U.S. President George W. Bush is mulling sending thousands of troops to strife-torn Liberia only days before he leaves for Africa on a mission aimed at adding a humanitarian dimension to a foreign policy that has so far focused on war.
The decision, which could come as soon as today, apparently hinges on whether Liberia's warlord President, Charles Taylor, an indicted war criminal, agrees to leave the West African country.
"One thing has to happen: Mr. Taylor needs to leave the country," Mr. Bush said yesterday. "We're looking at all options." He added: "There's people who are suffering there . . . the political instability is such that people are panicking."
Yesterday, Liberians celebrated outside the U.S. embassy in Monrovia amid rumours that U.S. soldiers would lead a multinational peacekeeping force.
Participation in a United Nations-sanctioned peacekeeping force in a remote and poverty-stricken African country might help the United States mend fences with France and Germany, the most vocal opponents to the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
It would also underpin Mr. Bush's claims that his administration is serious about addressing poverty and disease racking Africa.
Such an intervention, however, echoes the sort of vague nation-building mission that Mr. Bush so disparaged before becoming President. It would also invite comparisons to the ill-starred UN humanitarian mission to Somalia -- launched by Mr. Bush's father in 1992 -- that ended in shambles the following year with then-president Bill Clinton pulling out U.S. forces after soldiers' bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.
Senior Bush advisers are reportedly split over sending troops, with Secretary of State Colin Powell backing the idea proposed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reluctant to commit forces to a vague peacekeeping mission.
Mr. Annan has proposed a 2,000-strong U.S. force to add muscle to 3,000 other, less-well-equipped troops from African nations.
With more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and nearly 150,000 occupying Iraq, any military intervention in Liberia would add to the strain already imposed on U.S. troops.
Without a clear purpose and with no reason to use the kind of overwhelming force demonstrated in Afghanistan and Iraq, the concern in the Pentagon is that a relatively small U.S. contingent would be an easy target for attack.
But Liberia -- founded in 1822 by freed American slaves who landed with an escort of U.S. troops -- has a history long intertwined with the United States, and the Bush administration seems reluctant to cold-shoulder a request from West African nations, Britain, France and the long-suffering Liberians.
Mr. Bush leaves on a five-nation African visit next week. Yesterday, senior administration officials said the "purpose of this trip is really to extend his vision for Africa, . . . a vision in which he sees an Africa that is peaceful, prosperous, and an Africa that's living in freedom, is healthy and literate."
If the President rejects calls to help rescue Liberia -- a once-prosperous state now reduced to poverty and ruins after years of civil war and a bloody three-year rebellion to oust Mr. Taylor -- his vision for Africa would seem in stark contrast to his actions.
Hundreds of thousands of Liberians have died in the past decade of unrest.
With rebel forces in control of more than half the country and squeezing Monrovia, failure to broker a deal that gets Mr. Taylor to leave the country could set the stage for an even bloodier final act.
Mr. Taylor has demanded that war-crimes charges against him be dropped and has, so far, rejected offers of exile in Nigeria.