Washington, DC — Security issues dominated the discussion, Thursday, as President Bush hosted Kenyan president Daniel Arap Moi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the White House in Washington, DC.
The talk also touched on other issues including HIV/Aids, drought, and efforts to end the civil war in Sudan.
"The best thing" the United States can do to secure countries like Ethiopia and Kenya from attacks like the one in Mombasa is to "help chase the killers", Bush told the two African leaders during their hour-long meeting. He pledged that the United States would share intelligence with both nations if they were threatened by terrorist attacks.
"If the terrorists could strike in Kenya, they could strike in Ethiopia, they could strike in Europe," Bush told reporters before the meeting began. "And we must continue this war, to hunt these killers down one at a time, to bring them to justice, which means information-sharing."
Bush welcomed both Moi and Meles as "strong friends of America."
As the three men met, U.S. Marines and Kenyan soldiers operating from the Mandala Naval Base on the island of Lamu north of Mombasa, continued with military exercises that began just days before the Mombasa attacks, and are to last two weeks. Called "Operation Edged Mallet" the exercise involves about 750 U.S. marines and naval personnel and 240 Kenyan soldiers. They are training in "small" operations such as tactics for seizing airfields.
The exercise, like the White House visit by Moi and Meles, were planed months before the attacks in Kenya last weekend --joint U.S.-Kenyan military exercises have been an annual event since 1996 -- but are another sign of the steadily increasing U.S. military presence in East Africa. The number of U.S. troops in nearby Djibouti is now well over 2000, surpassing the number of French foreign legionnaires who have traditionally been based there.
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Operation Edged Mallet, which is being carried out by members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Navy explosives experts and Kenyan forces is designed to "enhance the inter-operability and proficiency between Kenyan and U.S. forces," a spokesman for the U.S. 5th Fleet said Tuesday.
Later this month, the amphibious assault ship USS Mount Whitney will arrive in Djibouti to serve as the floating headquarters in the Red Sea for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
The most important issue to be discussed, Moi said before his meeting with Bush began, "is security for the whole of Africa and for my country." Ethiopia's Prime Minister Meles told Bush: "We are all with you against forces of terror."
Protesters carrying signs that said "Meles Zenawi's terrorist regime must end" and "President Bush, don't reward a terrorist!" chanted anti-Meles slogans outside the White House gates during the meeting. Moi, who has encountered protestors on previous trips to the U.S., faced none on this one.
Later, at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting in Washington, Moi said that he and Meles discussed "new" anti-terrorism measures with President Bush but acknowledged when asked about Kenya's poorly-policed border with Somalia, across which terrorists are suspected of slipping, Moi said: "It is impossible for security [forces] to cover that length of border... but we will do the best we can."
