The United States strongly supports that report. It should be the goal of our assistance for West African forces that are now going into Sierra Leone. Let me also say a word, however, beyond peacekeeping. It seems to me that both for Africa and the world, we will be forced increasingly to define security more broadly. The United Nations was created to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.
War kills massively, crosses borders, destabilizes whole regions.
Today, we face other problems that kill massively, cross borders and destabilize whole regions. Because of AIDS alone, life expectancy in some African nations is plummeting by as much as 30 years. Without aggressive prevention, the epicenter of the epidemic likely will move to Asia by 2010 with very rapid growth rates also in the New Independent States. We must invest in the basics - clean water, safe food, good sanitation, health education. We must make sure that the advances in science work for all people.