MURTHA URGED SOMALIA PULLOUT IN 1993

After terrorists attacked U.S. troops in Mogadishu, Somalia 12 years ago, anti-Iraq war Democrat, Rep. John Murtha urged then-President Clinton to begin a complete pullout of U.S. troops from the region.

Clinton took the advice and ordered the withdrawal - a decision that Osama bin Laden would later credit with emboldening his terrorist fighters and encouraging him to mount further attacks against the U.S.

"Our welcome has been worn out," Rep Murtha told NBC's "Today" show in Sept. 1993, after the Mogadishu battle cost the lives of 18 U.S. Rangers.

see this also

http://www.psupress.org/Justataste/samplechapters/justataste_murtha2.html

From Vietnam to 9/11 by John P. Murtha with John Plashal

Chapter 11: Reflecting on the Past/Looking to the Future

Chapter 11: Reflecting on the Past/Looking to the Future

Criteria for Deployment of U.S. Forces
The vast majority of Americans agree that the United States should maintain a strong international military presence and be willing to use its military power when appropriate. As Joseph S. Nye Jr. wrote: "Polls show that the American people are neither isolationist nor eager to serve as the world's police." It is distressing to contemplate the number of conflicts and atrocities around the world. As the undisputed world leader, the United States will increasingly be called upon to intervene militarily in a wide variety of situations. So we must be extremely cautious about when, where, and for what purpose we deploy our troops.

In the last two decades the most successful U.S. military interventions have been those in which a clear national security issue was involved and decisive force was used to attain our objectives. The classic example is the Persian Gulf War. A nation important to the United States and NATO had been invaded and stability in a key region of the world with vital economic resources was threatened. The United States and its allies reacted decisively. Congress authorized military action and the American people overwhelmingly supported it. So did the Kuwaitis. In the intervention in Panama, the key factors were the long historical ties between our two countries, the strategic importance of the Panama Canal, the stealing of the election by Noriega and his cronies, and the mistreatment of American citizens by Noriega's troops. Again the United States acted decisively. Ninety percent of the Panamanian people supported U.S. intervention. In Afghanistan our national security was clearly jeopardized by the Taliban's provision of a safe haven for bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist organization. A massive bombing campaign combined with effective ground attacks by our Afghan allies and American Special Forces rapidly defeated the major Taliban contingents. Once again, the vast majority of Afghans supported our efforts; they had had enough of the oppressive policies of the medieval-like Taliban regime.

Conversely, when U.S. military interventions have failed, the vital national security interests of the United States were not involved and we did not act decisively. In Lebanon our troops were in an untenable geographic position and our force was not large enough to carry out the mission effectively. In Somalia a well-meaning humanitarian intervention ended in failure because we interjected ourselves into a civil war. I am not arguing that we should have acted decisively with a larger military force in either case. As I have explained, I opposed the intervention in Somalia from the day the decision to intervene was made.

When the decision was made to deploy the United Nations troops in a peacemaking role in Bosnia, the initial insertion of those forces was tepid and they did not end the violence. After the Dayton Accords were signed, however, a large force was deployed, including a significant American contingent. Those troops made it clear that if they were fired upon, they would react massively and decisively; they would adhere to the doctrine of disproportionate response. Here again the Powell doctrine worked. Relative peace ensued.

In the air war in Serbia and Kosovo, the initial limited air attacks escalated steadily to massive and prolonged bombing. Once again a weak military response had to be intensified. In the end the NATO forces had to issue a credible threat of massive invasion by ground forces and the people had to revolt en masse before success was achieved.

Our military forces have frequently been deployed for short periods to deliver food and other supplies after a natural disaster. Such humanitarian missions are laudable, but they have to be chosen very carefully. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution has written:

For a humanitarian intervention to be wise and ethical, it must be
attempted only if the odds are excellent that it will make a bad situation
better and not worse. Intervening to stop Russia from killing
tens of thousands of innocent Chechens, for instance, would have
risked a major-power war between nuclear-weapon states with the
potential to kill far more people than the intervention could have
saved. Invading North Korea to bring food to its starving people
would probably precipitate all-out war on the peninsula, quite possibly
killing as many civilians in Seoul (to say nothing of soldiers on
both sides of the war) as the food aid would save in North Korea.
Entering into the Angolan civil war would force us to choose sides
between our former anti-Communist associate Jonas Savimbi, a maniacal
killer who has violated two major peace accords, and the corrupt
dos Santos government.

David Fromkin provides a perspective on the intervention in Somalia that
applies far beyond that particular crisis:

One lesson of Somalia was that there is no such thing as a purely
humanitarian intervention. A military intervention in a foreign country,
unless undertaken at the request of its government, is political.
It occurs because the United States, believing that the other country
isn't being ruled properly, acts to overthrow the local leadership; but
of course that obliges America to take over the government itself. . . .
Somalia should have taught Americans that invading, occupying
and administering a foreign country may not be as easy as it looks at
first. Above all, the lesson of Somalia was that, even in the absence
of enemy great powers . . . , America is not completely free to make
the world do as Americans wish.

one of Murtha's House speech on Somalia

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?r103:7:./temp/~r103cpDgH0:e123712:

REMOVAL OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES FROM SOMALIA (House of Representatives - November 09, 1993)

Mr. MURTHA. Mr. Speaker, let me just make a couple of points.

I expressed my opposition to our deployment to Somalia when it began. When I went to the White House, I expressed my concern to President Bush.

I said, `This is a mistake, we shouldn't deploy under these circumstances, and it's going to deplete the resources of the Armed Forces,' and I asked him how we were going to get out and when we were going to get out.

Mr. Speaker, he said, `I'll have these troops out by Inauguration Day.'

Well, Mr. Speaker, the United Nations was slow in its deployment to basically take over the U.S. role. The United Nations came to depend heavily on the United States. That was a mistake, no question about it. The administration has learned substantially from this and it has listened to our voices and our advice.

When I went to Somalia the first time, Mr. Speaker, my reservations remained the same. I told the new administration, when it came in, `We should get out of Somalia as quickly as possible,' and in the middle of July I said, `Get our troops out because this could deteriorate into a very tragic situation.'

I made a second trip to Somalia in October. I know the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] also went there. I talked to the Rangers about the October 3 incident. It was a bloody battle. The troops conducted themselves well. They fought valiantly in a congested urban environment.

The President has reassessed the situation. He called everybody in. He listened to what was suggested by the military commanders, and that was, `We need time, first of all, to put forces in place in order to protect our American forces.' They also stated that, because the United Nations has extremely limited logistics capability and poor communications and intelligence, time was needed for the United Nations to develop these functions which had been conducted almost exclusively by U.S. forces.

Now how are we to get out of there? General Bir, the U.N. commander, said, `It would be chaos, a debacle, a disaster if the United States pulled out too quickly. We have to have time,' and these are his words, `in order to replace the logistic support the United States has been providing.' Now how do we do that?

They have a plan. They are going to do that with a civilian operation. We have provided, in our conference report tomorrow, the authority to the Department of Defense to allow them to contract with a civilian authority to provide these administrative logistics type capabilities.

Not only that, but in the conference report we set aside a sense-of-Congress resolution that says: `In the future, before you get involved in these kinds of operations, have consultation with the Congress. Don't wait until there's a tragedy. Consult with the Congress beforehand.'

In working with the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], and the gentleman from California [Mr. Dellums], and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. McDade], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], and all the other Members, we have tried to work out some kind of a reasonable process where Members of Congress are consulted, with all the experience in the House and in the Senate, before something like this happens.

But I have to say this:

One thing we have learned from Vietnam is that we cannot from the Halls of Congress dictate to the military the strategy for any kind of operation, but we have got to leave it up to the military to make the tactical onsite decisions.

On the ground, every military commander is saying, `I need until March 31.' The recommendation by General Hoar, who spent over 2 hours briefing me about what happened in that tragic event, was `I need until March 31, because I cannot attain our objectives any quicker. Even if he gets a protective buildup done within a month, it will take considerable time beyond that to phase our forces out in a reasonable manner and to establish adequate logistic administrative support to take care of the U.N. mission. Ambassador Oakley also told me he needed until March 31. I realize this is a nonbinding resolution, I realize the Congress wants to speak on this situation, and I think the administration has heard the objections. The administration came to a conclusion--March 31 is the earliest date we can complete our withdrawal.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge the Members to vote against the amendment offered by the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and give the President an opportunity to get the troops out in an orderly manner as quickly as prudently possible.

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