Libya Op Showed Africa Command Shortfalls

The head of the newly-formed Africa Command, Gen. Carter Ham, said his forces lacked the ability to precisely target Libyan infrastructure and had a hard time coordinating airlift and maritime operations with multiple nations.

"I don't think that Africa Command ever really thought of themselves as a command that conducted and led those kinds of operations," Ham told reporters at a Sept. 14 breakfast meeting in Washington.

"Combatant commands don't get to choose their missions," Ham added. "And while Africa Command is principally focused on engagement and military-to-military activities … we must always retain the capabilities to do the higher-end operations."

When the bombs began to drop on Gadhafi's regime in Libya in early March, it was Africom's job to lead America's effort there. Later, NATO took over management of the operation, dubbed "Odyssey Dawn," while the U.S. commitment shrank.

That ran counter to early efforts by the Pentagon to dispel the notion that Africom's establishment was intended as an American power grab on the continent. American diplomats and military commanders painted Africom's mission as one to advise and assist African militaries and work to build partnerships.

Ham said that one of the main shortfalls was Africom's inability to designate targets for bombs and cruise missiles without inflicting collateral damage. His command is working to reestablish expertise in precision targeting by leveraging techniques learned from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"That was not something that we had practiced, we didn't have great capability honed and refined inside the organization, and Odyssey Dawn caused us to really work in that regard," Ham explained. "We got up to that capability fairly quickly. Now the question is how do we sustain it so that if we would have to do that again, we would start at a higher plateau than we were previously."

Some of the conflicts won't be "full spectrum" operations, Ham admitted, but stealthy counter terrorism raids and special operations missions. While building up African nations' ability to fight against terrorists is a key mission, Africom still needs more commandos to hit building terror networks that threaten American interests, and Ham hopes the drawdown from Iraq and Afghanistan will help.

"The demand for special operating forces in lots of different flavors is pretty significant in Africa," Ham said. "As we get to 2014 and … we start to see a reduction of the forces [in Afghanistan], the availability of special operating forces will increase for Africa and I think that will be beneficial."

Ham said his top concerns stemming from the demise of the Gadhafi regime are the potential proliferation of man-portable anti-aircraft missiles, explosive materials that could be used to build makeshift bombs and the remnants of a Libyan chemical weapons program that was dismantled after America's invasion of Iraq.

"The top of my list would be [anti-aircraft missiles] just because of the threat of their use if they get into [terrorist] organizations' hands," Ham warned. "Regional partners recognize the risk that this runs, and there's been a greater degree of collaboration and intel sharing and border security to try to stem this flow."