網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

with the UNOSOM IC. The UN generally held U.S.-supplied intelligence in high regard, so much so that Secretary Boutros-Ghali explicitly requested U.S. intelligence support for UNOSOM II (UNSC S/25354: 16). The comments of the Pakistani contingent commander, Brigadier General Ikram ul-Hasan, worried over the prospect of the termination of intelligence support upon ultimate American withdrawal, are reflective of this opinion:

When you lose the Americans, you lose your force multipliers.. Most important in combat operations is intelligence input. No intelligence, with no combat helicopters, no force multipliers how do you fight a guerrilla? You can't (Richburg c: A11).

As requested, an intelligence unit was retained in the U.S. Mogadishu liaison office to maintain support to the UN following the withdrawal of U.S. forces in March 1994 (Preston a: A14).

Political Intelligence

Difficulties encountered during the execution of military operations, while highlighting military intelligence shortcomings in Somalia, tended to obscure the inability of the U.S. and UN to take into account critical, accurate intelligence on the Somali political situation. Aideed's intentions during the transition period from April to May 1993 were fundamentally misjudged by U.S. and UN policymakers, despite available intelligence reporting indicating the warlord was moving weapons into the capital for an eventual showdown with the UN (Richburg a: A1). UN officials were later to admit they "grossly miscalculated the military threat in Somalia" when they assumed command in May 1993 (Richburg b: A36).

After the transition from U.S. command of the Somali operation to the UN in May 1993, the Secretary-General's Special Representative, retired Admiral Jonathan Howe, and U.S. envoy Robert Gosende sought to marginalize Aideed in order to fulfill the UN's ambitious goals of national reconstruction. The general and his supporters had made clear their determination to rule Somalia, despite the presence of UNOSOM II, and warned the UN against interference (Quinn-Judge: A12). UN activities such as establishment of a judicial system, a police force, and local government councils and a decision to sponsor a clan conference to replace Aideed threatened to erode the warlord's power base in south Mogadishu.

Policymakers ignored advice and intelligence reports that attempts to isolate Aideed would ultimately backfire and proceeded with plans to inventory heavy weapons as part of the disarmament process (Lippman and Gellman: A1). This action led Aideed to confront the UN in an ambush that killed 24 Pakistani troops in June 1993. The Security Council responded within 24 hours with a resolution calling for the arrest of those responsible, launching the UN into its unsuccessful conflict with Aideed and his militia (Sloyan: C3).

Lessons Learned

It was not the failures of military intelligence or military operations that ultimately doomed UNOSOM II. Political decisions taken in Mogadishu, New York and Washington between March and June 1993 gradually expanded the mandate of a humanitarian peacekeeping operation to a peace enforcement action, despite intelligence warning of the likely consequences. Once the peacekeepers' neutrality was sacrificed-along with their primary source of intelligence, the Somali people—the mission was well down the slippery slope of "mission creep." An artificial coalition of states was then required to conduct an urban counterinsurgency campaign in unfamiliar terrain, while alienated from the local population. UNOSOM II was the ultimate example that intelligence issues in UN peace operations are not just limited to military matters, but involve the political process that could prevent a peacekeeping operation from devolving into a peace enforcement action.

FROM HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE TO NATION BUILDING: UN MISSION CHANGE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE INTELLIGENCE PROCESS

Payton A. Flynn

Technical Sergeant, U.S. Air Force
June 1996

The U.S. Intelligence Community had a difficult time in Somalia attempting to collect, process, analyze, and disseminate intelligence between U.S. assets, and especially between coalition forces. The intelligence questions asked, the intelligence collection apparatus deployed and the methods employed to analyze the intentions and capabilities of Somali factions were based on the humanitarian mission of the Unified Task Force (UNITAF). Basically, the U.S. and UN made the wrong assumptions and asked the wrong questions for the follow-on nation-building mission of UNOSOM II, called operation RESTORE HOPE (Hirsch and Oakley: 101-114).'

ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

Intelligence operators and planners in UNOSOM I, UNITAF and UNOSOM II underestimated the Somalis. UNOSOM II assessments noted the Somalis' inability to operate or maintain sophisticated weaponry, a lack of leadership by the clans/militias, the inability of the clans/militias to coordinate operations against UN forces, the lack of command and control to conduct detailed operations, and the UN's advantage over antiquated

Robert B. Oakley, the U.S. Special Envoy to Somalia, and John L. Hirsch served in Somalia during RESTORE HOPE, and their 1995 book reflects their strategic view of the transition from UNITAF to UNOSOM II.

Somali weapon systems. In reality, the Somalis showed considerable capability in all of these areas. The U.S./UN assumed that the majority of factions would not defy any UN forceful action, and concluded that organized resistance against the UN was unlikely.

The U.S./UN failed to identify the intentions of the warlords, especially those of General Aideed. When the mission shifted to disarmament and nation-building, the warlords had the most to lose because their power was based on access to weapons and a threat of violence. The UN's goals for nation-building would decrease the number of weapons available to the Somali warlords and eliminate the threat of violence on the streets of Mogadishu. The mission of the UN was unacceptable to General Aideed, whose goal was to be the leader of Somalia. His personal agenda would be in jeopardy if the UN were able to rebuild Somalia and establish a government chosen by the people. UNOSOM II never anticipated that Aideed would ambush its peacekeepers, and it was not adequately prepared to handle the intelligence or operational aspects of the mission to capture him. An incident in June 1993 illustrates the faulty intelligence estimate process. On 5 June, when Pakistani peacekeepers inspected the Somalia national radio station (controlled by General Aideed) and other Somalia National Alliance weapons storage areas, the results were disastrous. It was an intelligence error to anticipate that General Aideed would allow the UN to search one of his key tactical assets without an organized resistance (Richburg a: A1).

INTELLIGENCE TRANSFER

The transfer of intelligence functions between the U.S.-led UNITAF coalition and the UN's UNOSOM II was not properly coordinated. The transition functions were accomplished too quickly. The CENTCOM Intelligence Support Element was not prepared at the start of UNOSOM II to take over the complicated intelligence process and provide timely, accurate and relevant information to decisionmakers. The lack of adequate transition time, coupled with a reduction in personnel, combined to disrupt the intelligence process. The intelligence gap created by the transition left UNOSOM II in the precarious position of continuously "catching up," as most of the time it was reduced to producing only reactive intelligence.

The reduction in personnel from UNITAF to UNOSOM II had a direct impact on intelligence capabilities. The UN was not prepared on 4 May 1993 to take over the operation from UNITAF. Lt Gen Robert Johnston,

USMC, Commander of UNITAF, had drawn down U.S. forces to minimal levels by April 1993. General Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a visit to Mogadishu on 5 April 1993: “We're not in a hurry to get out of here by 1 May, because we don't want to force (Turkish) Lt. General) Bir to move too quickly" (Richburg b: A36). But facts on the ground dictated otherwise. General Johnston's drawdown forced the UN to take over before it was ready and with reduced troop levels. Coalition forces were reduced from more than 28,000 in January to approximately 16,000 in May, 12,000 less than authorized by the UN Security Council.

In the end, the UN was forced into taking on a mission that it was not prepared to handle. Admiral Howe said: "There was a real issue of are we ready or are we not. I don't think we were properly prepared. We took people out of the city . . . It was a stretching exercise. We were replacing wellequipped, highly trained, well-integrated American forces with splotches of other groups" (Richburg b: A36).

The gap created in the intelligence arena due to the decrease in personnel would hamper the intelligence effort from May through October 1993. Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said: "We had a big contingent, a sizable contingent there, with a good network throughout the country. ...[But we] substantially pulled that down when we pulled out" (R. Smith f: A19).

SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE SHARING

Taking into account the limitations of the UN, the U.S. Intelligence Community security and sanitization procedures for intelligence shared with the UN ended in a security breach. On 27 February 1995, Ambassador Simpson and others from the Somali Liaison Office in Nairobi were exploring the vacated former UNOSOM Force Commander's headquarters and found an unsecured room full of classified U.S. and UN documents and computer disks. Included were large numbers of documents and imagery classified up to U.S. "SECRET/NO FOREIGN DISSEMINATION" and "UN RESTRICTED, LEVEL II," all of which would have been compromised if they had not been discovered (“Documents": 322). Such a compromise could have been extremely damaging in two ways: use of these materials by enemies to identify and settle scores with former U.S./UN Somali intelligence sources and to embarrass the U.S./UN with an onslaught of adverse propaganda.

« 上一頁繼續 »