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 opportunity 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
