Battle Ready Part 21

The UNOSOM officers stood firm. "The inspecting force will arrive at the AWSS in the morning."

The Aideed lieutenant grew more belligerent. "If they come, it will be war," he replied.

Early the next morning, the inspectors arrived at the AWSS, accompanied by a force of Pakistani soldiers. Moments later, they were confronted by an angry mob. When the soldiers tried to enter the radio station, a scuffle broke out, and a Somali was shot and killed. Word of the fighting quickly spread, and angry mobs sprang up elsewhere in town. One of these swarmed a feeding station guarded by Pakistani troops, and a number of Pakistanis were killed or captured. Another large mob engaged the Pakistani force returning from the inspection site, and more soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured. At the end of the day, twenty-four Pakistanis were dead, fifty-seven were wounded, and six were missing.

At this point, the truth gets murky. Tempers flared. Reason got tossed aside. The big question: Did the mobs rise up spontaneously? Or, as UNOSOM claimed, did Aideed's people plan the ambushes? Aideed's faction-and most other Somalis-claimed that the attacks were spontaneous responses to a real threat to the radio station that was compounded by the killing of the Somali. (It's very possible that the mobs had been urged on by Aideed's leaders, though without advance planning.) Aideed didn't help matters the next day when in a radio address he praised the people who had risen up to fight the foreigners (further provocation and an admission of guilt in the eyes of UNOSOM). Yet, at the same time, he offered a surprisingly reasonable proposal for an impartial inquiry into the causes of the confrontation, followed, hopefully, by a peaceful resolution.

UNOSOM II would have none of that: Aideed and his lieutenants must be brought to justice; and Admiral Howe placed the $25,000 reward on Aideed's head.

A series of battles followed. UNOSOM conducted air strikes; the Aideed forces executed ambushes. The fighting escalated until the U.S. sent in special operations forces to capture Aideed and his chief lieutenants. They conducted several operations, with mixed results, until the tragedy of October 3 brought Bob Oakley back to Somalia.

MEANWHILE, Oakley and I kept in close touch with Amba.s.sadors Lissane and Menharios, the Ethiopian and Eritrean liaisons who were our contacts with Aideed. We waited anxiously for word about the prisoners. Oakley and I kept in close touch with Amba.s.sadors Lissane and Menharios, the Ethiopian and Eritrean liaisons who were our contacts with Aideed. We waited anxiously for word about the prisoners.

Word finally came that Aideed had agreed to release them. However, he would only release them directly to us, not to UNOSOM.

This was not a good idea.

Since Oakley knew a release to us would create further problems with UNOSOM, he worked out an arrangement to have the prisoners turned over to the Red Cross. To emphasize our noninvolvement and to minimize our media presence, he had us pull back to the airport. As soon as word came that the prisoners were released, we'd leave Somalia for a few days and return after the news flurry had calmed down. The moment that Durant and Shantali were released, we boarded our C-20 and headed for Asmara, Eritrea, Addis Ababa, and Cairo, for meetings with President Isaias of Eritrea, President Meles, and the Egyptian Foreign Minister. (The Egyptians had troops in Somalia; the refueling stop in Cairo was a good opportunity to connect to senior Egyptians.) We returned to Was.h.i.+ngton on the sixteenth of October. Next day at the White House, we briefed the National Security Adviser, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the amba.s.sador to the UN, among others. Later, at the Pentagon, we briefed the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shalikashvilli. Though Oakley presented both a superb description of the situation and a clear plan for our best possible way through the Somalia mess, I had a foreboding that the Was.h.i.+ngton leaders.h.i.+p was looking to disengage from Somalia and write the country off. Despite my misgivings, we were given the go-ahead to pursue Oakley's plans.

A few days later, we were off again to Somalia.

After another stop in Addis to see President Meles, we flew on to Mogadishu, arriving on the first of November for a planned visit of four days. Our primary purpose in Somalia was to put in place a revised plan we had worked up since our last visit. It called for reestablis.h.i.+ng the Security Committee; reestablis.h.i.+ng a viable police force; getting the cease-fire and disarmament agreements back in place; getting the factions back to the process of forming a transitional government; involving in the process other nations and political organizations in the region; scheduling another conference in Addis; establis.h.i.+ng agreed-upon sectors and security zones in Mogadishu to prevent confrontations; and several other proposals designed to put the humanitarian, political, and security situations on track.

During an intense four days of negotiating, we met with the UNOSOM leaders.h.i.+p, the other faction leaders, and various Somali groups seeking agreement on our proposals; and we successfully persuaded everyone involved to accept a renewal of our original mission.

Sticking points remained-chiefly, the question of the UN-held prisoners and the question of Aideed's war crimes guilt.

Aideed had accused UNOSOM of abusing the prisoners they were holding on the island; and wanted their release. In fact, there were some health problems among the prisoners (who now included Osman Atto, my contact from the UNITAF days, who had been s.n.a.t.c.hed up in a Special Operations roundup). Eventually Aideed got his wish, and they were released.

Since the question of Aideed's personal guilt was still far from being settled, we decided to continue our policy of keeping distant from him. For the time being, we dealt only with his lieutenants.

WHEN WE LEFT, we made the regular round of African stops (adding Kampala, Uganda), returned briefly to Was.h.i.+ngton, and were back in Somalia by mid-November-this time, for direct talks with Aideed. A new Security Council resolution (Resolution 885), accepting Aideed's party as legitimate, had eased tensions with Aideed and greatly lessened the danger of continued violence. It was time to bring him into the process and persuade him to sign on to Oakley's program. we made the regular round of African stops (adding Kampala, Uganda), returned briefly to Was.h.i.+ngton, and were back in Somalia by mid-November-this time, for direct talks with Aideed. A new Security Council resolution (Resolution 885), accepting Aideed's party as legitimate, had eased tensions with Aideed and greatly lessened the danger of continued violence. It was time to bring him into the process and persuade him to sign on to Oakley's program.

Aideed (still UNOSOM's most wanted man) was hiding out in the labyrinths of Mogadishu. Getting to him was not going to be easy.

On the day of the meeting, our armored SUV was escorted by Marines to the old UN headquarters, where we were to be turned over to Aideed's security. As we were waiting for Aideed's gunmen to appear, a large, excited, and very curious crowd gathered around us. Though they made our Marine security nervous, they didn't actually threaten us.

We soon had other things to think about, when Aideed's hard-looking, heavily armed fighters came speeding into the intersection, hanging from technicals. Their leader was the largest Somali I'd ever seen, at least six and a half feet tall with bulging muscles. A man of very few words, he directed us to pull our vehicle between the technicals; and we raced off at high speed through a maze of back alleys and side streets. It was like a movie: Keeping up with the speeding technicals required blasting through intersections, countless near misses, and breathtaking two-wheel turns.

We suddenly found ourselves rus.h.i.+ng into a large plaza, heading straight toward a screaming mult.i.tude of Somalis.

"What do you think?" Bob Oakley asked.

"Amba.s.sador," I said, "they're either going to kiss us or eat us."

As we got closer, we realized they were actually cheering us. The gathering in the plaza had obviously been staged by Aideed.

Eventually, we turned into a compound and came to a stop in front of Aideed's temporary headquarters, where his chief lieutenants and a broadly smiling Aideed were standing ready to greet us. A bank of cameras off to the side videoed every move. As we stepped out of the SUV, the giant, taciturn security goon came up and put together what for him must have been a major speech. "No more shooting," he said, with evident emotion, grabbing me by the hand. "No more. Too many people will die." He had clearly had his fill of fighting.

"We'll all do our best," I answered, as the hugely grinning Aideed wrapped his arms around me like a long-lost relative and then ushered us down the ranks of his officials for their greetings. I hoped the cameramen didn't catch all that. Taking photo ops with Aideed would not make us popular back home (where the media had followed UNOSOM's lead in demonizing him).

Inside the headquarters, we followed Aideed into a large conference room. His party's banners were hanging on the walls; pens and stationery with his logo were neatly placed at each seat. After an exchange of small talk, we got down to business with a group of people who were surprisingly somber. I'd expected them to be upbeat at the very least; and I wouldn't have thought twice if they'd been gloating. They'd been hit hard, but had hit the U.S. and UN even harder; and now we were again treating them like leaders with a legitimate place in the political process. And yet they did not rejoice in their triumph; they were subdued and solemn. They recognized the terrible tragedy we had all suffered. It was clear that the loss of ten thousand Somali lives during the past four months was weighing heavily on all of them.

Aideed maintained the serious tone-though without altering his long-held positions: The release of the UN-held prisoners was still a pressing concern, and so were the big questions about his own status and UNOSOM's unceasing accusations against him. He made it abundantly clear that UNOSOM and the Secretary-General were as evil in his eyes as he was in theirs (though he pointed out that he did not oppose the UN itself). He welcomed the U.S. back into the peace process, and would further welcome an independent commission to look into the causes of war-headed by former President Jimmy Carter and with members who were not not appointed by the UN Secretary-General. appointed by the UN Secretary-General.

Following an in-depth debate of the program Oakley had put together earlier that month, Aideed gave it his reluctant consent, adding that he hoped to work within the earlier Addis agreements. Oakley's policy was correct, he said in conclusion: Governing Somalia should be left to the Somalis.

What form that governing might take still remained a very open question, as was the part the UN and the U.S. would take in the process of answering it.

BEFORE WE LEFT, I wanted to satisfy my curiosity about the fight on October 3 that became known as the Battle of Mogadishu (dramatically captured in the book and movie Black Hawk Down Black Hawk Down).

"Could you tell me the story from your side?" I asked Aideed.

He was more than willing to do that.

As he began his account, his respect for the military skill of the special operations force-"those dangerous men at the airfield,"67 he called them-was obvious. he called them-was obvious.

The special operations forces had focused their attacks on Aideed's meetings with his top staff. As a protective measure for his meetings, Aideed had ordered machine guns and RPG launchers to be positioned on neighboring roofs, with orders to concentrate fire on the helos if the Americans attacked. He knew American forces would rally around a downed helicopter and be easier to fix in the fighting. He had furthermore put out a standing order to attack any reaction force coming out of the airport. The UNITAF Marines had multiple reaction forces that could respond from several directions, but now the princ.i.p.al reaction force always came from the airport. For that reason, it was important to cut that off if he was attacked by the special operations forces.

Aideed's tactics had all been purely defensive . . . but that's not the way they'd played on television. Even worse in the eyes of the world, they'd worked.

This did not excuse Somali atrocities; and Aideed acknowledged that no apology could make up for Somali mobs brutally dragging dead soldiers through the streets. But he also was careful to point out that he had immediately taken control of the prisoner, Warrant Officer Durant, and had adhered to Geneva Convention requirements in his treatment of him.

It was obvious that there were two widely different versions as to what happened and who was responsible for the violence. Even investigations and inquiries have presented different views.

Our return ride to the rendezvous with our Marine security force took us through another screaming crowd. Soon after that, we returned to the States.

And so my practical involvement in Operation Continue Hope, as the U.S. had named the UNOSOM II phase, ended.

In the coming days, Oakley was busy planning the Addis conference and working out implementation of his overall program. Though he asked me to be ready to return, the focus was s.h.i.+fting from security (which had been my responsibility) to politics and humanitarian relief. In his mind, the security situation was under control. responsibility) to politics and humanitarian relief. In his mind, the security situation was under control.

I returned to Quantico to watch developments from there.

It quickly became clear that the Clinton administration wanted out of Somalia. The final nail in that coffin came when they announced that all U.S. forces were to be pulled out by March 1994. In my mind, Oakley had been used to achieve a cease-fire and provide a decent interval to allow the administration to cut its loses and pull out. The U.S. was not going to follow through on the Oakley program to put the peace process back on track.

On a more positive note, at least the fighting had stopped and the ravaged country had a few quiet moments to catch its breath.

As for the question of Aideed's war crimes guilt: Months later, in February 1994, a UN commission of inquiry into responsibility for the June 5 clash published its findings. It concluded that both sides had been at fault.

I MEF.

At Quantico, Zinni received good news: He was slated to take command of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton the following summer. This was exciting; he couldn't wait to move on to the division.

He didn't know that other plans were in the works.

In the early spring of 1994, he was made president of a Reserve General Officer Promotion Board at Marine Corps headquarters. At the conclusion of their work, the board members took their recommendations to General Mundy. When they were done, he asked Zinni to stick around.

"What do you want as your next a.s.signment?" he asked, after all the others had left.

This seemed an odd question, since he had already been told he would get a division command. "Is the question just a formality?" he asked himself.

"I want a division," he told the commandant, bearing that last thought in mind.

"Which one do you want?"

"It doesn't matter," Zinni answered. "Any Marine division is just fine with me."

At that point, the commandant handed Zinni a folder. "Well," he said, "I think there's a division in here somewhere."

Zinni, who was by then enormously confused, opened the folder: It was a nomination for promotion to lieutenant general and appointment as commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force (I MEF).

He was shocked. He'd just just been promoted to major general, and here he was moving immediately to three stars . . . and skipping over division command. That was a b.u.mmer; he'd wanted to command a division. On the other hand, it was a very big honor to command I MEF-and also pretty exciting. been promoted to major general, and here he was moving immediately to three stars . . . and skipping over division command. That was a b.u.mmer; he'd wanted to command a division. On the other hand, it was a very big honor to command I MEF-and also pretty exciting.

Zinni's recollection of his next moments is blurry. He mumbled his thanks to General Mundy, then left his office wrapped in shocked confusion.

A few months later, in June, he a.s.sumed command of the largest Marine operational force, I MEF, at Camp Pendleton, California. I MEF had in its ranks over 45,000 Marines and sailors, with its main components being a Marine division, an air wing, and a logistics group. Units were spread over bases in California and Nevada, but many of its forces were constantly deployed all over the world. The MEF had responsibilities that involved six different Unified and Sub-unified commands from Korea (where they were given a major new commitment), to the Western Pacific, to Latin America, to Europe, to the Middle East, and to the United States itself. During Zinni's two years in command, the MEF had forces involved in security and counter-drug operations in Central and South America; in humanitarian operations in Africa; in peacekeeping operations in Bosnia; in human remains recovery operations in Vietnam; in sanctions enforcement operations in the Persian Gulf; and in disaster relief and counter-drug operations in the western United States. They were involved in over one hundred major military exercises around the world and in hundreds of smaller training events.

The MEF's most substantive new effort was a crisis response a.s.signment in Korea. Though the Okinawa-based III MEF already had a commitment there, they were now greatly augmented by I MEF. The new role was particularly challenging in that the joint and combined forces they'd be a.s.signed in their envisioned Korean missions would be significant. According to the war plan, the MEF in Korea would become a combined Marine Expeditionary Force. That is, Zinni would command two Marine divisions-the 3rd Marine Division would be added to his own 1st Division-two Marine air wings, a Korean Marine division, a Korean Army division, and the U.S. Army's 101st Air a.s.sault Division.

The commander in chief in Korea, U.S. Army General Gary Luck, was a brilliant operator who taught Zinni a great deal about war fighting at this highest level of operations. Fighting a war in Korea would be much like fighting Desert Storm, but on a much larger scale. The whole business of theater logistics, movement and integration of forces, the relations.h.i.+ps between air components and ground components, working with coalition forces, fighting a strategic battle with deep strike and close combat, and integrating all these on a large and difficult battle s.p.a.ce, took on for Zinni a new and far larger significance.

MEANWHILE, he continued to exercise his growing skills in peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions. He had become one of the few senior-level military experts on "Operations Other Than War" (OOTW). he continued to exercise his growing skills in peacekeeping and humanitarian interventions. He had become one of the few senior-level military experts on "Operations Other Than War" (OOTW).

For obvious reasons, General Binnie Peay, the new commander of CENTCOM (one of the Unified Command CINCs the MEF answered to), gave the MEF the mission to respond to peacekeeping and humanitarian crises in his theater. To better accomplish that mission, Zinni retooled a major exercise, called "Emerald Express," to develop his unit's humanitarian and peacemaking capabilities. Since he didn't have to worry about tactical-level field capabilities (his MEF had those down pat), he reshaped Emerald Express into a comprehensive conference to address issues like planning, coordination, and integration, especially at the operational and policy levels, and to direct special emphasis to coordination with relief agencies, international organizations, coalitions, and political organizations.

In a short time, Emerald Express became the most significant and effective effort to promote integration of military, political, humanitarian, economic, and reconstruction functions in Operations Other Than War.

Zinni's growing OOTW expertise brought him to testify frequently before the Senate Foreign Relations and Senate Armed Services Committees. His testimonies on specific interventions (such as in Bosnia), on U.S. humanitarian and peacekeeping policy, and on the nature of OOTWs in general, were not always encouraged by the administration or particularly the Pentagon leaders.h.i.+p: General Shalikashvilli, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, did not relish OOTW missions. Zinni did his best to steer clear of problems with the chairman and other superiors, but he had strong feelings about these missions that he did not hesitate to express. He began to earn a reputation as outspoken-a reputation he thinks is undeserved. He has always maintained he has only done what Marines always do: Tell it like it is.

BY THE TIME he took command of the MEF in June 1994, U.S. forces were out of Somalia, and the UN mission was sputtering out. Though Zinni did not forget the lessons of Somalia, he didn't expect to return to that country. he took command of the MEF in June 1994, U.S. forces were out of Somalia, and the UN mission was sputtering out. Though Zinni did not forget the lessons of Somalia, he didn't expect to return to that country.

In a few months, he was thrown into the Somalia disaster for a third time.

UNITED s.h.i.+ELD.

Tony Zinni:

During the summer of 1994, the UN decided to end the UNOSOM mission and withdraw UN forces from Somalia. The date set for the withdrawal was March 1995.

This was going to be a complicated move: Since forces from several countries would be involved, there would be coordination problems; since the pullout would be phased, the last forces to leave were vulnerable to attack; and credible-though unsubstantiated-reports of handheld surface-to-air missiles made a withdrawal by air risky. As a result of these threats, the UN requested U.S. protection for the withdrawal. Though the Clinton administration was not excited about renewing its involvement in Somalia, the international forces on the ground had accepted the mission at our request. The administration felt responsible for their safety.

That August, less than two months after I took command, I MEF received a warning order that we were to lead a Combined Task Force to protect the UN withdrawal. I MEF was the obvious choice for the mission: We already had responsibility for crisis response in their portion of Africa; the SAM threat required an amphibious withdrawal; and I MEF had conducted Operation Restore Hope in 1993, so the staff was already familiar with the situation.

We knew it would be a difficult a.s.signment. The international forces would have to execute extremely complex tactical tasks (tough even for U.S. units); and interoperability problems with doctrine, procedures, equipment, and language could compound the difficulty.

The good news was the planning time. We'd have five months to plan, coordinate, and practice the mission.

"Plans are nothing, but planning is everything," Eisenhower said, possibly apocryphally. Whether he said it or not, the saying is true. We had a lot of time. I wanted to use it all to plan exhaustively, think through every possibility, and cover every contingency (or branches and sequels, in military terms). One innovation in our contingency planning was to produce a "playbook" that gave us a course of action if one of the possible scenarios occurred. At the end of the operation, I reviewed the playbook and found every event that occurred covered by a contingency plan.

The entire five months, from August to mid-January, was devoted to planning and coordination. This was the first phase of the operation. The second phase, deployment, rehearsal, and positioning, was scheduled from mid-January to the beginning of February. Phase three, setting conditions for the withdrawal and a.s.suming of control of UN forces, was scheduled for February 8 to 28. Phase four, the execution, was scheduled for February 28 to March 3. Our fifth and final phase, the redeployment of our forces, was planned to last from March 4 until the end of that month.

The operational tasks during the execution phase were extremely complex. We would conduct two night amphibious landings at the Mogadishu port and airfield; two reliefs in place of UN forces; a withdrawal and pa.s.sage of lines by the Pakistani Brigade through our coalition lines (U.S. and Italian Marines); a day and night defense of the air- and seaports; a Non-combatant Evacuation of UN, media, and civilian agencies personnel; and two night amphibious withdrawals. These difficult tactical evolutions were tough enough, but the mix of coalition forces, the nighttime executions, and the prospect of doing these under fire compounded the difficulty exponentially.

We had another serious concern-civilian crowds, mobs, and looters . . . always a possibility in Somalia. Mobs especially were always a major problem . . . and they were one of the warlords' most effective weapons. They could effectively block many of our actions, yet they were only very rarely a physical threat to our troops. A response using lethal force was obviously unjustified; but nonlethals had been very hard to come by. That situation was about to change.

Early in our planning, I pressed for a more substantial nonlethal capability . . . a search that yielded surprisingly good results. We were able to gather a significant and varied a.r.s.enal of gadgets, ranging from rubber bullets to sticky foam guns to high-tech acoustic devices, microwaves, and lasers. During the coming months, we trained our forces in these capabilities, while the lawyers developed new rules of engagement for them. (They prohibited some of the more experimental devices, since there were no details on their effects.) Our attempts to prevent unnecessary loss of lives actually sparked controversy. "You're disarming our Marines!," claimed alarmed op-ed articles. Other articles by military professionals claimed: "Our troops will be confused. They won't know the difference between 'lethal' and 'non-lethal' weapons." When I threw this question at my Marines, they told me, "Don't worry, sir. We know the difference." They all wanted and needed this capability.68 We took the plan to General Peay on November 8; and to the Joint Chiefs a little over a week after that. Quick approval came. Though the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Shalikashvilli, remained opposed to OOTWs and was in no hurry to get reengaged in Somalia, he knew this was an obligation the Clinton administration had to take on. One month later, on December 16, President Clinton approved the plan and gave the go-ahead for the operation.

In early January, we held our final planning conference at CENTCOM; and on the fourteenth the joint task force United s.h.i.+eld was formally established. That day I gave the CINC a final brief, at which point General Peay added a highly unusual wrinkle to the command structure. Normally, the JTF commander reports directly to the CINC. But for this particular operation, General Peay decided that I would report to his naval component commander, Vice Admiral Scott Redd, rather than directly to him.

Peay's decision raised a serious question: Was I going to be running the JTF or was Admiral Redd? And yet I appreciated the CINC's logic: This operation required a large number of supporting U.S. and coalition s.h.i.+ps (during the actual operation we had twenty-three); directing this large seaward component was potentially a huge-and unnecessary-distraction.

In the event, the arrangement presented zero command problems for either of us. Scott Redd felt strongly that United s.h.i.+eld was my operation, and his role was to ensure that I got what I needed. He and I worked closely and productively together. When the time came, Scott attended the final CENTCOM planning sessions, and then I flew with him back to his headquarters in Bahrain, where I received a firsthand experience of another rationale for General Peay's command arrangement. Scott's was the only CENTCOM headquarters near our AOR, making his people more quickly responsive to our needs. During the operation, he was able to instantly respond to several immediate requests for support, not the least of which was the rapid dispatch of a U.S. cruiser to provide us a last-minute naval gunfire capability.

I was also fortunate in having Rear Admiral Lee Gunn (from the U.S. Third Fleet) as my deputy commander and the commander of my JTF naval component. Because Lee and Scott were able to work all the s.h.i.+p issues, we were able to keep our total focus on the withdrawal.

After Bahrain, I went to Nairobi, Kenya, to meet the military chief of staff, General Mohamed, and other government officials. We intended to use Mombasa as a base for our AC-130 guns.h.i.+ps and as a logistics and staging base (to stage forces that would link up with s.h.i.+ps sailing in from the Pacific).

In Nairobi, we picked up Amba.s.sador Dan Simpson, the President's special envoy to the Somalia mission, and Amba.s.sador David s.h.i.+nn, the State Department's Africa bureau head, and then flew to Mogadishu to coordinate with the UNOSOM forces and meet with warlords.

In Somalia, General Aboo Samah, the Malaysian commander of the UNOSOM forces, and Amba.s.sador Victor Gbeho, the special representative of the Secretary-General, were professional and cooperative; and the initial meetings with warlords were also encouraging. Essentially, our message to the warlords was: "Look, we'll take you on if we have to, but that's not the point. We're not looking for trouble. We just want to get these people out of here. So lay back. It's over. Let's get these people out of here without making waves." And they all bought that.

But our visit to Aideed was a near disaster.

Aideed was never the most punctual of men, and, true to form, he was a little late that day. But when he came rus.h.i.+ng in, he was in a very up mood-in his statesman mode, which was fine with me. He'd just been to a political rally, which had gone well; the UN departure favored his interests and objectives; so he seemed happy to see us.

For some reason, however, from the very start of our discussions, Amba.s.sador Simpson took a very provocative line with Aideed. He clearly wanted to get in Aideed's face (and, G.o.d knows, there was plenty of bad blood between our people and Aideed); and here was his chance to show Aideed that he was a very hard-a.s.s guy who couldn't be pushed around by a two-bit warlord. The discussion quickly grew heated; threats were tossed back and forth; and the whole situation seemed headed for a bad crash.

By then, Aideed had switched into his black mode; my brain was working on all cylinders; and I was really p.i.s.sed. "What in the h.e.l.l are we doing?" I was thinking. "We don't need to p.i.s.s Aideed off and take on more enemies than we need. We just want to get these troops out of here and avoid confrontation."

Somehow we got through the rest of the meeting without a renewal of open warfare.

At the conclusion of the meeting, we stepped outside with Aideed for a photo at the bottom of the building steps. Afterward, as the others were preparing to leave, Aideed grabbed my arm and drew me aside.

"Zinni," he said, "you look worried."

"You're right," I told him. "We don't need a confrontation at this point," I continued. "I'm here to protect the UN, and I will; but we don't need more casualties on any side."