Analysis: US options on Liberia

By Mark Doyle BBC world affairs correspondent

President George W Bush has made his clearest indication yet that the United States may help form an international peacekeeping force for Liberia.

US intervention in Somalia was seen as disastrous

But it is still far from clear what any American contribution to such a force - probably made up mainly of West African troops - would be.

Mr Bush said any commitment would be limited in size and for a limited time.

The potential US involvement in Liberia appears to be one of the most reluctant military interventions ever undertaken.

Somalia memories

Washington has been urged by the United Nations, West African countries, and all sides in the Liberian civil war to intervene, partly because of historic US ties with Liberia, a country created by freed American slaves in the 19th Century.

But President Bush has stressed that US forces should not be overstretched worldwide.

THE US AND LIBERIA Liberia's historical US ties

Any talk of American soldiers in Africa is overshadowed, in terms of US public opinion, by the disastrous American intervention in Somalia in 1993.

Eighteen US soldiers were killed in Somalia when an American-led manhunt against a Somali warlord got out of control.

West African countries have already pledged peacekeepers for Liberia.

An advance team of US military planners is in the country and has been looking at the seaport and airports. Another US military team is in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

One possibility is that the US could provide airlift capacity and military supplies for the African forces with the Americans securing the entry points into Liberia.

But it will be difficult for the US to play a low profile role because Liberians have expressed such faith in them.

Whether that faith is justified, given the Americans' limited experience of peacekeeping, as opposed to war-fighting, is a question Liberians have barely addressed.