Speech by Senator John Kerry on Somalia

On the floor of the US Senate, Thursday, October 7, 1993.

"The President's chosen course of action makes it clear to Aideed and to others in the international community that the United States is not simply walking away from its responsibilities because the operation has become difficult."

Brackets in original; minor corrections have been made silently. Single quotation marks ('apostrophes') are used in the copy text where, I think, double quotation marks ("quotes") ought to be used.

Mr. President, this has been a tumultuous week in some respects in Washington because of the situation in Somalia. Not just tumultuous, it has been a very difficult week for all of us as Americans because we have had a lot of deja vu about Vietnam, about Lebanon, about the soldiers killed. We feel a sense of confrontation and impotence simultaneously. The situation in Somalia elicits a lot of different feelings from Americans.

This week has also been difficult because we lost 12 young American soldiers, another 75 or more have been wounded. And one young brave American pilot, Michael Durant, who hails from my region of the country, from our neighboring State of New Hampshire, is now being held hostage by a warlord, Mohamed Farah Aideed, who seeks power at any and all costs, including the lives of innocent Somali women and children. Five more soldiers are reported missing, and this morning's news suggests that more American servicemen may be wounded or dead as a result of another attack yesterday on the airport in Mogadishu.

Like every American, I was saddened and angered, deeply, deeply angered, and hurt, by the pictures of Somalis dragging a dead American soldier through the streets. The blatant disrespect for human life, which is such a contradiction to the mission that we went there for, that we put our soldiers at risk for, is difficult for all Americans to deal with. It is unconscionable, and clearly it demands a response.

But, Mr. President, I must say I have also been jarred by the reactions of many of our colleagues in the U.S. Senate and in the Congress. I am jarred by the extraordinary sense of panic that seems to be rushing through this deliberative body, and by the strident cries for a quick exit, an immediate departure notwithstanding the fact that what we are doing in Somalia does not bear any resemblance to Grenada, to Panama, to Iraq, and most importantly, to Vietnam.

This is not a Vietnam. It is not a potential Vietnam. This is a very different kind of operation. This reality does not excuse the lack of debate in this country. It does not excuse the failure to explain the mission, or to ensure that the mission is clear. None of that is excused. But, Mr. President, I do not believe that appropriate reaction is the reaction that we have heard from so many of our colleagues.

The choice for the United States of America is not between two alternatives only: staying in or getting out. There are many other choices in between which better reflect the aspirations and hopes of our country and, most importantly, better reflect the reasons that those 12 young Americans who gave their lives went to Somalia in the first place.

Mr. President, there is no question that some people think we have no business being in Somalia. There is no question that some people can legitimately make the argument that the mission has so changed that we should not be there now. Just moments ago, the President addressed some of these feelings.

But I am convinced, Mr. President, that sober reflection and careful analysis of the stakes, of the choices, and of the risks would bring us to concur with what the President of the United States has just announced to the Nation.

We must recognize that any decision that we make about Somalia is not just a decision to get our troops home. It is not just a decision about looking out for the interests of the United States.

There are extraordinary ramifications attached to the choice that we make in the next days in the Congress and in this country. What we choose to do will certainly affect the fate of Michael Durant. It will certainly affect the fate of other hostages, if there are other hostages. It will send a signal to other renegade elements throughout the world about American resolve under fire.

Over the years, we have spent countless dollars and sustained loss of life to influence disparate elements and the course of history in other countries, for example Vietnam. I want to emphasize that there is no similarity between the stakes in this mission and those that were presented in the course of arguments about Vietnam — a war that was the longest in American history and that most Americans supported for a good 7 or 8 years before a consensus developed to take a different course of action.

What we choose to do now will affect the Somali people and the future of this particular U.N. operation in extraordinary ways.

But it will also have deep implications for the projected peacemaking operation in Bosnia. It will influence the role that the United States can play as the one remaining superpower in the world and that we intend to play in the international community, and in future multilateral peacekeeping operations.

Mr. President, we have heard much rhetoric on this Senate floor about transitions in the world, about the so-called new world order, which we all know is long on new and short on order today.

But the fact is that nothing we choose to do will be the same as it was in the course of that bipolar, East-West struggle of the last 50 years. So as we decide in Somalia, we should consider carefully what impact our decision will have on the new order and on the operational capacity of the United Nations, of NATO, or of other international organizations to maintain stability in the world.

I believe, Mr. President, that the choice we make will have extraordinary ramifications. I also submit that because the President set a withdrawal date of 6 months from now, he has relieved the agony of that choice. It is not half as difficult as it might have been were there not a finality to the engagement of American troops in Somalia. But, Mr. President, because of the importance of the commitment we have made to international order over these last 50 years, we should consider carefully how these next days play out with respect to Somalia.

First of all, we should not let our outrage over events overtake our ability to make a rational and sensible decision that the American people can understand and support. I believe the President of the United States has offered that kind of rational decision.

It was President Bush who made the decision last December to involve the United States of America in Somalia. It was a decision produced in large part by television diplomacy. Nevertheless it was a decision that we, in our sense of conscience, as a nation, made. And it was made, I might add, with considerable national consensus. We went over there to relieve a desperate humanitarian situation. By that time, 300,000 Somalis had died from the famine and from civil war, hundreds of thousands more were at risk. We can truly say today that perhaps 1 million are alive who might not have been were it not for our effort.

By last December, Somalia had fallen into a state of literal chaos, racked by factional fighting and marauding armed bandits. The economy had collapsed. Civil authority ceased to function. The U.N.-brokered cease fire among Mogadishu's warlords had broken down. As a result the United Nations' peacekeeping operation, UNOSOM I, failed in its mission to provide adequate security for the delivery of relief supplies.

So in response to that situation, in the full light of day, the United Nations Security Council, on December 3, authorized the use of 'all necessary means', including force, to establish 'as soon as possible a secure environment' for the humanitarian relief operation in Somalia. Six days later, American troops began to be deployed to Somalia under Operation Restore Hope, in support of the Security Council's decision to intervene.

Before dispatching United States troops to Somalia, President Bush spelled out the mission in a televised address to the Nation. He said: 'Make no mistake about it, we and our allies will make sure that aid goes through.'

That was the mission. That has been the fundamental mission with some exceptions and unfortunate aberrations.

The following day, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, told the American people: 'We are prepared for hostilities, should they occur * * * and if necessary, to take preemptive action.'

Everybody supported that. I did not see many of our Republican colleagues running down to the Senate floor to say, wait a minute, Secretary Cheney, what do you mean we are going to take preemptive action, that we are prepared for hostilities?

We know there was a risk, Mr. President.

A few days later, President Bush reiterated that point in a letter to Congress:

We do not intend that U.S. Armed Forces deployed to Somalia become involved in hostilities. Nonetheless, these forces are equipped and ready to take such measures as may be necessary to accomplish their humanitarian mission and defend themselves, if necessary * * *.

As to the duration of the mission, the President's letter indicated that American forces would remain in Somalia 'only as long as necessary to establish a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations.' That is what we signed on to, and that is what the American people expected. We would then turn over those operations, as President Clinton has just said we will do, to the United Nations' peacekeeping force assigned to Somalia. In his letter President Bush went on to say: 'While it is not possible to estimate precisely how long the transfer of responsibility may take, we believe that prolonged operations will not be necessary.' And so again, I believe President Clinton's decision today is in keeping with the original intent.

The American people and both Houses of Congress through separate resolutions supported the deployment of American troops to Somalia because the purpose of the mission was clear and it was acceptable and the duration of the mission was supposed to be relatively limited.

Our forces were sent to Somalia for one and one purpose only, Mr. President: to pave the way for the delivery of humanitarian relief. We understood that the mission was not without risk. Somalia was, and continues to be, a hotbed of guns and heavy weapons, many of which we and our Soviet adversary supplied during the cold war in the competition for influence in the Horn of Africa. We are the ones who put the weapons there that are now being fired at us.

We knew that American soldiers might be wounded in Somalia and that there might be casualties. But at the time we were willing to accept that risk because we saw the mission in legitimate, conscribed terms, the force was deemed to be sufficiently large to minimize the possibilities of confrontation, and the operation was under our control.

In the last few days, Mr. President, many of our colleagues, particularly those on the other side of the aisle, have chastised the present administration for its failure to bring the boys home before the casualties ensue. If our troops had faced a blaze of bullets at that now-famous landing on the shores of Mogadishu in December instead of the glare of CNN cameras or if shortly thereafter there had been an enormous confrontation, I am not sure my colleagues would have been so quick to criticize the situation. I think they would have registered support for the President at that moment, and there would have been a greater opportunity to try to examine what the alternatives were.

As far as I am concerned, Mr. President, we made the right decision when we went into Grenada and into Panama, even though we knew casualties were a possibility. I believe the previous administration made the right decision when it sent our forces to Somalia last December. Operation Restore Hope was a reflection of America at its best. It demonstrated the depth of our humanitarian spirit and the critical role of the United States in multilateral actions. With our participation and command, the U.N. task force in Somalia [UNITAF] was able to achieve its objective. Ports, airports, and other corridors for the delivery of international relief were opened. Food began to move and the threat of famine began to ebb.

I think that the President today made the right decision to try to establish a process which will maintain the capacity of our forces, protect them, and to disengage while simultaneously upholding the mission we have set out to accomplish.

UNITAF's mission ended 4 months ago, in May, but American forces remain in Somalia as active participants in a U.N. operation which is distinctly different and more far-reaching than the one we originally signed up for. The American people understand this full well. They know that American soldiers and pilots are being wounded and killed for objectives which the present administration has until today failed to spell out or to restrain. That is why we are now mired in this debate over Somalia. That is why the calls for withdrawal resonate through this Chamber.

Seven months ago, at the end of March, the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution expanding the U.N. mission in Somalia from establishing the conditions for the delivery of humanitarian relief to creating conditions for economic and political rehabilitation and recovery. The United Nations set out to lay the foundations for economic and political stability in Somalia through a multi-faceted operation that includes political reconciliation, political and administrative institution building, economic recovery and development, refugee repatriation, and security. The estimated length of time for this operation, called UNOSOM II, was 2 years.

Mr. President, the United States, through our representative to the United Nations, endorsed and voted for this operation. In fact, the Clinton administration agreed to leave some 3,000 American troops in Somalia to perform logistics for the other units under U.N. command and to make the 1,300-man Rapid Reaction Force, under United States command, available to the United Nations to provide rapid support for other U.N. units under attack. The Reaction Force was subsequently supplemented by an Army Ranger unit. As a result, U.S. forces have been on the front lines of the United Nation's efforts to establish security in southern Mogadishu and to capture aideed.

Mr. President, I think one of the reasons that we are so torn about what has happened in recent days, frankly, is that we did not adhere to one of the painful lessons of the Vietnam period which is, a President should not send American forces into harm's way without a genuine national consensus.

Unfortunately, in candor, I must say the present administration failed to seek that consensus when it agreed to allow our forces to participate in UNOSOM II, an operation that has gone awry.

I believe that extensive consultation on and explanation of this issue several months ago would have benefited everybody and made it much easier to deal with the questions we face now or might have enabled us to avoid them altogether.

The American people and the United Nations and certainly the administration would have avoided the confrontation that we now find ourselves in.

I believe that the administration should have explained UNOSOM's objectives and the rationale for American participation in it. Had that occurred we would have been in a position to make a far more reasoned decision, absent the outrage that has been brought on by the events of the last days.

The fact of the matter is that did not happen. We are in Somalia and we have learned the hard way that there are real tangible costs to that involvement. We are now confronted with difficult questions. Should we leave? If so how and when? For however long we stay, what are the conditions under which we stay? Some will say 6 months is too long. Some will say it is not long enough. Some will say that there is no chance whatsoever for any of the objectives to be achieved and that we still ought to move faster to get out.

I recognize that UNOSOM II has had difficulties, but we ought to acknowledge also that, apart from about a 15-square mile area within Mogadishu, in the rest of Somalia UNOSOM II has had some extraordinary successes. With our help and that of the Ethiopians and the Eritreans, the United Nations has been able to forge an agreement among a broad range of Somalia parties for a transitional government at the national level and for governing structures at the regional and local levels. This agreement could provide the basis for further reconciliation. In some parts of Somalia, regional councils are already being set up. Security has been reestablished in most of the country with the exception, as I say, of that one southern portion of Mogadishu where there are a certain number of followers of Mr. Aideed.

With U.N. assistance, the Somali police force that was widely respected among all Somalis prior to the civil war has begun to be reconstituted. Initiatives are being taken to rebuild Somalia's judicial system.

I might ask my colleagues to look back quickly to a place called Cambodia. Japan took casualties and there was a hue and cry to get their troops out. But Japan hung in there, and the result was that there was an election, and a new government. Something good came out of that peacekeeping effort.

Notwithstanding the encouraging signs that I just articulated about Somalia, serious mistakes have been made in the U.N. operation to date. The military component has dominated the rest of the operation and none of us intended that. The United Nations Secretary General Boutros-Ghali and his appointed head of the operation in Somalia, Adm. Johathan Howe, frankly seem to have become obsessed with capturing Aideed.

It should not have been hard for reasonable people to make a judgment about the difficulty or the odds against capturing Aideed successfully without a sound intelligence network on the ground and without a structure to support that kind of operation.

All the United Nations has succeeded in doing is raising Aideed's stature among those who support him and frankly enhancing his power, and, I might add, in making U.S. forces the best recruiting ticket that Mr. Aideed ever had.

A far more prudent course of action would have been and clearly now is, as the President has articulated, to isolate Aideed by working through the many Somalis who support the U.N. presence and have a vested interest in rebuilding Somalia and by working with other countries in the region that have a far better understanding of Somali history and society.

It is also very clear, Mr. President, that the U.N. operation needed to be redirected even before this week's result. Now it is an imperative and I think the President has appropriately made that clear. In addition, President Clinton has set a specific deadline, and he has told U.N. officials that the United States must build up the capability of its forces in Somalia, reinvigorate the political process directed toward the establishment of some form of working governmental structure and involve neighborhood African countries in that process.

I would applaud the fact that the President is guaranteeing the protection of the troops who are now there and that he has sent Ambassador Oakley back — an individual whose competence and experience in the region is obvious.

Mr. President, given Somalia's history, I am personally very skeptical that the United Nations can truly succeed in laying the cornerstones for a stable Somalia. Had that been the choice before we put the troops in, I am convinced that most Senators here would have said that that should not be the mission.

The President's chosen course of action makes it clear to Aideed and to others in the international community that the United States is not simply walking away from its responsibilities because the operation has become difficult. It strengthens the capacity of the U.N. force in the short term while simultaneously putting the United Nations on notice that we do not intend to stay in Somalia indefinitely. I believe it provides the best combination of our message. It provides the United Nations with a reasonable period of time to marshal other forces and to redirect its operation to enhance the prospects for success.

Mr. President, for years we have lamented the inability of the United Nations to act. With the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war, the United Nations finally has the opportunity to meet the aspirations of its creators. As the one remaining superpower, we have the opportunity to play a critical role in this process. And I applaud the President for choosing to try to do that. The way we handle our involvement in Somalia will be key to the ability of the United Nations to undertake peacemaking efforts in the future. Let us be clear that we understand what UNOSOM is at this point in time and what it is not. UNOSOM is not a warmaking effort. And Somalia is not Vietnam. We are not in Somalia to fight an ideology or an enemy nation. The country is not overrun by guerrillas jumping out at our forces at every turn.

The present U.N. operation in Somalia ought to be limited to those objectives we can reasonably expect to achieve. We should bend over backwards to say that it is, in these next few months. To end the suffering of the Somali people at the hands of their own warlords, I believe it is appropriate for us to try — and I emphasize try — to afford them an opportunity to break the cycle of famine and war and to build a foundation for a more stable country.

We cannot guarantee that outcome Mr. President. We have never been able to. But we have joined with other nations in a bold and noble effort, to try to do that for humanitarian purposes.

I applaud the President for now choosing to help to put us back on that humanitarian track.

One of the stated objectives of UNOSOM II is to establish a sufficient level of security to allow other activities — humanitarian, economic and political — to continue.

There is no doubt in my mind that the U.N. strategy for establishing security in Mogadishu has been a failure. But that is not a sufficient reason for the United States to withdraw at this moment, to cut and run. What we need to do is to get the United Nations back on track.

We need to adopt a military strategy that limits the risks, not only for our forces but for those of other participating nations. We need to abandon the chase for Aideed and concentrate, instead, on marginalizing him through diplomatic and political means. We need to ensure that there is sufficient United States manpower and equipment in Somalia to shore up our forces in the short term while making plans to replace them over the longer term. Judging from the information I have seen to date, U.S. and U.N. forces were poorly equipped for the operation they undertook last weekend, and the backup plan was sorely inadequate, to say the least. We need to insist that the actual deployment of U.S. forces on the ground minimizes, as much as possible, the potential for hostage taking. Finally, we need to force the United Nations to reinvigorate the other components of the operation particularly the political elements of the peacemaking process. If we do these things which the President now says we will then it makes sense to keep our forces in Somalia until the end of March.

Mr. President, we are in a situation now where withdrawal would send the wrong signal to Aideed and his supporters. It would encourage other nations to withdraw from the U.N. effort in Somalia and no doubt would result in the total breakdown of the operation and possibly the resumption of the cycle of famine and war which brought the United States and other members of the international community to Somalia in the first place. Rightly or wrongly, the Bush administration committed us to this operation. We, as a nation, have accepted this responsibility. We should not panic and flee when the going gets rough. If we are going to withdraw, we have an obligation to do so in a responsible manner, in a way that does not undermine the operation or leave the Somali people to a worse fate. I think the President's plan, as currently outlined, will allow us to step aside responsibly.

Source.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Mon. 03/15/04 06:43:03 AM
Categorized as International & John Kerry & Speeches and Suchlike.