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Black Hawk Up, Part 4:
The US Campaign In Somalia, 1993-1997
by Chris Oakley
Summary:
In the first three chapters of this series, we reviewed
the circumstances that led to Al Gore’s unexpected accession
to the presidency in March of 1993; the start of the U.S. combat
presence in Somalia; the first clashes between U.S. ground troops
and al Qaeda fighters in Somalia; the heated showdown in Congress
in 1995 over President Gore’s request for additional troops to
be deployed to Somalia and the outcome of that showdown; and the
intensification of the fighting in Somalia in the run-up to the
1996 U.S. presidential elections. In this installment we’ll review
Operation Swift Repulse and its effects on Gore’s quest to retain
the presidency.
To say Operation Swift Repulse was a controversial undertaking
would barely even scratch the surface of the uproar it triggered when
it was launched in the spring of 1996. President Gore’s critics on the
right denounced it as a ploy aimed at distracting potential voters in
the presidential primaries from the Gore Administration’s missteps at
home; hardcore leftists viewed as yet another case of Uncle Sam acting
as an 800-pound gorilla trampling hapless Africans underfoot in order
to serve the will of the rich elite. Even Gore’s allies were concerned
the United States might be biting off more than it could chew in its
latest campaign against the warlords of Somalia. It had been close to
three years since the first U.S. and allied combat personnel had first
landed in Somalia, and a growing number of people on both sides of the
Congressional aisle were starting to question the value of maintaining
a full-time military presence in the Horn of Africa.
One prominent Pentagon analyst who was a regular on the Sunday
morning news panel show circuit was so pessimistic about the prospects
of completing Operation Hope that in a Meet The Press appearance just
before the 1996 New Hampshire primaries, he bluntly advocated taking a
tip from the senator who’d suggested during the Vietnam War “we should
declare victory” and get out. (The analyst was subsequently denounced
by a score of conservative political commentators for what they saw as
defeatist thinking.)
Operation Swift Repulse was the largest offensive the U.S.
military had attempted since the end of the Persian Gulf War. The
number of combat aircraft deployed by just one U.S. Navy carrier
group for air support operations as part of Swift Repulse dwarfed the
total aircraft inventory of some national air forces in the Horn of
Africa region. Three Los Angeles-class submarines, armed with long-
range cruise missiles, were deployed off the Somali coast to provide
additional firepower for the main assault force. And last but most
assuredly not least, there was a sizable group of U.S. Army Rangers
nestled just across the border in Ethiopia ready to join the fray at a
second’s notice. If the assault failed to accomplish its stated goals,
it certainly wouldn’t be because of lack of troops or firepower.
At precisely 6:00 AM U.S. Eastern time on the morning of May
10th, 1996 President Gore phoned the Operation Hope command staff’s
field headquarters in Addis Ababa to give them the go-ahead to start
Operation Swift Repulse. The first blows against Aidid and bin Laden’s
forces in the Somali hinterland were struck by F-117A Stealth fighters
dropping smart bombs on known and suspected mujahideen bases; seconds
later wave after wave of cruise missiles began firing from the launch
silos of U.S. warships and subs off the Somali coast. At approximately
thirty minutes after the last cruise missiles had detonated, a fleet
of UH-60s started deploying ground troops into the Somali countryside
while armored vehicles rolled across the Somali-Ethiopian border.
All of the strategic planning scenarios for Operation Swift
Repulse had anticipated heavy resistance from the mujahideen forces,
and sure enough within less than an hour after U.S. and allied ground
troops began their attack the Operation Hope command HQ in Addis Ababa
reported bin Laden and Aidid’s forces had launched a three-pronged and
ferocious counteroffensive. “It was like walking into Grand Theft Auto on steroids.” one Swift Repulse veteran would recall in an interview
ten years later. The tremendous casualties suffered by U.S. and allied
troops in this counterattack would later prompt several members of the
Democratic caucus in the U.S. Senate to accuse the Pentagon of grossly
underestimating enemy fighting strength in Swift Response’s assigned
operational battle zones. (It would also motivate some of the more far
right members of the Congressional Republican caucus to demand Gore’s
impeachment.)
In spite of these casualties coalition forces succeeded in
cracking the mujahideen defenses wide open within 36 hours after the
first shots were fired in Swift Repulse. Aidid and bin Laden were
compelled to flee deeper into the Somali interior as U.S. and allied
troops isolated and then began to destroy the various insurgent cells
holed up across eastern Somalia. With the methodical efficiency of
surgeons removing a cancerous tumor, the coalition troops gradually
dismantled every mujahideen cell they found; in some cases insurgents
simply threw down their guns and fled the battlefield rather than take
a chance on falling into “infidel” hands.
Over the next ten days coalition forces would whittle the
insurgents’ ranks down still further and at one point came within
just minutes of getting their hands on Osama bin Laden. At the peak
of the offensive it looked as if the mujahideen network in Somalia
would soon be smashed altogether and its leaders either dead or in
the custody of coalition troops. But on May 22nd, twelve days into
Operation Swift Reprisal, a surprise sandstorm forced both sides to
suspend all combat operations for nearly two days, and as a result
the coalition attack force was deprived of what had been up to that
time its best chance to apply the killing stroke to its enemy. Still
a great deal had been achieved by U.S. and allied forces in the course
of Operation Swift Reprisal, and the Somali insurgent fighters along
with their al Qaeda allies found themselves on the defensive as spring
turned into summer.
Besides its military dividends, Operation Swift Reprisal paid
substantial political ones for the Gore Administration; at the 1996
Democratic National Convention Gore cruised to nomination for another
term as president. Indeed, in the primaries he’d spent more time going
after the potential Republican nominees for the presidency than he had
on battling the few challengers he’d faced within his own party. The
GOP’s strategy of trying to turn the 1996 presidential elections into
a referendum on Gore’s handling of Somalia wasn’t quite working out as
they had hoped it would. Indeed, polls indicated it was rather badly
backfiring on the Republicans; a Chicago Tribune survey taken shortly
after Operation Swift Reprisal ended indicated that 80 percent of the
people questions planned to vote against the Republican presidential
nominee regardless of who it was.
On May 30th the Pentagon announced the official end of Operation
Swift Reprisal; unofficially, combat actions related to Swift Reprisal
would continue until June 7th. It seemed like the end was in sight for
the allied mission in Somalia; however, circumstances would ultimately
serve to keep U.S. troops on the ground in the Somali hinterlands one
more year...
TO BE CONTINUED
“Ex-Marine Looks Back At His Time In Somalia”, Hartford Courant, May 11th, 2006.
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