by Tom Clancy
To begin with, there was resentment of the military intervention. Many agencies feared the military would get credit for any success, even though they themselves had been working in Somalia long before the military. And some agencies opposed military participation at all in humanitarian relief, on the grounds that we did not understand how to do it and would screw up their efforts.
Relief workers also tended to develop views about who were the bad guys and who were the good… views as often as not based on partial, local experience and friendships, and not on the big picture. In a culture of blood feuds, it’s easy to take sides based on proximity. Armed with such biases, relief workers would strongly urge us to get rid of “their” particular enemies, and fight our efforts to bring everyone to the table. It was our view that Somalis themselves had to decide the who and the how of their governance. Many agencies thought they knew a better way… without realizing that in so doing they were treating the Somalis like children.
We had our biggest dispute with the agencies over the security mission. The agencies tended to expect us not only to improve general security for everybody, but to actually replace their hired guns and provide them with both full-time mission security for their organizations and full-time personal security. We could not possibly do that. Certainly not without major — and unacceptable — changes on their part.
For starters, there were well over five hundred facilities and residences in Mogadishu alone. Consolidating these would have made security feasible; but NGO culture put such consolidation out of the realm of discussion. The agencies also liked to maintain a “youthful” lifestyle, with a lot of free and easy movement around town at night for parties or other social events. In New York, L.A., London, or Paris, this kind of travel is perfectly safe. In Mogadishu, you’d be crazy to do that without armed protection; and they expected us to provide it. They refused to change their lifestyle, and we refused to provide individual protection. Tempers ran high.
At one point the UN threw an amazing costume party. They were disappointed when we did not accept their invitation to attend.
If farmers and cowboys can be friends, so can relief workers and military. The great majority of relief workers are fine people who bravely do God’s work; yet their culture remains far apart from ours; they tend to see the world from another, though equally valid, perspective.
In the military, we often have little patience for “save the whales” types — especially when they seem timid and poorly organized. Yet neither do we normally have sufficient understanding of their special expertise, or of how actions that seem logical to us can be counterproductive to their efforts. I had already learned from past experience, and would learn again in Somalia, that we both had to work much harder to understand each other and coordinate our efforts better. The good news: In Somalia, our day-to-day experiences taught both the relief agencies and the military how to do exactly that — such functions as sending out convoys under security, manning and securing feeding stations, constructing facilities, vetting local hired security, and many others were accomplished through the selfless efforts of both sides.
At the end of the first day on the ground, General Johnston and I sat down to assess the situation before he made a report to the CINC. Both of us were encouraged. The meetings with Bob Oakley and Phil Johnston had gone extremely well. (“The Johnston and Oakley team is a definite winner,” I said to myself.) The general’s guidance was to stay close to both of them, making sure I coordinated the security, political, and humanitarian efforts directly with them. This was fine with me. It made perfect sense. He also asked me to communicate directly not only with his own staff but with the CENTCOM staff; and General Hoar later instructed me to extend my direct communications to the Joint Staff as well. All of this also made perfect sense, though it was highly unusual to grant such access to someone at my level, and meant they had significant trust in me. I was determined to use the access wisely and keep everyone involved well informed. In fact, it allowed us to avoid many potential misunderstandings.
After this wrap-up meeting, I got an update from my guys in the op center: They were making terrific progress setting up our command and control facilities. But reports from our units moving out into the tense streets of Mogadishu were giving me serious concern. There were too many heavily armed men out there. Our guys did see encouraging signs, however. Many people waved and smiled when they saw U.S. Marines.
The next day turned out to be less positive.
To start things off, the bad guys decided to test us quickly, to see if we were made of sterner stuff than the UN troops, whose rules of engagement had made strong response to provocation close to impossible.
We had put up both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters over the city and its immediate surroundings as a show of force and to provide a source of intelligence, reconnaissance, and cover as we began reaching out beyond the city. That morning, two of these helicopters were fired on by technicals. Though the helos immediately destroyed them, we were not happy that the bad guys were willing to take us on. That was of course a big mistake on their part. The quick and decisive response of the helos demonstrated that we meant business and would not tolerate attacks.
We were not the UN.
This event sparked a widely quoted statement to the press: “Things have changed in Mogadishu,” I told them. “Wyatt Earp is in town.”
The key meeting that day was with the special representative of the UN Secretary-General, Ismat Kittani, a veteran Iraqi diplomat and senior member of the UN Secretariat, and the military commander of the UN forces in UNOSOM, Pakistani General Mohamed Shaheen. Bob Oakley accompanied us to the UN headquarters, located in a villa in the center of the city that was decidedly more comfortable than our own gutted embassy. The meeting went badly.
Inside the headquarters, the air was thick with resentment. Kittani, confrontational from the start, was clearly infuriated that the U.S. military had been called to pick up after UNOSOM’s failure. And if we then managed to achieve positive results, UNOSOM’s failure would seem that much greater. Up until that moment, I’d imagined that the enormous size of the job ahead would make taking credit for success easy for everybody. There was, after all, plenty of work for everybody, including UNOSOM. And if we all together succeeded in making life better for the people who were actually suffering, then we could all go home happy. But for the first time I began to realize how far apart we were from the UN’s concept of what had to be done.
Several points of contention emerged.
In general: If the U.S. wanted to take on the job of fixing Somalia, fine. As far as the UN was concerned, let the U.S. do the whole thing.
Specifically: The UN did not intend to take over the mission from us anytime soon; neither did UNOSOM intend to work with us beyond a minimal coordination effort to de-conflict our forces; and they were very reluctant to honor any agreements we made or programs we put in place. We proposed setting up a Somali-led and — manned police force, for example. But UNOSOM was opposed — for all practical purposes — to Somalis leading anything important. They made it equally clear that our agreements with the factions would in no way be binding on UNOSOM.
As a final indignity, Kittani demanded an operational name change. For some reason known only to him, and perhaps to the trackless depths of the UN bureaucracy, our operational name at that point—“Combined Task Force,” the standard military title given to coalition commands — was unacceptable to the UN; and we would have to change it to “Unified Task Force” (UNITAF).
Such a name change is in fact no big deal… such things have little practical importance. But in demanding it, Kittani’s arrogance stuck in our craw, and did not help relations that were already starting to get frayed. Still, we did not want to do anything to give the UN an excuse for accusing us of not cooperating, nor did we want to harm efforts to eventually hand the mission back to them; so we accepted the change.
Kittani never let up his hostility, and never lost an opportuni
ty to obstruct our work — even when his obstructions harmed Somalis.
Some time later, Bob Oakley and I worked out a plan with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, for resettling in Somalia the 350,000 Somali refugees then in Kenya. To the immense chagrin of Madame Ogata (whose job was to try to resettle the almost one million refugees scattered around the region and the half-million displaced persons in the country), the UN rejected our plan — without substituting another; they simply stonewalled. This kind of thing happened all too often.
In time, I began to learn some of the reasons behind the UN obstruction policy… though I still believe they were wrong not to try to work more closely with us. Cooperation and coordination would have helped all of us — not least the Somalis. But I now see that their hesitations were based on genuine fears. Primarily, they were afraid they’d be left holding the bag if chaos and anarchy returned after the eight-hundred-pound gorilla left town. A good point: Chaos and anarchy returned after we left.
As one UN official explained to me: “Boutros-Ghali is afraid you’ll hand him a poisoned apple. He won’t take the mission from you until he has wrangled as much as he can from the U.S.”
What they seemed to want from us, then, was to clean up the country and leave it in a condition that would greatly lessen the ability of the warlords to wage factional war. A worthy goal. But hardly possible without total war.
The big demand from Kittani and Boutros-Ghali was total disarmament of all the Somalis.
Thanks a lot!
There was simply no way we — or anyone — could disarm the Somalis except at the cost of enormous bloodshed. Weapons were everywhere, and most were portable and easily hidden.
This issue became a major bone of contention between the U.S. and UN leadership.
Our thought had been to establish a secure environment, while the UN simultaneously did the things they did best — working on peace agreements, setting up voluntary disarmament programs, reinstituting a national police force, resettling refugees and displaced persons, and eventually assuming the security mission. But it was evident from this first meeting that they would do nothing beyond sitting there without a new mandate and Security Council resolution.
Up to this point, everybody had made it clear that we were all working together. “Hey, we’re all one team” was the constant message. “We have one objective. Let’s figure out how to work together.” Suddenly, we’d hit a wall. The idea that this would be a kick-start operation of short duration was fading fast. It now looked like we had inherited the whole problem.
After the meeting, I would have been blind to miss General Johnston’s and Ambassador Oakley’s frustration. Theirs mirrored mine.
More bad news came that day: French troops in Mogadishu had shot up an unarmed bus, killing two Somalis and seriously wounding seven others, after an evidently confused bus driver had run a French roadblock. An angry Somali mob had gathered around the French positions, and we had to move in, negotiate some kind of peace with the warlords, and calm things down.
Later, other complaints about French troops in Mogadishu eventually led us to move them out to an area near the Ethiopian border, where they did great work. This location was no less difficult than Mogadishu, but it was politically less sensitive.
We spent the next days getting the operation rolling.
I had already broken our area of responsibility into eight Humanitarian Relief Sectors [65] (or HRSs) — a term we’d invented to avoid using traditional military terms (like “Sector of Operations” or “Zone of Action”). We wanted to convey the intent of our mission to the people, press, and relief workers as “softer” than a normal military action. Each HRS was unique, with boundaries based on factors like clan and tribal boundaries, political boundaries, geography, military span of control, capabilities of our forces, established distribution sites, security threats, and lines of communications.
Early on we had absorbed the Provide Relief operation out of Kenya and integrated it into our efforts. Soon other U.S. and international forces were flowing in at a rapid rate.
The Marines from the MEU, who’d led the way into Somalia, were quickly joined by additional Marines we flew in and married up with equipment from Maritime Prepositioning Ships that arrived in Mogadishu’s port on the twelfth of December, our third day on the ground. The 10th Mountain Division’s arrival shortly afterward allowed us to move out quickly to complete the second phase.
Though General Hoar had originally envisioned seven allied forces joining the U.S., following his 3-3-1 Strategy — three African national forces, three Arab national forces, and one Western national force — that went out the window the first day, as forces from all over the world started clamoring to join up. Forces from twenty-six nations ended up participating in UNITAF; and as many as forty-four nations had lined up when we had to shut the door.
These forces were a mixed bag. Some came with limited capabilities, some came burdened with restrictive political direction, some came with big demands for U.S. support, and a blessed few came with highly credible and capable units ready to take on any mission. My job was to find a place to put them, integrate them into the operation, and assign them missions. This was no small task.
My staff took to calling me “the Century 21 man” after I somehow found places where a rapid and unanticipated succession of international troops could lay their heads and set up camp. I’d get a call out of the blue that troops from someplace like Zimbabwe or Botswana had landed unexpectedly at the airport and were looking for direction. I’d then slip on “the yellow jacket”—as my staff put it — and try to “sell them some real estate.” I’d go out to meet their commanders — or their advance team, if we were lucky (some militaries were not aware that it helps to send an advance team before they launch the whole force). The “choice lots” were obviously out of harm’s way and near major facilities. The less desirable “lots” were in the HRSs out in the bush, where the austere environment and high threat made a “sale” difficult.
Since individual contributions — such as a transport unit, say, or a field hospital — often came in bits and pieces, we devoted considerable creative energy to the marrying up of these with other forces, taking into account factors like language, cultural affinity, political compatibility, and military interoperability.
As the operation evolved, the State Department continued to solicit new contributors for UNITAF. The variety of international troops making up the Coalition staff very quickly turned our headquarters into the bar scene from Star Wars. At its peak, Provide Hope had 39,000 troops under UNITAF command — though not in every case the same troops who started the operation. Troops came and went, and, where possible, were replaced with specialized units, more suitable for the later phases of the operation. Thus, an infantry unit might be replaced by an engineer unit.
This dynamic flow required careful assignment and management, as did issues such as Rules of Engagement, logistics support, and area assignment; and the job of assigning and managing fell on me. The law of diminishing returns set in.
I got a lot of strange requests for support. Some of the strangest included fresh food (that is, live goats, sheep, and chickens); full medical support, to include medical malpractice coverage; and, naturally, money to pay for the troops. We politely declined all of these requests.
For all the difficulties we had to deal with — or put up with — it was great to have this wonderful rainbow of Coalition forces working with us. We had enormous respect for them. I especially enjoyed visiting the Coalition units to coordinate operations… or just to check on how things were going. This often brought the added benefit of a delicious, and often exotic, meal.
The African troops were particularly impressive. They asked for little or nothing, and were willing to take on the toughest missions. Our Marines always gave them the highest praise possible for their courage and skill: They wanted them assigned to their sectors.
Since the embassy compound was quite la
rge (it once had, in better times, a nine-hole golf course, for example), we were able to co-locate liaison teams from the various coalition forces close to our headquarters.
One night, as General Johnston and I were walking around the headquarters compound, we happened to pass the row of tents occupied by the African liaison teams. Except for a dimly lit bulb wired to our field generators, each tent was totally bare: no field desks, no cots, no folding chairs, nothing to make the tents livable — much less workable or comfortable. The contrast with the other coalition facilities was stark.
We quickly had our engineers build them makeshift desks, tables, and other field furniture.
“We’re eternally grateful for your kindness,” the liaison teams told us.
“You’ve more than earned it,” I assured them.
The presence of the liaison teams was not an unmixed blessing.
Our policy was to have coalition personnel clear their weapons near the compound entrance as they entered. The idea was to remove magazines or live rounds from the weapons, and then to confirm they were safe by a test firing into a barrel of sand. The sentry and clearing barrel were just below the blown-out window of my small second-floor office, which made me sharply aware of any mistakes. There’d be one or two accidental discharges a day, as the sentry tried to explain how to clear weapons to the often clueless coalition troops. One of these accidental rounds zinged by my feet as I was enjoying a late-night cigar near a ruined fountain in front of our gutted headquarters. So much for my pleasant, peaceful moment.
We got occasional rounds from firefights outside the compound as well. One night as I slept, three heavy, 50 caliber machine-gun rounds hit the concrete window frame of my office. This got my attention. Another time I was pinned down at our piss tube when a firefight broke out nearby and made my location the impact zone for the fusillade that erupted. I zigzagged back to the cover of our building, hitting the deck more than once. My appreciation for indoor plumbing considerably increased after that.