Rules of Engagement and Command Decisions
When U.S. forces conducted a second strike on the survivors of an alleged drug smuggling boat destroyed off Venezuela last September, the resulting controversy regarding the incident caused me to rethink an incident I was involved in back in 1993. At the time, I was a temporary loan officer serving as the military advisor to the U.S. ambassador running the U.S. Liaison Office (USLNO) to the United Nations Mission in Somalia (UNISOM).
The mission was headed by the ambassador who has acted as the senior senior U.S. official in that failed nation-state. I was on loan to the mission from the Marine Corps University teaching a class on Operations Other Than War. The school was on summer break and I sought permission to do a case study on the ongoing UN humanitarian mission in Somalia. The ambassador said that he didn’t need another “colonel in sunglasses” wandering around Mogadishu, but if I was willing to do some real work, I was was welcome to come.
I obviously disagree with Admiral Brady’s decision to make a second strike on the drug boat survivors, but that is a commander’s call.
By the time I arrived in Mogadishu, the humanitarian operation that I set out to study had degenerated into full-scale urban combat between UNISOM and militias that objected to the way the UN failed to rebuild that failed state. The Air Force officer I was temporarily replacing was on home leave for the summer due to a family emergency.
As a colonel, I had overall supervision of a Marine Corps platoon sized Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Team (FAST) assigned to protect the USLNO. We were located on the grounds of the former U.S. Embassy on which UNISOM was headquartered, and we were being mortared and shot at regularly by Somali militias.
One day in late August of 1993, the commander of the U.S. logistics unit supporting UNISOM approached me with a problem. His outfit was being sniped at from a former fruit factory facility overlooking the UNISOM compound. They weren’t very good shots. But the law of averages indicated that, if not dealt with, some American would eventually get hurt or killed. As a support unit, he had no effective counter-sniper capability. He knew the FAST had counter-snipers and was asking our help. I explained that the FAST was under control of the State Department and that I would have to get the ambassador’s approval, but would bring it up at the Country Team meeting that afternoon.
The ambassador had been a WWII combat infantryman and there was no way that he was going to refuse help save the lives of American soldiers. He authorized the support. I gave the captain who was the FAST commander a mission order to eliminate the snipers. He had been one of my company commanders when I had commanded a battalion and I had absolute confidence in his abilities. I attended his mission brief and accompanied him on his site selection for the snipers. Then, I went to bed telling him to call if he needed me. He did not need a full bull colonel overseeing a platoon operation.
The next morning there were 16 or 17 carcasses at the fruit factory, I can’t recall the exact number. Marine snipers used to be very good, but the Scout-Sniper School has since been closed; I don’t know their current state of proficiency. Not one of the dead militiamen was probably over 17 years of age, but all were armed with rifles. To my knowledge it was the first offensive military operation directed by the Department of State since Tripoli in 1804. I have never lost a night of sleep over the incident, nor probably have any members of the FAST.
It had been years since I gave any thought to the incident, but the Venezuelan double tap incident reminded me of it. What if the search and exploitation team had found several of the militiamen injured but alive? I would have been notified and asked what to do. I like to think that I would have asked for the army to send medics to to recover them and let UNISOM figure out their final disposition. I cannot think of any situation where I would have ordered them to be “double tapped.”
I obviously disagree with Admiral Brady’s decision to make a second strike on the drug boat survivors, but that is a commander’s call. The bigger question is what was a four star flag officer doing directing a platoon-size operation?
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Gary Anderson is a retired Marine Corps officer