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Posted on 07/30/2002 11:07:00 AM PDT by doug from upland
CLINTON CHRONICLES BOOK
12-01-97 Lt. Col. Tom McKenney(retired); comments, Doug from Upland
Lt. Col. Tom McKenney, in the CLINTON CHRONICLES BOOK, gives his perspective about what happened in Somalia when brave Americans were needlessly slaughtered. He places the blame exactly were it belongs --- on the man who loathes the military, William Blythe Clinton. This part of his chapter is lengthy, so it will be done in two parts. A small portion of the information was in a previous post, but it is all necessary here for context. Here is part one of that segment. Sit back and prepare to be angry. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Clinton's visionless, unpricipled foreign policy took Marines, already in Somalia, on a humanitarian mission to deliver food to the hungry, and sent them into ever-widening combat with a fleeting enemy, on his turf, on his terms, with their hands tied by "rules of engagement." The "policy" evolved, and soon those Marines were disarming bandit bands. In the growing confusion over those rules of engagement, over who was the enemy, and over what was the objective, Marines died; others were disabled.
As the quagmire widened, it developed into a bizarre attempt to capture a bandit leader. Although network news teams could easily locate this man and interview him on camera, the Clinton administration with its massive, sophisticated intelligence assets, couldn't find the guy.
Army Rangers were deployed to Somalia with specially trained Special Forces units. Highly motivated, the best in the world at what they do, they were sent after the outlaw.
In classic Range style, they conducted a raid on what they had been assured was the warlord's headquarters. They executed the raid perfectly, but there was an embarrassing problem; instead of capturing the bandit headquarters, they had actually captured a U.N. headquarters. Under U.N. command, the Rangers had been sent to the wrong place! Rangers and U.N. leaders could have died, but they didn't.
What could have been a tragedy then became a joke. As bandit morale soared, the mighty U.S.A. was ridiculed the world over.
The next time, however, it wasn't funny at all. Bill Clinton's military incompetence produced a great American tragedy.
On October 3, 1993, sent to capture a bandit chief and rescue the crew of a downed Black Hawk helicopter, our Rangers were ambushed and surrounded by a howling mob, which outnumbered them 100 to one and were better armed. Our soldiers suddenly found themselves not rescuing the helicopter crew and capturing the bandit, but fighting for their lives. Over a period of twelve hours of intense combat, the Rangers fought on with what they had. While they begged for tanks to support them in the battle, and armored personnel carriers to evacuate their casualities, their men were being slaughtered.
There were no tanks, there were no armored personnel carriers to evacuate the wounded. One of those who died there, Corporal Jamie Smith, bled to death over a period of three hours. Had he been evacuated, his life could easily have been saved.
This tragedy, which ended in the death of eighteen of our best soldiers, the wounding of 76 more, and with the naked bodies of some of the dead being dragged around the streets for their familes to see on television, was completely unnecessary. Even through the entire Somalia fiasco was ill-conceived and without clear purpose or end-point, this particular tragedy never need never have occur at all.
It was cheap politics that decimated our troops. An AC-130 support aircraft, with its devastating firepower, had been previously withdrawn labeled by civilian policy makers as "being too warlike." The small helicopter gunships which had been allowed to remain were not given full freedom to fire in support.
General Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had recommended armored vehicle support; the Marine general in overall command had requested armored vehicle support; the Army general in local command had requested armored vehicle support; and the Rangers and Special Forces men dying there had begged for armored vehicle support.
It was, unbelievably, denied. Would you care to know why?
A Deadly Ignorance of Military Realities
When the Clinton Administration was planning for the raid, the need for armored vehicle support was pointed out. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said "no" to the use of armored vehicles. His rationale? "We don't want to escalate the situation."
Bill Clinton concurred, and there in the air-conditioned safety of the White House, the doom of those Rangers in the stifling, stinking, bloody heat of Mogadishu, was sealed.
One question immediately comes to mind. What do tactical military decisions have to do with the Secretary of State anyway? Shouldn't he have been across town settling matters of protocol or telling the U.N. there would be "serious consequences" if those antisocial Somalis didn't stop killing our troops?
Unbelievably, two spokesmen, representing Secretary of Defense, Les Aspin, and the acting Charman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (who should participated in the decision), reported that they had no knowledge of the request for armored vehicles. However, Aspin later admitted having personally received the request for armor and acknowledged denying it. In fact, Aspin emphatically denied the request for armored vehicles, stating: "It's just not going to happen."
Any one of those Rangers could have told that gathering of politicians that armored vehicles support in such an operation is a must; but the politicians didn't know that, and refused to listen to those who did.
Retired Army Captain James H. Smith, the father of Corporal Jamie Smith, himself a disabled veteran in infantry combat in Vietnam, told a May 27 press conference in Washington, that the disaster was the result not only of Clinton's ignorance of military matters, but also of the same ignorance by his top advisors.
The late Colonel Charlie Bechwith, perhaps the leading authority on such military operations agreed, saying that the deadly failures to properly utilize and support the Rangers were all inflicted "by civilian leadership."
An Ominous Deja Vu
It is significant that the man Clinton turns to for military advice ---who argued against the tanks and APC's for the raid in Mogadishu---is the same Warren Christopher (then a high official in Jimmy Carter's National Security Council) who helped plan the disastrous raid to rescue the hostages in Iran.
At a planning session for the Tehran rescue, the man selected to lead the raid, the late Colonel Charlie Beckwith, was asked what the would do about the Iranian guards. Bechwith, a no-nonsense veteran of special operations, replied that as they came out the door they would be shot in the head---twice---to be sure they couldn't do any harm.
Warren Christopher gasped, grimaced, viscerally shocked, and asked, "Couldn't you just shoot them in the hand?"
Had Charlie Beckwith been allowed to plan the Iranian raid as it should have been done and left alone to carry it out, it would have succeeded.
Concerning the Mogadishu disaster, Beckwith wrote in The Wall Street Journal that the raid was bungled by committing the Rangers and Delta Force without giving them the freedom and the support they needed.
In the hand? And what, give the enemy a chance to kill you. Sheeesh.
After the Sinkmeister's recent ravings, pointing out his cowardice and ineptitude is a MUST.
Thanks again.
Who was that acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs? Why was there even an acting chairman in the first place? Where was the real chairman, Colin Powell?
His term as JCS expired. The military is suppose to be apolitical.
Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum
Did I say he was scum?
and
The Black Hawk pilot Mike Durant, who was the lone survivor of the second crash, is a Bush supporter. He sits on the Bush-Cheney '04 vets committee and was on the Bush-Cheney chat on their website. Those guys went through a lot in Somalia and most were not fans of Clintoon. I just learned that my mother's uncle's nephew was one who was killed over there and was able to meet his sister recently. That was the beginning of this fight with al Qaeda. Clintoon didn't provide the leadership.
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