FIVE PAKISTANI BLUE BERETS KILLED DURING RAID ON SOMALI WARLORD COMPOUND
-New York Times, June, 5 1993
CoS LUCE : Ladies and Gentlemen, thanks for being here, for this special reunion over the situation of Somalia.
PRES. PEROT : OK, guys, I’ll make it quick and simple… I’ve spent last night trying to understand what the hell was going on there, but I couldn’t figure it out. So, what are we doing there ?
SoS KIRKPATRICK : Well, Mr. President, the current United Nations relief operation has been decided a year ago by President Bush due to the ongoing famine and anarchy in Somalia. Established shortly after independance, Siad Barre’s communist regime was overthrown by various clans in 1991. Clan leaders have since fighted for control of the country, dropping it into anarchy and terribly disrupting the agriculture. The northern part of the country has even proclaimed its independance as Somaliland since 1991, and…
PRES. PEROT : Yeah, Jeane, all that is good, but tell me : what are we doing there ?
SoS KIRKPATRICK : To relief the Somali pop…
PRES. PEROT : Come on ! Bush wouldn’t have sent our boys there just for helping the starving Africans ! They are all starving in this continent ! What interests do we have in this part of the world ?
SoS KIRKPATRICK : …
NSA WOOLSEY : Well, Mr. President, Siad Barre had granted two thirds of Somalia’s territory as concessions to various American oils campanies shortly before his downfall.
PRES. PEROT : Ha, there you’re speaking to a Texan, Jim !
SoS KIRKPATRICK : Geographically speaking, Somalia also dominated the Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, and is thus crucial for the Suez trade road.
CIA Dir. CLAPPER : And as most of Siad Barre’s opponents were islamist warlords, we suspect that Somalia could become a nest for islamist Mujahideens in the near future.
PRES. PEROT : Well. So we went there to help the country, and they don’t want our help, aren’t they ?
GEN. JEREMIAH : Well, we’re currently discussing an assault on enemy forces in Mogadishu.
PRES. PEROT : Stop that, Dave. You and Colin went to Vietnam, so you know that urban fighting is the worse that can occur to a modern army. So we can’t confront them directly. Do we have allies who could do the job instead ?
SecDef POWELL : Well, as the Secretary of State said, our forces have experienced terrible problems there against the many warlords who split the country between them. So we have independant Somaliland on the North, Siad Barre barely holds near the Ethiopian border…
PRES. PEROT : It is real anarchy ? They don’t even have a President ?
UN Amb. GRAHAM : President Ali Mahdi Muhammad isn’t recognized by most of the warlords and only controls chunks of the country.
PRES. PEROT : So we come to this Aidid guy. What does he wants ?
SoS KIRKPATRICK : General Mohamed Farrah Aidid thinks that the current UN intervention could seriously endanger his rule, and he has decided to confront openly the peacekeeping forces. That’s why a Pakistani force had been sent to investigate an arms depot, and that he retaliated.
PRES. PEROT : He’s not funded by Saddam, at least ?
CIA Dir CLAPPER : …We don’t think so…
PRES. PEROT : And he is the most powerful in this goddamn country ? Did we try to enlist him ?
CIA Dir CLAPPER : It doesn’t work like this, Mr. President…
PRES. PEROT : Let me finish ! He just wants to take power for himself ! At least he’s not like the communists in Vietnam, he has only his own ambition, not an ideology ! And there is only a way to deal with this kind of guy, Ladies and Gentlemen…
ALL : …
PRES. PEROT : …In Texas, we used to say : « Dead or alive. »
SecDef POWELL : Huh…It doesn’t work like this, Mr. President…
PRES. PEROT : Come on ! Jim, you guys in CIA are used to assassinate, infiltrate and find guys like him, worse dictators than this petty warlord, no ? Don’t tell me you can’t target a bastard like him !
CIA Dir CLAPPER : Well…
PRES. PEROT : Dave, is there a bounty on this Aidid guy ?
GEN. JEREMIAH : Yes, Mr. President. Of a 25.000 dollars amount.
PRES. PEROT : Raise it to 1 million.
GEN. JEREMIAH : But…
PRES. PEROT : Raise it to 1 million, and destroy this bastard’s forces until he’s forced to leave the cities in this goddamn place. No urban assault : they will soon feel besieged and will want to withdraw to their big deserts. And then, you will launch your special teams or whatever you use to call them. And you will bring me his head.
SoS KIRKPATRICK : But, Mr. President, this manhunt could create a power vacuum in Somalia that would be even worse…
PRES. PEROT : In a goddamn African country, you will always find plenty of guys who will want to take power ! These coloured guys love power !
SecDef POWELL : …*sigh*
PRES. PEROT : Don’t we have a senior officer we’ve bribed, or a relative in our ranks ? To replace General Aidid ?
NSA WOOLSEY : Actually… He has a thirty-one-years-old son…
PRES. PEROT : Wonderful ! Contact him !
CIA Dir CLAPPER : Actually, Hussein Aidid lived in California since he was 17, and he enlisted in the Marines… He’s actually translator on Operation Restore Hope.
PRES. PEROT : Wonderful ! He will have a good American to replace this bastard !
CIA Dir CLAPPER : Our services even said that he wanted to vote Republican once he had US citizenship.
PRES. PEROT : That’s even better ! If Ho Chi Minh has a son who was G.I., and this son had voted for Nixon, we wouldn’t have been in such a mess in Vietnam ! Ladies and Gentlemen, the world is gonna remember us for this ! Like our next bombing campaign in Iraq !
-Transcript of a private meeting in the Oval Office in June 1993 between President Ross Perot, Chief of Staff Tom Luce, Secretary of State Jeane Kirkpatrick, Secretary of Defense Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff David Jeremiah, National Security Advisor R. James Woolsey, CIA Director James Clapper and UN Ambassador Katherine Graham
Somali warlord, General Mohammed Aidid
« That’s why, to replace the retiring Supreme Court Associate Justice Byron White, I have decided to nominate my Chief of Staff, Mr. Tom Luce. Mr. Luce has proved his leadership during these last six months in the White House, and remains an highly renowned lawyer in all of Texas and even the Union… »
-Press conference of President Ross Perot, June, 15 1993
GENERAL AIDID'S BOUNTY RAISED TO ONE MILLION
-CNN, June, 17 1993
UN SECURITY COUNCIL VOTES TO RETALIATE AGAINST IRAQ FOR BUSH’S ASSASSINATION
-New York Times, June, 19 1993
IRAQI MILITARY FACILITIES BOMBED, RAIDS ON BAGHDAD, BASRA, MOSUL, KIRKUK, TIKRIT
-CNN, June, 22 1993
SADDAM CALLS FOR RESISTANCE ; MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES EXPRESS CONCERNS OVER CIVILIAN CASUALTIES, REPORTED HIGH ; US AIR FORCE DENIES
-Washington Post, June, 23 1993
Iraqi presidential palace bombed in Baghdad, June 1993
NO FLY-ZONE ESTABLISHED OVER KURDISTAN, IRAQI BLOCKADE THWARTED
-New York Times, June, 30 1993
KIRKPATRICK VISITS IRBIL : AGREEMENT REACHED BETWEEN KDP AND PUK
-CNN, July, 11 1993
LUCE CONFIRMED AS SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, REPLACED AS CHIEF OF STAFF BY ED ROLLINS
-Washington Post, August, 5 1993
The first shipments of humanitarian aid have arrived yesterday in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in order to relieve Somalia from the drought that has stricken the country this summer.
The UN delegation was greeted by Somali President Hussein Mohammed Farrah Aidid : a former US Marine, and currently the only head of state in the world to have dual citizenship (Somali and American), he assumed the office of President shortly after the withdrawal of Operation Restore Hope that went to Somalia from 1992 to 1994, taking control of Mogadishu with his father’s former troops and UN tacit support. However, since 1996, Aidid only holds Mogadishu and a few oil fields around the capital, the remainder of the country being controlled by various warlords, islamist groups and even the de facto independant countries of Somaliland and Puntland. Aidid owes his continuous rule to his own troops, expeditionnary forces sent by the Ethiopian government and private military companies. He’s been many times charged of genocide and oppression by various human rights’ organizations ; however, no arrest warrant has been issued against him.
Somalia is among the poorest and most dangerous countries in the world ; it is also among the countries who most employ PMC in the world, before Mindanao and Kurdistan, and behind Cuba and Iraq.
-The Guardian, July, 29 2011