

Most of the officers are not trained in aid missions, and they are not around long enough to see projects and programs from start to finish.

“There is a learning curve with the staffs that go out to these missions,” Whelan said.

She said many officers have to learn new regulations and missions since most are military officers trained primarily for combat.

“It is a whole new and different world. If you are brand new to all of that, you have a little ramp-up time. That can complicate things,” she said.

Rear Adm. Richard Hunt, the commander of Combined Joint Task Force Horn of Africa, told civil affairs teams in a meeting in July that they will have to win the “hearts and minds” of the embassies first...