Washington, DC — By the time President Obama announced a stepped up effort to combat Ebola in west Africa on Tuesday, the Army officer he tapped to coordinate the response was already on the job.
"We're going to establish a military command center in Liberia to support civilian efforts across the region," Obama said during remarks at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Major General Darryl A. Williams, who is directing that effort, "is now on the ground in Liberia," the President announced.
The U.S. military provides "unique, unrivaled expertise in command and control, and logistics and engineering", Obama said, speaking at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa on Wednesday. The first task for what is called Operation United Assistance is "creating an air bridge to get health workers and medical supplies into West Africa faster," he said. Officials estimate the cost at between $500 and $750 million over the next six months.
SEE: Obama to Name Ebola Coordinator As Businesses, Senators Press for More Response
Williams took over in July as commander of U.S. Army Africa, a component of the U.S. Africa Command (Africom). He served previously in Europe, Korea and Iraq and as assistant Surgeon General dealing with care for returning soldiers, according to his official biography.
Some 3,000 U.S. military personnel are being deployed to the region, along with 65 officers from the U.S. Public Health Service, joining more than 100 specialists from various government agencies already working in the three most affected countries, according to a fact sheet issued by the White House.
In his CDC address, Obama outlined a four-point strategy that includes "controlling the epidemic" in west Africa, "blunting the economic, social, and political tolls," mobilizing and coordinating global engagement and strengthening "global health security infrastructure in the region and beyond."
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The selection of a senior commander to take charge of the effort underlines the President's designation of Ebola as a "national security priority." Williams, a two-star general, is directing the creation of a Joint Force Command to lead the international efforts to combat the spreading epidemic which has claimed at least 2400 lives to date.
In Congress, there have been bipartisan expressions of support for the administration initiative. Committees in the House and Senate have convened hearings this week that were unusually well-attended by members with seating for media and the public filled to capacity.
"We must take the dangerous, deadly threat of the Ebola epidemic as seriously as we take ISIS", Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander told a joint hearing of the Senate Appropriations and Health and Labor Committees, referring to the insurgent group that is being targeted in Iraq and Syria by U.S. air attacks.
"Ebola is a threat to the entire international community and requires a truly global response," New York Rep. Eliot L. Engel, ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said during a hearing Wednesday on global efforts to combat the virus.
