brief General Abdul Waheed, the chief of staff of the Pakistani military. Since his forces had suffered more casualties in Somalia than any other national force, he wanted to be sure the scheme for withdrawal was sound. His support meant we were now completely on track.
I then headed on to Kenya, to board the USS Belleau Wood, which would be my command ship.
In addition to our twenty-three ships, the force we assembled for United Shield included and totaled 16,485 soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines from seven nations. It also included the Pakistani Brigade and Bangladeshi Battalion that would be the last UNOSOM forces that would hold the airport and port and would be put under my command for the final withdrawal.
We sailed from Mombasa on the first of February; stopped off the coast of Malindi, Kenya, for rehearsals of our landing and withdrawal; then moved north to begin our third phase — setting the conditions for the withdrawal and assuming control of the UN forces.
We arrived off the coast of Mogadishu on the seventh of February and began setting the stage for the final withdrawal. For the next three weeks, the UN drew down its presence until they controlled only the port and airfield. Meanwhile, United Shield forces prepared for the final withdrawal. This would take four days. During this period, I began taking increasing responsibility for functions like medical care and fire support, as we moved toward the moment when General Aboo passed command of the UN forces to me.
In addition to our physical preparations (defensive positions, barriers, and the like), we conducted a series of sand table exercises, thoroughly rehearsing our plan with the UN forces, to ensure everyone knew his role cold. Again, we had time — the rarest commodity — and I intended to use every second to our advantage.
Mogadishu’s airfield is located near the seashore and south of the port. Just south of the airport is a wide expanse of beach. Our plan was to land our forces, take control of the port from the Bangladeshi Battalion, then hold it and move them out by ship. The Pakistani Brigade which held the airport would then withdraw through our lines to the port, where we would also move them by ship.
During these operations, United Shield forces would maintain control of the beach areas east and south of the airport. After the UN forces had departed, we would move out of the port, then off the high dunes overlooking the airport, and finally off the beach south of the airport. We would, in effect, pull back from north (the port) to south (the beach below the airport). This would be the most dangerous phase of the operation, since we expected militias, gangs, and mobs to close in rapidly behind us. Our physical preparations involved extensive engineer work; we erected barbed-wire obstacles and huge sand mounds to cover our withdrawal.
Though our headquarters for the Combined Task Force remained aboard the Belleau Wood, my Special Operations component established a forward command post ashore (called “the Advanced Operating Base”). The special ops forces also provided Coalition Support Teams to each of the allied forces to ensure close coordination and communications. As soon as we arrived off Mogadishu, a shipboard heliborne Quick Reaction Force was activated as a reserve. Another critical component was the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit, whose task was to destroy the considerable amount of ammunition and captured weapons that the UN forces had amassed over the years. Though the daily explosions from the EOD were necessary, they were often unnerving.
My landing force was composed of U.S. and Italian Marines. The U.S. Special Forces and U.S. SEAL units also provided valuable capabilities to the forces ashore as well. Each of our four forces had sniper teams; these proved to be key assets when the withdrawal began.
On the ninth of February, Kofi Annan, then the head of the UN peacekeeping organization, arrived to review the plans for the withdrawal, and also to visit our forces and ships. It was clear that Annan understood the complexity of the operation and appreciated what we were doing. To symbolically mark the entrusting of UNOSOM forces to our protection, he presented me with a UN beret.[69]
Several days later, a formal ceremony at the airport passed control of the UN forces from General Aboo’s command to mine.
By then, I was greatly impressed by the competence and professionalism of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi units. We had loaned armor and other equipment to the Pakistanis for their mission in Somalia. Now we had to recover and evacuate this equipment. When our U.S. maintenance personnel recovered the tanks, armored personnel carriers, and other equipment, they found the gear in terrific condition. “This stuff is like new,” a maintenance guy told me. “Every single tool in every single kit is there.” The pride of these coalition units gave me confidence that their parts in the operation would go without a hitch.
The media was not so easy to handle. They bristle at any form of control; convincing them to form a press pool proved to be particularly difficult; and loose media were running around Mogadishu unencumbered by pool restrictions. I was determined that the media who joined the pool would be rewarded: They were at all the significant locations during the operation and were denied access to commanders only when that could interfere with the mission. I spent a great deal of time briefing the pool and providing them background. By the end of our operation, the relationship that had developed with the pool was superb, benefiting both sides — the best cooperation between the media and the military I had ever experienced. This took a lot of effort and trust on both sides, but we made it work.
As the three weeks of the preparation phase came to a close, we could see the problems forming that we would face during withdrawal. The port and airfield were full of material soon to be abandoned by the UN; and these “prizes” were beginning to tempt the desperate Somalis. Soon they were gathering ominously in growing numbers around the reinforced gates and walls of the port and airfield. Militias were already jockeying for control of entry points, hoping to be the first to claim the facilities and spoils for their warlord.
In the hope of heading off more trouble, I called a meeting with the heads of these militias and my old police commanders, to be held in the open, on a small hill overlooking the city just above the airfield. Everybody showed up, with the exception of the leaders of groups that were especially hostile to us, and everybody was eager to cooperate, quickly agreeing to our plan to set up a thousand-meter buffer, marked off with warning signs and barbed wire, to keep Somalis separated from our forces. Yet like Aideed, they warned that they could not control the more hostile groups (such as the gang at the southern end of the airport).
Because these guys threatened our last position on the beach as we withdrew (no other beach area would do), we were going to have to do something about them.
It was a successful meeting; but I was particularly glad to see my old policemen, who offered to take and defend the port for us as we pulled out, if we could give them ammunition, guaranteeing we’d have no problems there. Despite opposition from our political side, who shared the UN’s distrust of the Somali police, I gave them the ammo. I knew they were anxious to prove once again that our faith in them had not been misplaced.
They lived up to their word; the port area was never a problem for us as we pulled out.
Another encouraging development at the meeting came from Aideed’s onetime financier, Osman Atto. After his release from the UN’s island prison, Atto had a falling-out with Aideed and then carved out his own faction and militia. Now, during the meeting, he offered to help with security. I took him up on his offer a few days later, when a particularly nasty armed gang outside the main gate of the airport started giving the Pakistanis trouble. They subsequently shot up an Italian news crew and killed the photographer. I called Osman, who rolled out his super-technicals (big, military-type trucks armed with heavy crew-served weapons such as quad fifty antiaircraft guns) and engaged the rogue militia. After a fierce fight, his troops defeated the bad guys and drove them from the area, and then took control of the gate area.
Later, I had to ask him to pull his super-technicals out of there, since they made our helo guys nervous. Osman gladly complied.
As the meeting was breaking up, an old militia leader remained seated, staring grief-stricken out over the devastated city and the piles of abandoned UN material around the port and airport. “A lot of resources and lives have been wasted,” he told me, his face close to tears. “For what? We’ll be abandoned by the world and left on our own to suffer more years of killing and devastation.”
I didn’t have much hope to offer him as he left.
