Report: The White House defended the trip Friday as “great bang for our buck.” “There will be a great bang for our buck for being in Africa because when you travel to regions like Africa that don’t get a lot of presidential attention, you tend to have very long-standing and long-running impact from the visit,” said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to Mr. Obama. The trip also will involve an aircraft carrier or amphibious ship with a fully staffed medical trauma center to be stationed offshore in case of an emergency. Fighter jets will fly in shifts to provide around-the-clock protection over the president’s airspace. The trip reportedly will involve hundreds of Secret Service agents. The president and first lady Michelle Obama also had planned to take a safari in Tanzania, which reportedly would have required a special counterassault team to carry sniper rifles in the event of a threat from wild animals. But the safari was canceled in favor of a trip to Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner for 18 of his 27 years behind bars. The projected cost of the trip was first reported by The Washington Post, citing a confidential administration planning document. Mr. Rhodes said Mr. Obama already has traveled extensively to Asia and to Latin America, and he said some people think the president’s trip to Africa “is overdue.” Read more: washingtontimes/news/2013/jun/14/white-house-defends-high-bills-africa-trip/#ixzz2WTAfdDab
Posted on: Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:32:33 +0000
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