New Navy commander in Europe says change is ‘incremental’

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New Navy commander in Europe says change is ‘incremental’
By Lisa M. Novak, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Adm. Mark P. Fitzgerald, the new commander for U.S. Naval Forces in Europe, says he will balance a range of operations this year but geographically his focus will be West Africa.

He foresees working toward NATO objectives, while supporting the new Africa Command, which is scheduled to be fully operational by October. Throw into the mix the recently activated Africa Partnership Station, a separate entity from AFRICOM, and one can sense that Fitzgerald has his hands full.

“It is almost overwhelming the amount of things that are going on,” Fitzgerald said.

Regarding NATO, there’s Kosovo, the NATO training mission in Iraq, Operation Active Endeavor — which focuses on the premise that an attack on one is an attack on all — and training the NATO response force, he said.

“On the (Naval Forces Europe) side, we’re supporting all of those missions, as well as going down to Africa and creating the capacity to work with AFRICOM,” Fitzgerald said.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=51815