Bush promises not to overextend troops around world for Liberia's aid

PRETORIA, South Africa -- President Bush pledged Wednesday that the United States will "be involved" in war-torn Liberia but said he would not overextend U.S. armed forces if he sends troops there to join a peacekeeping force.\nOn the second day of a five-country African tour, Bush did not commit himself to deploying troops to Liberia. Civil war has dragged on for years and conditions in Monrovia have become desperate amid a political stalemate involving President Charles Taylor.\nSouth African President Thabo Mbeki pressed Bush on whether the United States planned to play a role in the crisis. "I said, 'Yes, we'll be involved,' and we're now discussing the extent of our involvement," Bush told reporters during a joint news conference with Mbeki.\nThe United States already has about 8,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, about 150,000 in Iraq and 2,500 in Kosovo. Bush said that whatever he decides to do about Liberia, "we won't overextend our troops, period."\nMbeki said that the military burden in Liberia peacekeeping "really ought to principally fall on us as Africans."\nThe United States has trained battalions of African troops, Bush said, and "helping people help themselves" was one method of ensuring the U.S. military would not become stretched too thin there.\n"It's in our interest that we continue that strategy so that we don't get overextended," Bush said.\nBush also wants African leaders to put more pressure on President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to step down and hold new elections. Mbeki has insisted that he will not pressure Mugabe.\nBut on Wednesday, the two leaders played down any differences. "President Bush and myself are absolutely of one mind about the urgent need to address the political and economic challenges of Zimbabwe," Mbeki said. He added that he will look to the United States for financial support once the country stabilizes.\nBush said he would not "second-guess" Mbeki's tactics in dealing with the situation.\n"The president is the person most involved" in mediating troubles in Zimbabwe, Bush said. "He believes he's making good progress."\nAIDS was also discussed during Bush's visit to South Africa, which has 5 million people infected -- the highest number on the continent. South Africa is one of the countries intended to benefit from Bush's proposed five-year, $15 billion AIDS initiative for the 14 hardest-hit African and Caribbean countries.\n"South Africa has recently increased its budget to fight the disease, and we noticed and we appreciate that," Bush said. "People across Africa have the will to fight this disease, but often not the resources, and the United States is willing to put up the resources to help win the fight."\nFrom the meeting and joint availability, Bush joined Mbeki and about 250 others for an elaborate lunch in the South African leader's guest residence. In the afternoon, Bush visited a Ford Motor Co. auto manufacturing plant -- one of the company's largest in the Southern Hemisphere -- for a tour and briefing on a local program to battle AIDS.\nOn the evening agenda was a dinner with South African and U.S. business executives at the home of U.S. Ambassador Cameron Hume.\nOn a trip aimed as much at broadening the president's political popularity at home -- especially among minorities -- as at his foreign audiences, Bush is spending more time in South Africa than any other country. South Africa's apartheid system of white-minority rule oppressed black Africans through the 20th century.\n"Your nation's recent history is a great story of courage and persistence in the pursuit of justice," Bush said. "This is a country that threw off oppression and is now the force of freedom and stability, and a force for progress, throughout the continent of Africa."\nBut absent from Bush's schedule is any appearance or meeting with Nelson Mandela, who preceded Mbeki as South Africa's president. Mandela, the popular leader and hero of the anti-apartheid movement, has been a harsh and outspoken critic of Bush for leading the war against Iraq without support from the United Nations.\nAdministration officials have said Bush's time was being reserved for current African heads of state. Mandela was expected to be out of the country.\nBush's visit drew dozens of South African protesters to the streets outside the U.S. Embassy here and the consulates in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Protests by political parties, trade unions and other groups were planned during Bush's stay in southern Africa, which ends Friday.\nBesides resentment over the war, South Africa's generally positive relations with the United States were dealt a blow by the Bush administration's decision to end military aid to 35 countries, including South Africa, which opposed the U.S. demand for immunity for Americans in the International Criminal Court.