At the time, the Oct. 3 raid into south Mogadishu by Army Rangers seemed like just another security sweep to round up troublemakers.
But judging from its early political impact, the firefight in which 18 Americans were killed and 75 wounded may well be one of those searing battlefield experiences whose memory shapes public opinion and defines what the United States will and will not do in the world for years after.The casualties, and the images of a dead American soldier being dragged through Mogadishu after that failed raid, prompted President Clinton to order a withdrawal from Somalia within six months.
It also forced the Clinton administration to rethink, and possibly scrap, plans to use American troops for U.N. peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, Haiti and other post-Cold-War hot spots - plans that were central to its whole conception of foreign policy.
In addition, the image of the United States pulling out of Somalia diminished the stockpile of credibility - built up in the Persian Gulf War - that Washington stands ready to use force to confront regional threats and raised doubts at home and abroad about the Clinton team's ability to manage foreign policy.
But a reconstruction of the raid, based on interviews with many of the commanders, officers and diplomats, sheds new light on the action and shows that it reached the brink of success.
The prisoners the Rangers were seeking had been captured without significant American casualties. But the mission collapsed when an Army helicopter was shot down - a setback the Rangers had no effective plan to deal with. In a display of valor, they refused to retreat until they had recovered the body of the dead pilot, prolonging the ordeal.
On that act of battlefield camaraderie much may turn.
After forces believed to be loyal to Gen. Mohamed Aidid attacked Pakistani peacekeepers on June 5, killing 24, Adm. Jonathan Howe, the U.N. envoy in Somalia, asked for American special forces.
Gen. Wayne Downing, the commander of the Special Operations Command, believed that special forces could seize Aidid, because U.S. intelligence had a good fix on his movements.
"I think we had a good chance of success in early June," Downing said.
But by the time the administration decided to send the Rangers and some Delta commandos in late August, the military confrontation between the United Nations and Aidid had driven the clan leader underground. When the Rangers arrived in Somalia, he had not been seen for almost a week.
To ensure that the risky Ranger operations were planned by senior officers with experience in commando operations, and were conducted with a minimum of leaks, a separate, secret American chain of command was set up.
Lt. Col. Danny McKnight, the commander of the Third Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, which carried out the attack, reported to Maj. Gen. William Garrison, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command.
Garrison's identity and presence in Mogadishu were kept secret. He, in turn, reported to Gen. Joseph Hoar, head of the U.S. Central Command, based in Tampa, Fla.
Some American lawmakers have argued that the failed Mogadishu raid is proof that American troops should not be under U.N. command. But in fact, it was an entirely American operation, directed through an American military channel.
Under these arrangements, Maj. Gen. Thomas Montgomery, an American officer who is the deputy commander of the U.N. force, was to be notified before every Ranger operation and could veto any raid that interfered with U.N. peacekeeping activities.
As Aidid remained elusive, the Ranger mission was expanded to capturing his key lieutenants. The hope was that capturing his aides would force him to "surface more to take up the slack for some of the key guys we were taking out," an officer said.
Some special forces commanders wanted more firepower, like the AC-130 gunships that were withdrawn before the Rangers' arrival.
But one senior official said the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not eager to keep the gunships in Africa.
At 1:50 p.m. on Oct. 3, the Rangers received intelligence that Aidid's deputies were meeting at a building near the Olympic Hotel in downtown Mogadishu.
An agent was supposed to give a signal when the meeting was under way. But he was afraid to get near the building, and gave the signal from another building nearby, causing confusion as to where the deputies actually were.
The right building was finally located, and at 3:30 p.m. the Rangers set out from their base at the Mogadishu airport.
The plan was straightforward. Fifteen helicopters would fly to the sites, including six Blackhawk troop-carrying helicopters, followed by a convoy of trucks and Humvees, the high-mobility, multipurpose wheeled vehicles that are lightly armored and equipped with machine guns.
Since it was difficult for the helicopters to land in the narrow city streets and alleys, the Rangers would slide down ropes, take their prisoners, load them on trucks and drive out as fast as possible.
According to McKnight, the Rangers' backup plan if the truck convoy was stopped was to scamper up to the roofs of nearby buildings and be lifted out by helicopter.
Another possible way to extract the Rangers if they were pinned down was the Quick Reaction Force, made up of Army soldiers under Montgomery's command.
But there was only limited coordination between the Rangers and the reaction force, which had little advance notice of the raid and was given no sense that its urgent help might be needed.
Montgomery was in the town of Belet Uen on Oct. 3 and was not told of the proposed raid until after his return, at 2:50 p.m.
After consulting a book of aerial photos, he determined that it would not interfere with U.N. operations and gave the go-ahead.
It was not until 3:45 p.m. that Lt. Col. Bill David, the commander of the battalion that was serving as the ground element of the reaction force, was ordered to send an infantry company to the airport, where the Rangers were staging. David was told only that the Rangers were conducting an operation, and not given any details.
The first part of the operation went smoothly. The Rangers caught the Somalis by surprise and captured 24 of Aidid's men. The trucks and Humvees moved in to pick up the prisoners at around 4 p.m.
"We definitely achieved surprise," McKnight said. "We were right on track and in good shape."
But some 35 minutes into the operation, disaster struck: The lead Blackhawk helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade, three blocks to the north.
Braving the fire, a search and rescue helicopter landed, determined that the pilot and co-pilot had been killed in the crash, removed two of the four wounded occupants and lifted off, only to be hit and have to limp back to base.
By radio, Garrison ordered the Rangers to consolidate their forces as they moved to the crash site. But as the Rangers advanced, the Somalis unleashed a barrage of fire from rooftops and alleyways.
"The amount of RPG and AK-47 fire was really a surprise," said Danny Jackson, 21, a Ranger who was driving in one of the Humvees, referring to rifle-propelled grenades.
Facing intense fire, the force split up. Unable to advance, McKnight, who had been wounded, returned with a convoy filled with prisoners and American wounded.
A group of about 100 soldiers formed a perimeter around the downed helicopter. Their decision to stay changed the entire character of the operation. The raid had been built on the assumption that the lightly armed Rangers would sweep in and rush out of the streets of south Mogadishu; now they were hunkering down.
McKnight said the Rangers protecting the crash site could have fought their way out after the convoy left, but were determined not to abandon the body of the dead pilot, caught in the twisted wreckage.
Without the saws to pry the body free, casualties mounted as the Rangers at the crash site waited for rescue.
The downing of a second Blackhawk helicopter, piloted by Chief Warrant Officer Michael Durant, made a bad situation worse.
Since the downed helicopter was two miles south of the first crash site, two Rangers went to its aid, sliding down ropes from another hovering helicopter.
Durant was pinned in the wreckage, but the Rangers pulled him free and brought him to cover. The Rangers died in a 45-minute firefight, but Durant lived and was captured.
Back at their home base, the Rangers mounted a rescue effort, sending 7 Humvees and 27 Rangers. But as they moved forward they encountered McKnight's bullet-ridden convoy and decided to help it get back to base.
Then 140 soldiers from the quick reaction force then set out, in Humvees and five-ton trucks. But they had to pull back after running into an ambush.
The Americans decided they needed more forces, as well as armor for the rescue. The rest of the quick reaction battalion task force was ordered to move to the airfield, but did not arrive until 7:45 p.m.
The only armor in Mogadishu belonged to the non-American contingents in the U.N. force; Defense Secretary Les Aspin on Sept. 23 turned down a request to send tanks and armored personnel carriers as reinforcements.
So a Pakistani tank platoon and two Malaysian mechanized companies were contacted and told to move to the staging area.
As the Americans scrambled to assemble a multinational rescue force, American helicopters dropped ammunition, water and intravenous solutions for the wounded at the first crash site.
The Pakistanis were reluctant to put their M-48 tanks at the front of the column, an American official said. It also took a while to find Malaysian drivers who spoke English to drive the American soldiers in their armored personnel carriers.
Finally, at 11:20 p.m., the rescue column of 4 Pakistani M-48 tanks and 28 Malaysian armored personnel carriers left. American officers said the Malaysians were much more aggressive than the Pakistanis, sometime firing indiscriminately.
"It was a three-ring circus," a senior American officer said.
It took the rescuers until 2:30 a.m. Monday to reach both crash sites. The heavy American casualties nearly overloaded the Army hospital in Mogadishu, whose three surgeons were assisted by two German surgeons and an anesthesiologist who arrived after a two-hour helicopter flight from Belet Uen.
The hospital performed 36 operations in 36 hours, including one amputation. Three patients died on the operating table.
Relief officials estimate that at least 300 Somalis, including civilians, were killed and more than 700 wounded in the fierce firefights.
At the Pentagon, some military officials are sharply critical of the raid. They assert that the Rangers underestimated their foe and failed to coordinate adequately with the U.N. peacekeepers, demonstrating a hubris sometimes associated with commando operations.
A U.N. military official also asserted that the autonomy of the special forces had hampered military planning.
"You have to be able to control your elements - it's a principle of war, the unity of command, and it ain't here," the U.N. commander said. "Schwarzkopf had it, but Montgomery didn't."
But McKnight insisted that the raid was well planned. "We went in there with sufficient force to do the job," he said. They had carried out six previous raids without losing a helicopter, he went on, adding, "Had the first helicopter not gone down, the story would have been much different."
Back in Washington, Clinton advisers acknowledge that they are now involved in a new battle: limiting the fallout of Mogadishu.
They have no doubts that how the battle of Mogadishu is remembered, whether as a historical footnote or historic turning point, will greatly influence their room for maneuver in foreign policy.
Anthony Lake, Clinton's national security adviser, argued last week that the struggle between the president and Congress over war powers, prompted by the failed Somalia raid, "was a struggle not only over constitutional authority but over the future course of American foreign policy."
Now that the president seems to have won that contest, at least for the moment, his objective, Lake said, is to use the episode to have "a real, honest dialogue about what are the responsibilities of the international community, and of the United States, to deal with nations that are ripping themselves apart."
"I am optimistic that the president's argument for continued engagement will carry the day," he said.
Others are not so hopeful.
"Bosnia was already almost dead in terms of U.S. participation in peacekeeping," a senior State Department official said, "but Mogadishu put the last nail in the coffin."
More specifically, "Presidential Review Document 13" - the administration's policy paper on the conditions for American participation in U.N. peacekeeping missions - has been put on hold.
"We'll get back to it at some point," a senior State Department official said, "and hopefully some sort of concept of collaborative action with the United Nations will emerge, but it is not going to be what it was."