The United States will send ships and several thousand Marines to Somalia to help evacuate the remaining U.N. peacekeeping troops there, the Pentagon said Friday.
Deputy Defense Secretary John M. Deutch said at a news conference that U.S. involvement was "not imminent, but in the planning stages" and would likely take place early next year. About 3,000 Marines would provide cover to peacekeepers leaving the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and help remove hundreds of U.S. tanks, helicopters and armored personnel carriers that Washington lent to the United Nations, he said.President Clinton approved the action during an hourlong meeting Friday at the White House attended by Secretary of State Warren Christopher; the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. William Owens; the deputy national security adviser, Samuel Berger; and Deutch.
Administration officials said U.S. troops would be on the ground only a few days at the very end of the withdrawal and would not be drawn into the Somali capital any sooner.
"I want to stress there's no consideration being given to any other involvement of U.S. combat forces except for this last extraction," Deutch said.
Somalia has had no real central government since January 1991, when the ouster of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre plunged the country into civil war. The clan violence that helped drive Somalia to the brink of mass starvation in 1992 has been on the rise for months, and U.N. officials fear the worst when the last blue-helmeted troops pull out over the next three months.
For security reasons, the United Nations has already recommended that relief agencies pull out of Somalia at least temporarily when the withdrawal nears completion.
The departure of nearly 14,000 remaining U.N. troops, which is to take place between now and March, will close an episode of armed charity that opened as an experiment in the possibilities of peacekeeping but became a painful symbol of its limits.
The troubles of the Somalia mission have led both the United Nations and the United States to rethink the role of such forces. The Clinton administration was scarred by a controversial U.S. operation to bolster security there that culminated in a disastrous Army Ranger raid in October 1993, in which 18 Americans and hundreds of Somalis died. The last U.S. troops pulled out in March of this year.
Senior administration officials said they consulted with nearly two dozen congressional leaders in recent days, and some lawmakers Friday expressed concern over sending U.S. troops back to Somalia.
"I hope the administration is not once again rushing headlong into a situation before thoroughly examining the circumstances and understanding all of the details," said Rep. Benjamin A. Gilman, R-N.Y., who is the incoming chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
The Somalia evacuation is being planned as the United States also drafts plans to send several thousand soldiers to help evacuate U.N. peacekeepers from Bosnia if the multinational force there decides to pull out.
The Somalia evacuation would be led by the Essex, a helicopter carrier that is currently in the Persian Gulf and that will be dispatched toward the East African country. Pentagon officials described the evacuation force as consisting of "an amphibious ready group plus," or a total of three to four ships. As many as 5,000 Marines could be involved, senior Marine officers said.
The operation will be commanded by Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, head of Marines on the West Coast, and paid for by Washington. General Zinni served as the director of operations for the initial U.S.-led mission in Somalia, and he knows virtually all of the important Somali clan leaders.
Under the evacuation plan, the United Nations would fly the nearly 14,000 peacekeepers out on chartered airplanes. India's last 3,300 troops, for instance, are expected to leave by the end of this month. Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe contribute the rest of the roughly 10,000 forces.
The Marines would begin assisting in the last week of the evacuation, when about 2,000 to 3,000 peacekeepers remain, Deutch said. U.N. commanders are fearful that they will be overrun as their force draws down and the Somalis rush to loot the U.N. compound in Mogadishu.