Making War to Keep Peace (13 page)

The Clinton administration would pursue a policy of global engagement and would not shrink from the use of force. “There is a growing realization,” Morton Halperin and David Scheffer wrote in their influential 1992 book
Self-Determination in the New World Order
, “that collective use of military force can be a legitimate means to achieve legitimate ends.”
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For these authors, and for national security advisor Anthony Lake, a UN-based multilateral use of force was more legitimate than the unilateral use of force. Multilateral force—under the guise of “peacekeeping”—could be used to deal with a wide array of problems around the world.

Halperin—who became a Pentagon adviser himself—foresaw that this revolutionary shift in policy would find an intellectual home in the Department of Defense, where civilian appointees would reorganize U.S. force structure and prepare American forces for their new global roles. The civilians sought at once to downsize and transform the military, and to develop UN military, intelligence, and command and control capacities. The convergence of the end of the cold war, Boutros-Ghali's selection as UN secretary-general, and Clinton's election as president resulted in an explosion of Security Council resolutions, plans, and authorizations for peacekeeping and led directly to what happened in Somalia and Haiti.

UN peacekeeping was seen as the centerpiece of a sweeping change in the theory and practice of national security. The concept of “peacekeeping” was stretched to include the management of all phases of conflict—from diplomacy to war—carried out by multinational forces under UN command. Halperin described the concept in a memo to Secretary of Defense Les Aspin:

U.S. support would be crucial, Halperin explained. It would require “preparing our forces and our thinking to engage in peacekeeping; paying for peacekeeping so that we have forces ready to fight; and strengthening international peacekeeping organizations and practices so that peacekeeping will be truly international.”
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U.S. forces would be trained to participate in international peacekeeping without earmarking any particular units for this function. The U.S. military would be introduced to the new thinking and new practices, including the idea of serving as requested by the Security Council and under non-American commanders. The new program would include joint training and peacekeeping exercises with other NATO members and with the Russians. The UN's mili
tary capabilities would be reinforced by the United States, which would contribute intelligence, planning, communications, and other kinds of help.

William Perry, then deputy secretary of defense, made similar proposals in an essay that appeared after his elevation to secretary. In the essay, Perry anticipated that core activities of international security would be centralized in the UN, and that “preventive diplomacy, conflict resolution, war, postwar management would be carried out as multinational operations under UN command and control.” He said that a chief function of DOD would be to prepare Americans for such service and provide equipment, technology, and advice to the UN.
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Perry's plan assumed a level of harmony and cooperation among nations that has never existed in human history. It was based on the premise that the United States had an interest in peace, preventive action, and conflict resolution everywhere, and that we should be ready to risk American lives to achieve ambiguous goals in remote countries with which we have no significant ties. Perry's plans further assumed that a large number of other countries would be willing to join the United States in the disinterested use of force; that the putative beneficiaries would desire this international “help”; and that the UN would be competent to exercise command and control, and willing and able to use the intelligence and technology he planned to transfer to them. As Senator Richard Lugar (RIA) later commented, “The Clinton administration was not comfortable with the use of military power and simply hoped it wouldn't have to be used. Or, if it did, it would be shared responsibility with others, and that there might be some overall legitimacy through the United Nations or some international command.”
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Underlying the approach was a conception of force that differed sharply from the one that had prevailed up to and throughout the cold war. Gone, too, were the Weinberger-Powell principles: Perry, Lake, Halperin, and others associated with the Clinton administration were less reluctant to use force than the Reagan administration, perhaps because there was less danger of provoking a major war. They were also less concerned about having a preponderance of force when they did use it, instead advocating limited force for limited purposes.
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The Clinton team and the UN secretary-general seem to have underestimated the dangers
of peacekeeping, assuming that peacekeepers would seldom face armed conflict or confront serious adversaries. This benign conception of the new peacekeeping explains why Clinton's Department of Defense leadership was casual about denying requests for additional armor in Somalia, and about intelligence and reinforcements. The president and his top advisers had not seriously considered the dangers involved in committing men to conflict under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, under UN command, or under Boutros-Ghali's rules of engagement.

FROM UNITAF TO UNOSOM II: U.S. FORCES UNDER UN COMMAND

Phase I of the Somalia intervention, the Bush phase, ended on May 4, 1993, when U.S. Marine Lieutenant General Robert B. Johnston handed command of the force to the UN force commander for UNOSOM, the widely respected Turkish lieutenant general Cevik Bir. U.S. Major General Thomas Montgomery served as deputy force commander. Forty-seven hundred U.S. troops remained to ease the transition. The goals of the mission changed again. The Security Council requested the secretary-general—through Admiral Howe—to assist in political reconciliation and rehabilitation. When the four thousand remaining U.S. troops were transferred to UN command, American participation in UNOSOM II got under way.

On July 1, 1993, President Clinton wrote to congressional leaders: “At the height of the U.S.-led Unified Task Force (UNITAF) operations, just over twenty-five thousand U.S. Armed Forces personnel were deployed to Somalia. Consistent with U.S. policy objectives, the current smaller U.S. contribution of approximately forty-four hundred personnel reflects the increased participation by other UN Member States.”
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In a letter to Senator John Warner (R-VA), Walter Slocombe, deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, explained the planned command and control structure:

At its peak, UNITAF (the original force commanded by the United States, consisting mainly of Americans) had just over 25,000 U.S. troops distributed over 40 percent of Somalia.
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By August 17, 1993, the secretary-general reported that the UNOSOM II force included 20,707 troops from twenty-seven countries. The primary contributors were Pakistan (4,973), the United States (2,703), Italy (2,538), Morocco (1,341), and France (1,130). The United States also contributed 1,167 troops for the Quick Reaction Force (QRF). Both Force Headquarters Command and total strength had been progressively built up, and about 8,000 more troops were expected, including 5,000 from India, bringing the force strength to the authorized level of 28,000—though these forces would prove neither well armed nor integrated.
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Meanwhile, the situation in Somalia had become more dangerous. Warfare among the clans had intensified, and attacks on UN troops had multiplied. The changes in the composition of UN forces and in the command structure affected the relationships among Somali combatants, the UN, and various national groups. As Robert Oakley noted, the relationship between Aideed and the United Nations was deteriorating. “Aideed made it clear he didn't trust Boutros-Ghali in particular or the United Nations in general,” he observed. “We kept saying, ‘You have to work with
him'…I think the administration at the top level did not fully appreciate the significance of what was going on.”
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The Massacre of Pakistanis

Aideed's forces possessed heavier weapons than anticipated and were more aggressive and effective than expected, especially after they had become convinced that the UN favored their rivals. On June 5, 1993, Aideed's men ambushed and killed at least twenty-three Pakistani soldiers. Ten were reported missing and fifty-four wounded
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in two attacks—one as Pakistani forces left a radio station they had been sent to investigate, the other on lightly armed Pakistani soldiers who were attempting to deliver food. On June 6, the Security Council passed a U.S.-drafted Resolution 837, which condemned the murder of the Pakistani soldiers and announced that UN forces would identify, arrest, and punish the responsible parties. Oakley again noted the lack of communication between the White House and the Pentagon:

Boutros-Ghali appointed Tom Farer, a professor of international law at American University, to investigate the massacre of the Pakistanis. Farer's report concluded that only Aideed had the “requisite means, motive, and opportunity” to carry out these attacks. Farer was impressed by the military sophistication, planning, firepower, discipline, and first-class weapons employed by Aideed's forces.
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Mohammed Farah Aideed saw himself as a principal leader in Somalia—a future ruler and a legitimate competitor for primacy—and he came to see the UN as an obstacle to his status and power. Western opin
ion about Aideed varied widely. Oakley believed it was important to “play on his pride rather than to try to humiliate him.”
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He observed later that the environment was tense because “the Somalis are very xenophobic, aggressive people.” He saw Aideed as “a cunning man of violence,” especially volatile when offended. “I would treat him as if he were a vial of nitroglycerine that could go off in my hands.” General Anthony Zinni, UNITAF's director of operations, had a more positive view of Aideed's status and role. He saw Aideed as “probably the most successful general in the Somali army, the only one who had tactical successes in the war with Ethiopia…. He was very bright; he was an ambassador from Somalia to India. He served in the cabinet there; he was respected by his clan. There was a very strong case to be made on his behalf by his followers.”
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On the basis of the Farer report and Resolution 837, the immediate mission in Somalia changed again. The Clinton administration and Boutros-Ghali decided that UN forces must capture Aideed, whom they blamed for the escalating violence.
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But after the attacks on the Pakistani troops, other forces became progressively more unwilling to leave their safe havens and risk danger.

The new mission to capture Aideed, and the flawed logic of the Clinton administration's assertive multilateralism and nation-building theories, put U.S. forces increasingly at risk. Some of the other national units in UNOSOM II defied the U.S.-led mission to capture Aideed and made their own separate peace with him. One of Aideed's officers, Captain Haad, later said, “The Italians were not happy about the war the Americans were fighting against us. We knew that the UN forces were too many for us to confront. So what we did was to concentrate our attacks on the Americans and the forces who were taking their orders from the Americans, such as the Pakistanis. We had an understanding with some UN contingents that we would not attack them, and they would not attack us.”
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One U.S. Ranger thought the Aideed-Italian “arrangement” far more sinister: “The Italian compound was on the far end of the airfield from us. Every time the profile flights would take off, you would see lights flash. And what we perceived to be going on was that they were signaling the Somalis that we were coming. It definitely left you wondering which side they were actually on.”
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Targeting Aideed

On June 17, 1993, Admiral T. Howe called for Aideed's arrest, offering a reward of $25,000. U.S. commander Thomas Montgomery later said on
Frontline
, “I didn't have a problem with putting a price on his head…because Aideed was a real tyrant, a very, very dangerous man.”
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General Zinni, who had no role in the decision but knew the situation well, disagreed: “I think that the resolution to declare Aideed a criminal and put a price on his head was…ridiculous,” he said. Such a move meant that the UN forces were “no longer in a peace enforcement or peacekeeping [role],” Zinni felt, but in “a counterinsurgency operation or in some form of war.”
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