Battle Ready

by Tom Clancy

  EUCOM had put together a system that would deliver everything Armitage might want. Thus when he came to Zinni and asked, “Can we get a plane to deliver medicine to Kiev?” Or: “Can we move some supplies to Almaty?” Zinni got him the airplanes and set up the deliveries.

  Zinni made things happen—contributing to, demonstrating his loyalty to, and becoming part of Armitage’s team; and that impressed Armitage. Loyalty and team playing are important to Armitage—probably a legacy from his military background.

  Meanwhile, the two men were connecting on a more personal level. They liked each other’s company, and they shared deep, bonding experiences—combat in Vietnam, weight lifting. It didn’t take long for Zinni to become one of Armitage’s right-hand men.

  After a time, somebody asked Zinni, “Okay, so what are you now? What do they call you?”

  Zinni gave the question a second’s thought, and then made up his title: “I’m the Military Coordinator for Armitage,” he said. The title stuck.

  Zinni was provided an office with Armitage’s team at the State Department in Washington, and he had another office at the Rhine-Main Air Base53 in Germany, where they were running the JTF. But he spent most of his time crisscrossing Europe with Armitage. They flew to Moscow and St. Petersburg, to Ankara, to Brussels. They dealt with NATO and the EU. They coordinated support, participation, receipt, and distribution of the aid and the future larger-scale reconstruction effort. They worked with U.S. government assessment teams on the ground in the FSU and with local officials. They were all over the place.

  The airlift operation ran until the end of February and delivered 2,100 tons of food and medical supplies to twenty-two locations.

  Zinni spent three months on Provide Hope after the end of the airlift. During that time, Armitage worked tirelessly to transform into reality the vision he and the Secretary of State had put together.

  As time passed and the military requirements ended, Zinni’s work for Armitage took him increasingly into the economic54 and political realm. Though Armitage wanted to keep Zinni around, it had grown obvious that the military aspects of Provide Hope had faded away.

  “There’s no point in your hanging around here anymore,” Armitage told Zinni finally. “Why don’t you go back to EUCOM? As things move on, we might get you back in, but there’s no sense in your hanging out here.”

  The need for Zinni to come back never materialized. By the end of spring, the mission was folding. The silence from the international community had been deafening. Other countries did not have the will or share the vision; they were simply not interested in participating in a new Marshall Plan.

  What kept them away?

  The world of the early ’90s was not the world of the late ’40s. This wasn’t a devastated Europe threatening to collapse into communism. It was a Europe of individual nations who were not only beginning to feel their own oats but had serious problems of their own to solve. The Germans, for instance, had to pay for German reunification.

  No one was interested in working under a U.S.-led program . . . or in laying down the necessary resources.

  It was nevertheless a badly missed opportunity; and much of the turmoil and instability that came afterward in Russia, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere could have been avoided if the nations of the free world and their organizations (like the UN and the EU) had been more farsighted.

  ZINNI’S INVOLVEMENT in “Operations Other Than War”—like Provide Comfort, Provide Hope, Provide Promise, and others while at EUCOM—provided a wealth of experience that he later drew on constantly. These were fascinating, exciting missions . . . like military operations, even combat operations. On these missions, he got to do what he loved best—get out into action in the field, but with the added thrill that he was saving people’s lives.

  Later he participated in several other Operations Other Than War—such as the one in Somalia—that have been seen as the most advanced models for military-civil operations, peacekeeping, and humanitarian missions. No one has had more experience in these kinds of operations than Zinni.

  Chapter FIVE

  SOMALIA

  AFTER EUCOM , Tony Zinni returned to Quantico as the deputy commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC).55

  The MCCDC watches over the Marine Corps requirements and structure in doctrine, organization, material, training, education, and leadership development; and it manages the Corps’ career schools for its officers and enlisted (all of which together make up the Marine Corps University).

  It was an obvious assignment for Zinni, yet he was not overjoyed to have it. As he saw it, his recent experience could have been better used in an operational assignment. (“Every officer worth his salt always feels he is the best qualified operator in the Corps,” he comments.)

  On the other hand, returning to Quantico brought him back into the doctrine, training, and education base with which he was familiar. There he’d be at the red-hot center of all the exciting, revolutionary changes that General Gray was creating, and there he himself would be provided with a forum for his own ideas for change. He knew he had a lot to contribute to Quantico. His tour at EUCOM had convinced him that U.S. military services would soon be forced to improve their performance significantly in joint operations and to develop programs for handling the messy new third world missions that were clearly on the horizon.

  The Marine Corps, specifically, had to examine its organization, its doctrine, and the way it fought, taking a hard look at the tactics, techniques, and procedures needed for nontraditional missions such as peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. The new missions that he had tackled at EUCOM were not aberrations—the Kurdish relief effort, the NEOs, the engagement with former Warsaw Pact militaries. They were the face of the future. And Zinni was convinced that the Marine Corps, with its tradition of flexibility and resourcefulness, could more easily adapt to these missions than could other services, and pioneer the kind of post-Cold War force that was ideally suited to it.

  Zinni was granted his wish to explore these new ideas . . . but not, as it happened, in the classrooms and on the fields of Quantico. Instead, he became a major player in the most trying and tangled U.S. military peacekeeping operation until the occupation of Iraq in 2003. It made the Kurdish relief in ’91 seem like a walk in the park.

  By November 1992, Zinni had been at Quantico for six months. Shortly, he would be in the zone for promotion to major general. The next summer would change his fate one way or another; he’d either be moving up to a new command or out into civilian life.

  That month, while working to develop a new war game with the Navy, he learned that President Bush had decided to launch a joint task force to conduct a humanitarian operation in Somalia. Zinni was vaguely aware of the desperate and worsening situation in that country—civil war, famine, disease, anarchy, thousands of innocents dying. The news of the humanitarian operation, however, came out of the blue.

  In a few days, it would be decided whether the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF) or the Army’s 18th Airborne Corps would lead the operation. Even though he was in the dark about the operation’s actual nature, Zinni knew his EUCOM experiences in joint and humanitarian operations would come in very handy in the planning if I MEF got the call. He immediately went to his boss, Lieutenant General Chuck Krulak,56 to offer his services.

  Somewhat to Zinni’s surprise, Krulak was enthusiastic. “Hey, listen,” he said, “I don’t want the operational force to look at Quantico as a drain. I want them to see us as an organization that’s there for them. We look out for them; we support them. So if we’ve got expertise, I want to offer it up.”

  Krulak called General Carl Mundy, who had replaced General Gray as commandant, and made the offer. General Mundy, in turn, called the commanding general of I MEF, Lieutenant General Bob Johnston. (Zinni had known Johnston for years, had served under him in Okinawa, and had great respect for him.)

  While these discussions were taking place, Zinni
was on his way to Fort Leavenworth for a conference. When he arrived, he had a call from Krulak. “I MEF has been chosen for the mission,” Krulak told him, “and General Johnston wants you to take part in it. Get back to Quantico as soon as you can, then call Bob Johnston for further instructions.”

  “The best possible news!” Zinni thought. The news soon got better.

  Back at Quantico, he called Lieutenant General Johnston, still thinking that Johnston would want him primarily for the initial planning. What he heard then just about knocked him over: The commandant had recommended him for chief of staff of the Joint Task Force (JTF) that would be formed around the core of the I MEF staff.57 Since this meant he would be going to Somalia in a leading operational role, he was ecstatic.

  But it turned out that Johnston had a better idea. He wanted Zinni to be the director of operations. Even though the chief of staff was the senior position, he felt strongly that this operation was going to be so challenging and complicated that he wanted someone with Zinni’s wealth of operational experience, both in combat and in humanitarian missions, to run it. The practicalities of integrating all the pieces of this mission meant that the chief of staff was going to have to back up the chief of operations (in planning and logistics and the like). Operations was where all the action was going to take place.

  To Zinni, this was great news. “I don’t care about seniority,” he told Johnston. “I want the operations job.”

  The next day he packed his bags, went up to Washington, and joined the CENTCOM58 CINC, General Joe Hoar, for the flight to Hoar’s headquarters in Tampa. There they linked up with General Johnston and got a briefing on the operation. Afterward, Zinni was to accompany Johnston back to his headquarters at Camp Pendleton, California, for a week of planning. They were to deploy to Somalia on December 10.

  The plane ride from Washington to Tampa proved to be invaluable. Zinni had known Joe Hoar from his first days in Vietnam (he had first met Hoar in the Rung Sat), and the two had remained friends ever since. Hoar was a savvy operator who had earned a tremendous reputation as the CENTCOM commander. For the duration of the three-hour flight, the two men went over the mission.

  Zinni had recommendations based on his recent experiences: techniques, tactics, and organizations (like UNHCR) they’d need to employ if they were dealing with refugees or displaced persons; using Civil Affairs to set up a Civil-Military Operations Center (CMOC) like the one created in Operation Provide Comfort to connect with the NGOs and the UN; using psychological operations (such as avoiding military terminology in order to better convey the humanitarian message).

  Hoar listened carefully to Zinni’s ideas—most of them totally new to him: Refugees? The third world? NGOs? UN? . . . another universe! After he’d taken them in, he put his arm around Zinni—he’s a large, bearish man—and said: “I’m glad I found you. You’re the guy we need out there. This is going to be great.”

  At CENTCOM headquarters, Hoar, Johnston, Zinni, and the staff went over the situation in Somalia and the planning so far.

  The Somali people occupy the actual “Horn” of Africa, and are the majorityin northern Kenya, Djibouti, and the now Ethiopian province of Ogaden. They are a clan-based society, with five major clans and numerous subclans, unified in language and ethnic identity, separate in customs, lineage, and history. Somalia became a nation in 1960, following a period as an Italian and British colonial possession and a post-World War Two UN mandate. A weak, fractious postmandate government lasted for nine years, but collapsed in 1969 when the first President was assassinated and a military dictator, Siad Barre, took over. Barre’s rule began well enough for the country, though his early alliance with the Soviets did not sit well with the West. It paid many of his bills, however, and brought in modern weapons.

  The good times ended in 1977 when Barre attacked Ethiopia to regain Ogaden. This was a tragic miscalculation—not least because Ethiopia was itself a Soviet client state. The Soviets, forced to choose, tilted toward Ethiopia; and the disastrous war and defeat (in 1978) that followed pitched Somalia into a steep decline.

  Barre switched sides from the Soviets to the West, and a period of apparent progress followed—only to be eaten up by corruption, and by the increasing repression of clans other than Siad Barre’s own Marehan. As the repression grew to violent assault and terror, the Siad Barre government rotted from within. The clans fought back, and the nation drifted into civil war. (The conflict started in 1988, but only became general in 1990.)

  Civil war devastated the country. It was a nation awash in Soviet and Western weapons. Most were ultimately used to kill Somalis. Hundreds of thousands of refugees left the country; hundreds of thousands more were killed in the fighting, or died of starvation and disease. By 1992, half the children born since 1987, and twenty-five percent of the country’s children overall, had perished. Institutions of government had vanished. Factional feuding among clans only added to the misery.

  Millions were still at serious risk.

  Siad Barre was driven from power in 1990, but kept fighting in southern Somalia near the border with Kenya, in what was called “the Triangle of Death”—the area between the towns of Baidoa and Bardera, in the interior, and Kismayo, on the coast. Faction leaders controlling the various regions fell to fighting each other. The strongest of these was General Mohammed Farrah Aideed59 of the Hawiye clan . . . but there were many others.

  In January 1991, Mogadishu, the capital, was divided between Aideed and the businessman, politician, and local warlord Ali Mahdi Mohamed (previously allies against Siad Barre), after Ali Mahdi turned against Aideed. This was a not totally surprising turnaround. Both were members of the Hawiye clan (yet from different subclans: Aideed was a Habr Gidr and Ali Mahdi was an Abgal; significant differences in Somalia’s fractious clan system), and both were also leaders of the same political faction, the United Somali Congress (USC)—but in Somalia, betrayal is the mother’s milk of politics.

  That same month, the U.S. Embassy in Mogadishu was evacuated in a last-minute, dramatic rescue by Marine helicopters launched from amphibious ships participating in Operation Desert Shield.

  For several months, the two sides faced off against each other, Aideed in the southern parts of the city and Ali Mahdi in his base in the city’s north. Aideed, who was the more experienced and effective military commander and had the benefit of better and heavier weapons (taken from Siad Barre’s warehouses), held the stronger position; but fighting between the two warlords was only sporadic. Law and order completely broke down in the city; armed gangs roamed everywhere. No one could control them. Serious fighting finally broke out in September 1991 and raged for several months, leaving little of value intact in Mogadishu.

  In May 1992, Aideed finally defeated Barre, who escaped to Kenya, and later found exile in Nigeria. Aideed had proved to be a formidable commander, with powerful credentials to lead his country. He had—as he saw it—liberated Somalia from the dictator Siad Barre, a triumph that entitledhim to take Barre’s place as the national leader. Other faction leaders saw things very differently; and fighting continued. This worsened the famine and destruction throughout the southern part of the country, especially in the Triangle of Death. (The northern provinces, at the actual Horn of Africa, were relatively unaffected and in effect have operated as a more or less independent state.)

  In 1992, the UN started a humanitarian operation called UNOSOM (UN Operations Somalia), which proved to be powerless and ineffective—too weak to put down the violence . . . or even to provide security for the relief workers. Looting prevented most UN and NGO food and relief supplies from reaching the intended beneficiaries.

  In late August of that year, the U.S. also started a humanitarian operation, called “Provide Relief,” that airlifted food and medical supplies from Kenya to remote sites in Somalia. Provide Relief aircraft flew nearly 2,500 missions and delivered more than 28,000 metric tons to airfields in southern Somalia. The operation saved lives, but an airlift could not carry nearl
y enough food and medicine to seriously ease the famine and disease.60

  By the fall of 1992, Somalia was a lawless, devastated land ruled by fifteen warlords with their militias and by roving gangs of armed bandits. These traveled around in “technicals,” pickup trucks with crew-served weapons mounted on their beds. (They got their name from the relief agencies who had hired out the gangs for protection and charged it off to “technical assistance.”) The relief agencies and NGOs were subject to extortion, pillage, threats, and even murder, sometimes by the very guards they hired.

  By November, the chaos and violence in Somalia had made some kind of international action inevitable. After much discussion within the Bush administration and the UN, it was decided that a large military force was needed (modeled after the recent Desert Shield/Desert Storm coalition against Iraq), consisting of at least two American divisions, supplemented by other U.S. and foreign forces. This force would operate with UN approval (under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, authorizing peace enforcementusing “all necessary means” including deadly force), but it would not be a UN-commanded operation. The operation was called “Restore Hope.”

  The American concept for Restore Hope foresaw the quick establishment of security on the ground, allowing the relief agencies and NGOs to operate freely, followed by a rapid transition to a UN-led peacekeeping operation (though the U.S. expected to continue to supply logistics and support services and a quick reaction force). But there was to be no attempt to disarm the warlords or seriously alter the political landscape.

  However, the UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, had different expectations. In his view, Restore Hope’s limited time frame and scope would not provide enough security, disarmament, or political change to allow the UN to take responsibility for nation building in Somalia. He wanted the U.S. to embark on a full-scale nationwide disarmament program before there could be any transition to UN peacekeepers.