So what's the point of Africom?

from the ever rambunctious Nigerian Press:

the launching of AFRICOM has raised a number of questions and concerns about U.S. interests in Africa. Its mode of operation, its very existence in Africa, some say, resembles a spying mission and will possibly attract terrorists to the Continent. AFRICOM, according to Henry, will have no new troops, no bases, but will have a staff and "a distributed approach where the staff is located. And that will be both on the continent and off the continent."

Meanwhile, the Liberian government has been lobbying and has recently offered the country for AFRICOM headquarters. According to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf who is a frequent visitor to Washington DC, "If AFRICOM aims to use its "soft power" Mandate to develop a stable environment in which civil society can flourish and the quality of life for Africans can be improved, African nations should work with AFRICOM to achieve their own development and security goals...".

But what is the Bush administration planning? Do they even know? Will this effectively be left to the succeeding administration to decide what to do with the African command in the military? Congress should ask some oversight questions, but Congress is too busy asking other oversight questions to bother with this little problem, especially when the administration might honestly have no real answers to the questions.