Counterpunch

By Jill Smolowe

The first attack was swift -- and expected. After days of blatant preparations, at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, two AC-130H Spectre gunships and American Cobra attack helicopters thundered over Mogadishu on a mission of retaliation for the killings, one week earlier, of 23 United Nations peacekeepers. For the next several hours, flares and tracer bullets lit the predawn skies of the Somali capital as the aircraft pummeled six sites of strategic importance to the country's paramount warlord, Mohammed Farrah Aidid. U.S. forces hit Aidid's radio station, four weapons and ammunitions dumps, and an abandoned cigarette factory that had been used to fire on the U.N. troops. At least 200 Somalis were detained, four died and 20 were wounded in the attack and subsequent street clashes.

By 7 a.m., as civilians ventured out with wagons of market-bound pineapples and freshly baked bread, Washington proclaimed the initial mission a success. But the primary target of the attack, Aidid himself, remained at large. "He's not out of business," said U.S. Major General Thomas Montgomery, deputy commander of the U.N. forces in Mogadishu, "but I bet he's pretty shaky today." To keep pressure on the warlord, a second air assault pounded the area near his private compound for 25 minutes early Sunday.

For a U.S. Commander in Chief who had never led his troops into battle, Bill Clinton anguished not at all over ordering the raids. Washington had been annoyed at Aidid's resurgence for some time. Less than 24 hours after the U.N. peacekeepers were slain, Clinton gave the Pentagon his go-ahead. The White House took its first military action in stride, as if to create an aura of quiet competence around the President. Clinton did not personally address the issue until his Saturday radio talk, when he declared that U.S. and coalition troops had "successfully attacked" Aidid's positions and struck "a blow against lawlessness and killing."

Clinton's confident morning-after quarterbacking masked the fact that the raid was an effort to bolster a seriously flagging U.N. effort. The U.S., when it dominated the Somalia operation, had done little to squelch the warlords permanently, and the U.N.'s subsequent buildup had proceeded slowly. A promised contingent of 7,000 troops, including 4,000 from India, never arrived. As the weeks gave way to months, says Robert Oakley, the U.S. special envoy during the opening phases of Operation Restore Hope, "we kept telling Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali we were leaving, but he wouldn't take it seriously."

By mid-May, Clinton had called home 24,000 troops, but some 4,000 were still in and around Mogadishu when gunmen struck at the Pakistani peacekeepers. They were angered by the viciousness of the assault on the peacekeepers. Gunmen had used women and children as human shields, and mutilated the corpses of the fallen Pakistanis. Aidid hardly showed remorse. A few days prior to the U.S. raid he blamed the U.N. for provoking the lethal firefight. "Unfortunately," he boasted, "I have no power or authority to arrest them."

When the moment of reckoning arrived Friday evening, Clinton was calmly dining with a dozen guests at the White House. Although National Security Adviser Tony Lake popped in periodically to update the President on the mission, the evening proceeded as planned. Only after his guests had moved to the screening room and watched Sleepless in Seattle did Clinton return to the Oval Office to meet with his National Security staff. Like many other Americans, they had watched the raid unfold live on CNN.

As military operations go, the air attacks proved relatively painless. They were fast, accurate, and there were no allied casualties. But beyond venting anger at the U.N. killings, it was hard to see that Washington had moved much closer to cleaning up Somalia. Pentagon officials told TIME that a follow-up % attack on Aidid's stronghold in the city of Galkaio will soon follow. Until and unless the warlord is captured, Clinton will be unable to call it a mission accomplished.

With reporting by Margaret Carlson/Washington, Andrew Purvis/Mogadishu and Bruce van Voorst/Washington