Ghana welcomes Bush but wants no U.S. military

By Kwasi Kpodo and Deborah Charles

ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana welcomed President George W. Bush as a friend on Tuesday but said it would not host any increased U.S. military presence on the African continent.

Bush, touring Africa in the final year of his presidency, has been supporting efforts to solve crises in Kenya and Darfur. But his trip sought mainly to highlight success stories on a continent often portrayed as a morass of conflict, coups, corruption and famine.

He arrived in Ghana on Tuesday on the fourth leg of a five-nation tour after visiting Benin, Tanzania and Rwanda.

Despite some bloody army takeovers since independence from Britain in 1957, Ghana is now seen by Washington as a model of stable, democratic rule and is receiving millions of dollars of U.S. aid for health, education and poverty reduction.

"Under President Bush, Africa has got more from U.S. foreign policy than any previous American presidency," Ghanaian Foreign Minister Akwasi Osei-Adjei told Reuters in an interview before Bush's arrival.

He said Bush was leaving a "remarkable legacy" for Ghana.

Under a 2006 deal, Ghana is receiving $547 million in U.S. assistance -- one of the biggest sums given to an African state -- under a five-year anti-poverty programme managed by the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Bush's support for multi-billion-dollar anti-malaria and anti-AIDS projects in Africa has earned him an unusually warm reception there despite widespread condemnation of his foreign policy toward Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

Despite the mutual back-slapping, there were limits to Ghana's willingness to cooperate.

Ghana's armed forces -- respected contributors to international peacekeeping missions -- benefit from U.S. military training.

But President John Kufuor's government, like many others in Africa, is unwilling to host any U.S. military facility or base.

"Our sovereignty is something we cherish," Osei-Adjei said, adding that Ghana did not intend to accept any part of the newly created U.S. military command for Africa (Africom).

WARINESS OVER AFRICOM

The Bush administration created Africom last year with a view to strengthening the U.S. presence in Africa, a major supplier of crude oil to the American market.

U.S. officials talked initially of plans to move the Africom headquarters to Africa, but African opposition led Washington to change course and say that Africom will not bring any more U.S. troops or bases to the continent. A base for 1,800 U.S. troops already exists in Djibouti.