contingency planning was to produce a “playbook” that gave us a course of action if one of the possible scenarios occurred. At the end of the operation, I reviewed the playbook and found every event that occurred covered by a contingency plan.
The entire five months, from August to mid-January, was devoted to planning and coordination. This was the first phase of the operation. The second phase, deployment, rehearsal, and positioning, was scheduled from mid-January to the beginning of February. Phase three, setting conditions for the withdrawal and assuming of control of UN forces, was scheduled for February 8 to 28. Phase four, the execution, was scheduled for February 28 to March 3. Our fifth and final phase, the redeployment of our forces, was planned to last from March 4 until the end of that month.
The operational tasks during the execution phase were extremely complex. We would conduct two night amphibious landings at the Mogadishu port and airfield; two reliefs in place of UN forces; a withdrawal and passage of lines by the Pakistani Brigade through our coalition lines (U.S. and Italian Marines); a day and night defense of the air- and seaports; a Non-combatant Evacuation of UN, media, and civilian agencies personnel; and two night amphibious withdrawals. These difficult tactical evolutions were tough enough, but the mix of coalition forces, the nighttime executions, and the prospect of doing these under fire compounded the difficulty exponentially.
We had another serious concern — civilian crowds, mobs, and looters… always a possibility in Somalia. Mobs especially were always a major problem… and they were one of the warlords’ most effective weapons. They could effectively block many of our actions, yet they were only very rarely a physical threat to our troops. A response using lethal force was obviously unjustified; but nonlethals had been very hard to come by. That situation was about to change.
Early in our planning, I pressed for a more substantial nonlethal capability… a search that yielded surprisingly good results. We were able to gather a significant and varied arsenal of gadgets, ranging from rubber bullets to sticky foam guns to high-tech acoustic devices, microwaves, and lasers. During the coming months, we trained our forces in these capabilities, while the lawyers developed new rules of engagement for them. (They prohibited some of the more experimental devices, since there were no details on their effects.)
Our attempts to prevent unnecessary loss of lives actually sparked controversy. “You’re disarming our Marines!” claimed alarmed op-ed articles. Other articles by military professionals claimed: “Our troops will be confused. They won’t know the difference between ‘lethal’ and ‘non-lethal’ weapons.” When I threw this question at my Marines, they told me, “Don’t worry, sir. We know the difference.” They all wanted and needed this capability.[68]
We took the plan to General Peay on November 8; and to the Joint Chiefs a little over a week after that. Quick approval came. Though the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Shalikashvilli, remained opposed to OOTWs and was in no hurry to get reengaged in Somalia, he knew this was an obligation the Clinton administration had to take on. One month later, on December 16, President Clinton approved the plan and gave the go-ahead for the operation.
In early January, we held our final planning conference at CENTCOM; and on the fourteenth the joint task force United Shield was formally established. That day I gave the CINC a final brief, at which point General Peay added a highly unusual wrinkle to the command structure. Normally, the JTF commander reports directly to the CINC. But for this particular operation, General Peay decided that I would report to his naval component commander, Vice Admiral Scott Redd, rather than directly to him.
Peay’s decision raised a serious question: Was I going to be running the JTF or was Admiral Redd? And yet I appreciated the CINC’s logic: This operation required a large number of supporting U.S. and coalition ships (during the actual operation we had twenty-three); directing this large seaward component was potentially a huge — and unnecessary — distraction.
In the event, the arrangement presented zero command problems for either of us. Scott Redd felt strongly that United Shield was my operation, and his role was to ensure that I got what I needed. He and I worked closely and productively together. When the time came, Scott attended the final CENTCOM planning sessions, and then I flew with him back to his headquarters in Bahrain, where I received a firsthand experience of another rationale for General Peay’s command arrangement. Scott’s was the only CENTCOM headquarters near our AOR, making his people more quickly responsive to our needs. During the operation, he was able to instantly respond to several immediate requests for support, not the least of which was the rapid dispatch of a U.S. cruiser to provide us a last-minute naval gunfire capability.
I was also fortunate in having Rear Admiral Lee Gunn (from the U.S. Third Fleet) as my deputy commander and the commander of my JTF naval component. Because Lee and Scott were able to work all the ship issues, we were able to keep our total focus on the withdrawal.
After Bahrain, I went to Nairobi, Kenya, to meet the military chief of staff, General Mohamed, and other government officials. We intended to use Mombasa as a base for our AC-130 gunships and as a logistics and staging base (to stage forces that would link up with ships sailing in from the Pacific).
In Nairobi, we picked up Ambassador Dan Simpson, the President’s special envoy to the Somalia mission, and Ambassador David Shinn, the State Department’s Africa bureau head, and then flew to Mogadishu to coordinate with the UNOSOM forces and meet with warlords.
In Somalia, General Aboo Samah, the Malaysian commander of the UNOSOM forces, and Ambassador Victor Gbeho, the special representative of the Secretary-General, were professional and cooperative; and the initial meetings with warlords were also encouraging. Essentially, our message to the warlords was: “Look, we’ll take you on if we have to, but that’s not the point. We’re not looking for trouble. We just want to get these people out of here. So lay back. It’s over. Let’s get these people out of here without making waves.” And they all bought that.
But our visit to Aideed was a near disaster.
Aideed was never the most punctual of men, and, true to form, he was a little late that day. But when he came rushing in, he was in a very up mood — in his statesman mode, which was fine with me. He’d just been to a political rally, which had gone well; the UN departure favored his interests and objectives; so he seemed happy to see us.
For some reason, however, from the very start of our discussions, Ambassador Simpson took a very provocative line with Aideed. He clearly wanted to get in Aideed’s face (and, God knows, there was plenty of bad blood between our people and Aideed); and here was his chance to show Aideed that he was a very hard-ass guy who couldn’t be pushed around by a two-bit warlord. The discussion quickly grew heated; threats were tossed back and forth; and the whole situation seemed headed for a bad crash.
By then, Aideed had switched into his black mode; my brain was working on all cylinders; and I was really pissed. “What in the hell are we doing?” I was thinking. “We don’t need to piss Aideed off and take on more enemies than we need. We just want to get these troops out of here and avoid confrontation.”
Somehow we got through the rest of the meeting without a renewal of open warfare.
At the conclusion of the meeting, we stepped outside with Aideed for a photo at the bottom of the building steps. Afterward, as the others were preparing to leave, Aideed grabbed my arm and drew me aside.
“Zinni,” he said, “you look worried.”
“You’re right,” I told him. “We don’t need a confrontation at this point,” I continued. “I’m here to protect the UN, and I will; but we don’t need more casualties on any side.”
“Don’t worry, I will not attack the UN or interfere with the withdrawal,” he promised. “But,” he added, “I don’t control all the militia or gangs; and the militia and gangs at the end of the airport will fight you. I will try to control things where I can.”
It was good to know that Aideed had sense enough not to be thrown by the provocations. He knew he was getting what he wanted — the UN’s departure; he’d have been nuts to jeopardize that success. His warning, meanwhile, proved accurate; but he also delivered on his promise to control whatever his forces were able to control.
I immediately left Somalia for wrap-up meetings back in Bahrain, then flew on to Pakistan to
