“We do not have a limitless supply of assets to support presidential
missions, and we prioritised a visit to Robben Island over a two-hour safari
in Tanzania,” Josh Earnest, a White House spokesman, said.
The logistics of any presidential trip are costly.
But arranging back-to-back visits to three developing countries with poor
security infrastructure and limited medical resources could become the most
expensive foreign excursions of Mr Obama’s time in office.
Military cargo planes will airlift 56 vehicles including 14 limousines,
ambulances equipped for chemical and biological attacks and radio-jamming
trucks to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.
A US aircraft carrier or amphibious warship with a full medical trauma centre
will be anchored just offshore in case of emergencies.
Three lorries will be used just to carry sheets of bullet-proof glass to be
erected at hotels where the Obamas will stay during their trip, between June
26 and July 3.
Because the visits happen one after another, three separate security, medical
and logistics teams will be dispatched, one to each country. At least 445
Secret Service and White House security agents will be involved.
“Even in the most developed places of Western Europe, the level of
support you need for mass movements by the president is really extraordinary,”
Steve Atkiss, special assistant for operations to George W Bush, told the
newspaper.
“As you go farther afield, to less-developed places, certainly it’s more
of a logistical challenge.”
President Bush visited Africa with his wife, Laura, in both 2003 and 2008,
taking their two daughters for the first trip, when they enjoyed a safari in
a park on the South Africa-Botswana border.
Mr Obama has spent less than 24 hours in sub-Saharan Africa during his time as
president, when he visited Ghana in 2009.
His office has been keen to stress that his pending visit is purely business.
The president is reported to be travelling with an entourage of more than 500
American company directors and investors, who will discuss commercial
opportunities with counterparts in each of the African countries.
His trip comes three months after Xi Jinping, China’s new premier, toured
South Africa, Tanzania and the Republic of Congo within a fortnight of
taking office in March.
Commentators have quipped that Mr Obama and his team of entrepreneurs may be
too late.
An editorial in Kenya’s Citizen newspaper quoted experts who “argued that
Mr Obama’s visit, coming hot on the heels of his Chinese counterpart, is not
coincidental. The visit, they add, is the continuation of a scramble for
resources between the two major economic superpowers.”
Mr Obama will not visit Kenya, where his father was born and where many of his
relatives live.
It is likely this is to avoid the embarrassment of the US leader having to
meet Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya’s newly-elected president, whose trial for crimes
against humanity starts at the International Criminal Court less than a week
after Mr Obama returns to Washington.
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Article source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/10120856/Barack-Obamas-African-safari-scrapped-over-sniper-costs.html