permanent answer. But when we asked the Pentagon for some sort of approved, nonlethal capability, the best we could get was small cans of pepper spray. Though these were no more potent than the pepper spray you might find in a lady’s purse back home, they came — unbelievably — with an exhaustive training program and rules of engagement. Our troops had to implement the program and familiarize themselves with the ROEs before they could use them. Bureaucracy at work… a spray can is a spray can.
I knew this problem would surely come back to haunt us in future operations and made a mental note to address it.
Though security was our primary mission, other demands were hardly less pressing: We ran the ports and airfields, conducted extensive psyops and civic action programs, undertook major engineer projects to repair and rebuild the infrastructure, and provided medical support.
Our medical units also had a tough task keeping our own force healthy in this harsh and dangerous environment. By the end of the operation, we had suffered eight killed in action, twenty-four non-battle deaths (one from a shark attack), twenty-four wounded in action, and 2,853 illness and injury cases (including snakebites).
One of my responsibilities was to coordinate our psychological and tactical operations.
Though there were plenty of sources of “information,” the Somalis had little access to accurate news accounts. Most Somali news sources — notably, Aideed’s — were nothing but propaganda… much of it inflammatory. We published leaflets and a newspaper, and set up a radio station, to counter the lies. The paper and radio station, which were called “Rajo”—“hope” in Somali — made Aideed very unhappy; and he counterattacked through his own radio station. A period of “radio wars” ensued.
When he summoned me to his compound to complain about our broadcasts, I told him we’d tone down our broadcasts when he toned down his own inflammatory rhetoric. He agreed.
Another victory for nonviolent engagement.
The months to follow would show that the UN had failed to learn this lesson. Instead of countering Aideed’s hostile media blasts in kind, they tried to close down his radio station. Freedom of the press has to work both ways; we don’t shut down radio stations just because we don’t like what is broadcast. The resulting confrontation was the opening of the violent war between the UN and Aideed.
All the while, we did not want for VIP visitors — including President George Bush.
President Bush visited us on New Year’s Day, a few days before he was to leave office. It was a grand sendoff.
General Aideed even sent a huge cake as a welcoming gift, all adorned with a portrait of the President and Aideed standing side by side beneath U.S. and Somali flags. The cake, uneaten, stayed in our admin office for several days until one of the troops noticed that it was the only thing around the place that never had flies on it. He was right. I told him to get rid of it.
The best moment of Bush’s visit came when he visited our troops. The President really connected with our guys. As he walked through their ranks to a microphone, their enthusiastic cheers visibly moved him, leaving him visibly close to tears.
I’ll never forget that scene.
Unfortunately, the President did not bring with him the news we’d hoped for — plans for the UN to assume our mission. Though we’d been led to believe that talks had been going on, we were disappointed to learn that nothing had been arranged with the UN. The Clinton administration would have to pick up on the transition from us to them. This was not a job you want to drop on a brand-new administration.
As February turned into March, our efforts were increasingly focused on stabilizing the positive environment UNITAF had created and promoting the political agreements Oakley was skillfully piecing together. During this time I met frequently with Aideed, the other warlords, and the various committees, trying to keep things calm and to hold agreements together.
The UN, meanwhile, continued to fight us hard on the transition and handover front. While this process dragged on, I worked on the plan to turn over the mission to them.
The Secretary-General had presented us with a series of nonnegotiable demands. Unless we agreed to them, there’d be no transition. For starters, he wanted UNITAF to stay after UNOSOM II took over. He wanted full U.S. involvement in any follow-on UN operation. And he insisted on a U.S. Quick Reaction Force, U.S. logistics support, and a senior American leader to act as his special representative to head the operation. He got everything he asked for.
Even so, the UN was painfully slow to take the reins of the operation. In February, Boutros-Ghali appointed a respected Turkish lieutenant general, Cevik Bir, as the UNOSOM II force commander. An American Army major general, Tom Montgomery, became his deputy. Another American, Jonathan Howe, a four-star admiral and President Bush’s former Deputy National Security Adviser, took over from Kittani the job of Boutros-Ghali’s special representative. Robert Oakley left Somalia on March 3 in order to make way for Howe. Oakley was sorely missed.
The official handover date was March 26, but we continued to run the operation until we finally left on May 4. In effect, the UNITAF staff commanded the new UNOSOM II force. The UNOSOM staff simply sat on their duffs, refusing to accept command, but kibitzing over all our decisions and actions. It was weird to have two staffs officially overseeing the same force. In fact, we were actually commanding both forces, ours and theirs, while they were sitting there trying to set policy for future operations.
The UN plan that they intended to implement was vastly different from Oakley’s. Where Oakley was steering a course that encouraged the Somalis to determine their own fate, UNOSOM II had a specific political outcome in mind. They sought to rebuild the nation of Somalia into a thriving democracy of their design, with the UN dictating who would participate in the political process. (They intended to exclude General Aideed, for instance.) We saw trouble on the horizon. In our view, the UN plan was overly ambitious, and grossly underestimated the power and support of the faction leaders, as well as the historical Somali animosity toward the UN. It was a recipe for disaster.
By the time Oakley left in March, the atmosphere on the political front had drastically changed.
We turned over the command to UNOSOM II on May 4, 1993. UNOSOM arranged a grand ceremony with dancers and singers.
After the ceremony, I drove with Bob Johnston to the airport. As our two Humvees wound through the narrow streets, he was very quiet, deep in thought. Suddenly he ordered a stop, and had the vehicles pull over to a nearby curb where several children were standing. At his direction, we got out of the vehicles, and he gathered all our pens and pencils and gave them to the kids (who all seemed pleased to get them). After his little act of charity, he slowly swung his gaze around. Something was obviously weighing on his mind.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked.
He looked up at the bright sunny sky. “I give this place thirty days,” he said, “and then it’s all going to go to hell.”
Thirty-one days later, his prediction came true.
