MONROVIA, Liberia — U.S. soldiers here to assess the nation's humanitarian needs met cheering, dancing mobs everywhere they went Tuesday and listened to the cries of people declaring the demise of embattled President Charles Taylor. At one point, though, they had to turn back because a government official was upset that protocol had not been followed.
Tens of thousands of Liberians poured into the streets as the U.S. convoy drove through town. Bare-chested boys, toothless old men and women with babies strapped to their backs ran alongside, laughing and chanting, "We want peace." The more audacious declared that their president's wings had been broken.
They all sang paeans to President Bush, but in the high-speed Liberian pidgin spoken here, it sounded something like "Jaw Boo," as in: "Oh, George Bush, we like you, oh, George Bush."
"Americans are just not used to being received this way," confessed one member of the assessment team.
At high noon, Taylor's police forces appeared from nowhere and fired into the air. Three uniformed U.S. soldiers stepped out of the first car, their guns aimed ahead. Taylor's forces fired into the air again, and the Americans piled into their cars and sped off. More Liberian government forces arrived and chased away the crowd, one commander yelling, "Beat them."
The Liberian defense minister, Daniel Chea, said Tuesday afternoon that the crowd was fired on for the protection of the American team. The U.S. Embassy, in a statement Tuesday afternoon, called the shooting unnecessary.
For his part, Bush, on his first visit to the continent, announced Tuesday in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, that he had not yet made a decision about whether to send U.S. troops to assist with peacekeeping efforts in this West African country, which has been broken by war. (See story on A1.)
The team of 32 experts on the ground Tuesday, all but one of them soldiers, was sent by the White House to gauge what embassy officials here described as the scope of the humanitarian crisis. They said they had not come to lay the groundwork for a military deployment.
Taylor has said he will step aside, temporarily, once an international force arrives. Bush has called Taylor's departure a necessary "first step" for any U.S. engagement in Liberia.
At least one senior member of the Taylor regime was less than pleased with the Americans' cruise through the capital. Chea was miffed that the assessment team had scheduled a visit to a displaced people's camp just outside the city without paying him a courtesy call.