Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, October 15, 1993 TAG: 9310150119
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The United States erred in Somalia by allowing its U.N.-directed assignment to become "the waging of conflict and a highly personalized battle which undermined the political process," Clinton said Thursday.
"That is what was wrong and that is what we have attempted to correct in the last few days," said Clinton, emphasizing that a political settlement is what the United States is promoting rather than the arrest of Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
He said the experiences in Somalia "make me more cautious" about sending U.S. soldiers overseas unless they're under American command with direct accountability to Washington. Under pressure from Congress, the president has set a March 31 troop-withdrawal deadline for Somalia.
As for other possible deployments, he said any U.S. troops sent as part of a force in Bosnia, for example, would be under the control of NATO, which has an American commander.
"It is a much more coherent military operation," the president said. "And I would have a far higher level of confidence about not only the safety of our troops but our ability to deal with that as a NATO operation."
Clinton said, "We have a good record" in foreign policy on issues most important to the United States.
He cited U.S. policy toward Russia, the Middle East and Japan, as well as with Western allies, as examples of success.
"We are living in a new world," the president said. "It's easy for people who don't have these responsibilities to use words like `naive' or this or that or the other thing.
"The truth is . . . we've got to try to chart a course that is the right course for the United States to lead, while avoiding things that we cannot do, or things that impose cost in human and financial terms that are unacceptable for us."
Expressing limits on the U.S. role, Clinton said, "When you're talking about resolving longstanding political disputes, the United States as the world's only superpower is no more able to do that for other people than we were 30 years ago, or 20 years ago."
In a veiled criticism of the Bush administration, Clinton said there was no way American troops could have been withdrawn from Somalia last January, as once promised, because of the political instability there. And the longer the troops stayed, the greater the risks became, Clinton said.
Noting reports that 300 Somalis were killed in recent fights with U.N. forces, Clinton said, "That is not our mission. We did not go there to do that.
"We cannot let a charge we got under a U.N. resolution to do some police work . . . to arrest suspects turn into a military mission," the president said.
by CNB