The good captain, p.14
The Good Captain, page 14
For the first time, I now began to deal with real fear—not the rising panic that can happen in the moment, but the fear that comes after, when you have time to think. I was no longer a young, indestructible junior officer. I had a wife, and children, and a steadily growing sense of my own mortality. I had seen, smelled and experienced death. I had heard and felt bullets snapping past, only inches away. I had learned how cheap life can be. I began to be afraid, and the realization disgusted me. Each trip outside the compound became harder, the effort to mask my fear more difficult, my sleep more troubled. I began to doubt myself.
Soldiers as a rule don’t talk about such things, and anyway I had no close friends in Mogadishu to unburden myself to. And then, late one night on the roof of the compound, I had a kind of epiphany. There was, for sure, something I feared more than getting killed. My real fear was shame. I realized that to surrender to my fear, to let it win, would cause me to hate myself, to shirk the fight. Close friends would pity me, and my peers would condemn me, behind my back if not to my face. In a long career I would encounter officers who stopped at nothing to avoid combat. You find them in every war. I was sure I couldn’t do that. That certainty gave me a hope and confidence that never left. In the years to come I would see more death, more war, and more fear. But it would never rule me. In Somalia, I learned something that every good combat soldier knows. I learned not to value my own life overmuch.
About a week later, I was called to the phone. An irate colonel from the Army staff in the Pentagon was on the other end. He began to harangue me. I had not asked the Army’s permission to go to Somalia. In fact, I had not even bothered to inform them. Who the hell did I think I was? I was supposed to be a White House Fellow, wearing a suit and tie, not gallivanting around Mogadishu. I’d better get my ass back to Washington ASAP. If I was not back at work by the inauguration, I would be dropped from the program. Then the Army would deal with me.
I marveled, not for the first time, at how moving to the sound of the guns always seemed to piss off the higher-ups. It had happened in Grenada, it had happened when I tried to go to the Gulf War, and it was happening again. I relayed all this to Oakley, who just smiled and said, “Probably shouldn’t annoy the Army too much. After all they sign your paycheck. Thanks for a great job, but you better get back.”
That night I listened to the call to prayer, broadcast via loudspeaker all over Mogadishu, as I never had before. I found it beautiful and haunting at the same time. At the Academy I had studied Islam and read some of the Koran. Classical Islamic scholars spoke of two worlds, Dar al-Islam—the “House of Islam”—and Dar al-Harb—the “House of War.” For true believers, only a binary world existed on earth, that part ruled by Islam and all the rest. The task of the faithful was to bring the one into the other. In Somalia, we brought force to counter force, hoping to stop near-genocide. But we had stepped into something like a parallel universe, ruled by laws, beliefs, and cultures we understood only dimly, or not at all. This paradox would haunt me for the rest of my career and beyond.
The trip back involved a small plane to Nairobi and a commercial flight to Washington, with a change in Munich. During the trip I tried to take stock. What had I learned? I had formed a deep respect for the civilian diplomats and aid workers I’d encountered, for the Marine comrades I’d served with, and even for the journalists I’d encountered who in the main worked hard to get a tough story out accurately, under difficult and dangerous conditions. I’d gained confidence that my Army experiences and academic training had equipped me to do high-level, challenging missions, even if they were not traditional military tasks. I’d learned that overwhelming force, clear, simple rules of engagement, unity of command and limited, understandable objectives work best. Finally, Somalia had introduced me, in a way Grenada hadn’t, to the notion that real, existential evil exists in the world. To intentionally starve hundreds of thousands of people to death for political ends seemed impossible to imagine. Never again would I imagine a world where good and reason prevailed—at least, not without real protectors. In Somalia, I had seen the Devil walking abroad.
By the end of President Bush’s term of office on January 20, 1993, death by starvation had largely ceased and open clan warfare had diminished drastically. Sober analysts believed that as many as 100,000 lives may have been saved. When people remember Somalia today, they recall the trauma and the failures that came after. But Restore Hope is an example of what right looks like, with a clear objective, clear political guidance, ample resources, a limited level of ambition and relative freedom of action for military commanders on the ground.
I touched down at Dover on January 19 to hear that my former position at the Office of National Service was under scrutiny. Though the office would remain, the new team had embraced a new vision, focused on paid community service, and denigrating the Bush community volunteer initiative as “not a viable model.” I looked about for a new placement, like a number of my classmates who had been reshuffled during the change of administrations. Here my connections proved helpful. Former Sosh professors and retired colonels Bill Taylor and Don Snyder worked a few blocks away at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a well-known Washington think tank. After a few phone calls I was informed that I would be welcome to join the Arms Control and Defense Office at the National Security Council staff.
At “NSC Defense” I was fortunate to join a wonderful team headed by former Air Force officer and Senate staffer Bob Bell. A protégé of Senator Sam Nunn, a giant in the world of national security, Bell was a moderate Democrat with great gifts, both as a political operator and as a defense professional. Bell ran a small, tight staff that focused on managing the interagency interface between the White House and the Department of Defense. I was asked to work ground force issues, meaning the Army and Marine Corps. Like my teammates I worked hard, drafting dozens of policy memos in my tour at NSC Defense. I learned quickly that the ability to distill an issue to its basic components, find and confer with the experts, and then generate a coherent one-page memo making the case and providing a recommendation, was the coin of the realm.
Bell was a great coach, allowing maximum latitude but stepping in with wisdom and guidance when needed. I still recall the way he schooled me in the ways of Washington. In one instance he called me in to critique a memo I’d written recommending that the NSC nonconcur on a request from the Coast Guard to upgrade a two-star position to three. Just after the end of the Cold War, all the services were being forced to downsize and the request just didn’t make sense.
Bell motioned to me to take a seat. In a moment, he was on the speaker phone with the Coast Guard commandant. I listened as the admiral pleaded with Bob for support. Feigning his reluctance, Bell finally gave in. After hanging up, Bell pulled open a desk drawer and said, “What’s in there?”
I looked inside, puzzled. “Ummm, paper clips, index cards, manila folders—what am I supposed to be seeing?”
Bob chuckled. “Wrong! That drawer is full of blue chips. I just added another one to my pile. I could care less if the Coast Guard has one less two-star and one more three-star. But someday—and that day may never come—I might need the commandant of the Coast Guard. If I ever do, he’ll cash that chip for me. And that’s how Washington works, son!” It was good advice and I never forgot it. You make your friends when you don’t need them. And you don’t make enemies unless you absolutely have to.
At NSC Defense I was surrounded by real pros, but the rest of the White House staff was very much a mixed bag. The Democrats had been out of power for three successive administrations and their bench wasn’t deep. In some cases, I found myself working with 20-something NSC staffers from other offices who weeks before had literally been bag handlers for senior campaign folks. The new national security advisor, Tony Lake, was a college professor with limited hands-on national security experience. The new secretary of defense, Les Aspin, was a powerful congressional committeeman but had no experience in managing large executive enterprises. In some cases, career defense, intelligence and foreign service officers found their way into key positions, but there were many—too many—young, ardent ideologues who knew little about national security.
One of my first tasks was to “take care of” a group of generals and admirals who had endorsed President Clinton. This was something of a new dimension in American politics, at least in terms of scale. The professional ethic denigrated openly partisan political activity using one’s military status, even for retired officers. Their use of military titles, to many, violated the traditional separation of the military from politics. While so far as I knew no explicit promises had been made to reward their support, there was a clear intent to recognize them in a meaningful way. I was uncomfortable but recognized that I now worked at the interface between military and political affairs. The lesser-known flag officers, mostly long retired one- and two-stars, were rewarded with photo opportunities, seats on presidential boards and commissions, and the like. The leader of the group, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral William Crowe, had larger ambitions. Angling for a cabinet position, he was offered, and later accepted, the post of ambassador to the Court of St. James. I felt, and still feel, that retired officers should not trade on their military status to openly campaign for political figures, especially with hopes of political reward. But times have changed, and regrettably this seems to be a new norm.
As I settled in my promotion date came around and I woke up one day a major, with no ceremony or fanfare. Coming out of Mogadishu I retained a real interest in our progress there. Although NSC Defense had a hand in Somalia, our influence was not strong. The lead NSC office was “Transnational Threats,” a new construct headed by the ever-flexible Dick Clarke, carried over by the Clinton team and chartered to run across the lines of most of the regional and functional NSC directorates.
U.S. policy on Somalia now entered a surreal phase. Restore Hope under President Bush had been characterized by a short-term focus, overwhelming force, close cooperation and liaison between its political and military components, clear political guidance and a distinct policy of non-interference in the murky waters of local Somali politics. While attempts were made to support local and national reconciliation to ease clan rivalry and support humanitarian assistance, nation building was never allowed to emerge as a primary goal. In sharp contrast, the new approach (dubbed Operation Continue Hope by U.S. military planners) envisioned indefinite time horizons, far weaker military forces, more ambitious and ambiguous political goals and a more idealistic and ideological tone and character. Under Bush the mission was humanitarian assistance. Under Clinton the mission would become far more expansive.
The nature of the U.S. mission in Somalia began to change almost from the day Clinton took office. His national security team lacked experience but not confidence, and within weeks of the inauguration a strong shift in policy began to emerge. The focus now changed from “stopping the dying” to rebuilding Somali national institutions, infrastructure and political consciousness; from the U.S. to the UN; and from overwhelming military force to the smallest possible American military footprint. On March 26, 1993, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright voted in favor of UN Security Council Resolution 814, creating a successor UN organization in Somalia, UNISOM II. Among other things, UN Security Council Resolution 814 committed the UN to more expansive national reconstruction and political reconciliation goals and charged UNISOM II to disarm the Somali clans, a fateful step that presaged the failures that would soon follow.
To ensure U.S. control, retired four-star Admiral Jonathan Howe was named to head UNISOM II as the secretary general’s special representative. Howe had recently served as deputy national security advisor and was therefore experienced in the interagency process and, presumably, read in on the complexities of the mission in Somalia. Polished and articulate, as a military officer he represented both non-partisanship and a willingness to take direction and follow orders. As a recently returned officer with experience on the ground in Somalia I was asked to brief Howe before he left. I forwarded a memo pointing out the dangers, as I saw them, of taking sides in internecine Somali politics. So far as I could tell from my meeting, Howe had not read the paper, but focused instead on minute questions about what kind of clothes he should bring, and whether I thought he should carry a sidearm or not. I left deeply depressed.
To command American troops in Somalia, Major General Thomas Montgomery, a tank officer and protégé of the Army chief of staff, was named as commander of U.S. Forces as well as deputy commander of UNISOM II’s military forces (under Turkish Lieutenant General Cevik Bir). Significantly UNISOM II lacked a trained military staff and important communications and intelligence systems. Even Montgomery’s own U.S. combat forces were placed under CENTCOM’s operational control, 7,000 miles away. An ad hoc organization beset with conflicting national agendas, UNISOM II was poorly suited to conduct combat operations. Things soon began to go wrong.
Early in Clinton’s administration it became evident that Madeleine Albright, the new U.S. ambassador to the UN, wielded a big stick. Albright was primarily an academic and a party fundraiser, though she had worked in the Carter administration in congressional liaison. USUN was her first diplomatic posting and her first major political job. She brought a strong personality to the administration but lacked practical experience and its chastening effects. Her influence on our Somalia policy was at once dominating and doleful.
Driven by a strong desire to pull U.S. forces out, the U.S. troop presence in Somalia declined from 17,000 in mid-March to 4,500 in early June as UNITAF disbanded and the Marines went home. Although many coalition units remained, most of the combat capability in Somalia left with the Americans. This dramatic reduction in U.S. military force coincided with aggressive actions to force various Somali militias to disarm. As Aidid ruled south Mogadishu with his Somali National Alliance or SNA, where UN forces were concentrated, UNISOM II pressed the Habr Gidr hard. Predictably, there was resistance and UNISOM II began to take casualties. Almost immediately, national contingents began to suspend activities that placed them at risk of reprisal. Increasingly, Howe and Montgomery turned to the lone remaining U.S. light infantry battalion for the hard missions.
On June 5, in an attempt to search one of Aidid’s heavy weapons storage areas, a Pakistani unit was badly mauled. In a lengthy firefight, Aidid’s militia killed 23 and wounded 59. UNISOM II’s Malaysian armor and American troops were unable to intervene in time to prevent the heavy loss of life. From that date, everything changed in Somalia.
Both the UN and the U.S. government reacted heatedly. On June 6, the UN Security Council approved a resolution explicitly calling for the “arrest and detention for prosecution, trial and punishment” of the perpetrators of the attack on the Pakistanis. Despite later attempts to distance the Clinton administration from this action, there is little doubt that the U.S. government not only supported but forcefully promoted this response.
Howe immediately requested special operations forces, and while the administration pondered a response, UNISOM II stepped up its operations against Aidid. In mid-June, U.S. forces attacked a radio station and ammunition dumps and attacked targets throughout the city with AC130 Spectre gunships (these were later withdrawn for obscure reasons). On July 12, U.S. forces conducted a major raid on the “Abdi House,” scene of a meeting of SNA leaders to discuss UN reconciliation proposals. Many were not in agreement with Aidid and were supportive of efforts to end the tribal in-fighting and encourage foreign aid and investment. Nevertheless, ground troops and Cobra helicopters firing heavy antiarmor missiles destroyed the building with heavy loss of life. Fifty-four Somalis were killed, and in the ensuing rioting four Western journalists attempting to cover the event were killed by the enraged crowd. The Abdi house raid went far to unify Aidid’s people solidly against the Americans and raised the conflict to a new level.
On August 8, a remotely detonated antitank mine (similar to the improvised explosive devices or IEDs commonly used later in Iraq) killed four Americans, and similar attacks on the 19th and 22nd wounded 10 more. Mogadishu was fast becoming a free fire zone, and as hostilities escalated, President Clinton approved the dispatch of a 440-soldier Joint Special Operations Task Force (JSOTF).
From my small office in the Old Executive Office Building, I read the daily cables and intelligence summaries with mounting alarm. As good as they were, a few dozen elite special operations troopers were not enough to cope with the several thousand experienced fighters we knew Aidid could muster. Called Task Force (TF) Ranger, this composite unit was built around a rifle company and battalion headquarters element from the 75th Ranger Regiment, a small detachment of elite special operators, and an aviation element from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), equipped with MH60 Black Hawk utility helicopters and MH6 and AH6 “Little Bird” light helicopters. Small numbers of communicators, Air Force combat controllers and para rescue airmen (“PJs”), and a few SEALs were included. Crucially, the AC130s did not return. TF Ranger, led by Major General William F. Garrison, did not report to General Montgomery as commander of U.S. Forces in Somalia. Instead, as a “strategic asset,” it reported directly to Central Command in Tampa, Florida.
By this time, I had left the White House for a year at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. The year was busy but not overly taxing, as we prepared for higher responsibilities as staff officers and commanders at battalion and brigade level. Many friends and classmates were there, and the opportunity to mix with friends, old and new, U.S. and international, was a welcome respite from the long hours I’d spent at the NSC. Still, I missed the intensity and the feel of being at the center of events. I remained interested in Somalia, pulsing colleagues whenever I could for updates and following events on CNN and in the newspapers.
