[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 54 (Wednesday, March 28, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4042-S4043]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                SOMALIA

  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, in recent weeks, we have seen a level of 
chaos and brutal violence in Mogadishu, Somalia, that is tragic and 
horrific, not to mention extremely dangerous to our national security 
interests. According to the U.N., 40,000 people fled Mogadishu in 
February, and conditions have only deteriorated this month. 
Humanitarian access is severely restricted. Ugandan troops serving in 
an African Union peacekeeping force have been attacked. Last week a 
cargo plane was shot down. The Transitional Federal Government has been 
overwhelmed by the violence, and appears unable or unwilling to work 
with rival clans and other opponents. A mere 3 months after the 
Ethiopian incursion, the TFG is isolated and a dangerous power vacuum 
is forming.
  These are the conditions that permit terrorist organizations to 
operate in Somalia, as they have for years. Insecurity and lawlessness 
facilitated the rise of the Islamic courts in recent years and now 
circumstances are again conducive for extremist elements to regroup and 
return. In other words, without a consistent, comprehensive plan for 
fostering stability in Somalia, we could find ourselves faced with the 
same conditions that preceded the Ethiopian incursion against the 
courts and subsequent U.S. military operations.
  The United States and the international community has approached 
Somalia, and continues to approach Somalia, sporadically, with policy 
made on the fly and with few resources directed toward long-term 
political and economic development. When required by Congress to 
provide a comprehensive plan for Somalia, the Administration has failed 
to do so. In February, when I asked the Assistant Secretary of State 
for African Affairs why this legally mandated report was overdue, she 
indicated that that the Department was busy responding to ``fast-moving 
events on the ground.'' But that is precisely the problem. Ad hoc 
approaches to Somalia have not worked; they have never worked. There 
was no comprehensive plan last year, when the Islamic courts took 
advantage of years of civil conflict to consolidate their power. There 
was no plan when Ethiopian troops entered Somalia, even though the 
international community had no ready peacekeeping capability to follow. 
There was no plan when the TFG was installed in Mogadishu with no 
effective international framework to ensure that it could govern. And 
there was no broader plan when U.S.

[[Page S4043]]

airstrikes pursued targets in a country that, unless policies change, 
will remain a terrorist safe haven for years to come.
  None of what we are seeing in Somalia today should come as a 
surprise. Last fall, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles was loudly 
proclaiming his intention to go into Somalia. In my own meeting with 
Meles in early December, he told me exactly what he intended to do. He 
would enter Somalia, he would teach the Islamic courts a lesson, and he 
would withdraw. Ethiopia, he told me, had neither the capability nor 
the desire to engage in nation building. I asked him about the 
instability that might ensue and warned him against an invasion. The 
lessons from Iraq were perhaps inevitable and we discussed them. Yet 
Meles was committed to a strike against the Islamic courts, regardless 
of what would follow. In other words, quick military action was, from 
his perspective, in Ethiopia's national interests, even without an 
adequate international political framework or a robust peacekeeping 
capability.
  That does not mean, however, that this was in America's national 
interests. I do not know if the Ethiopian incursion would have occurred 
if the United States had sought to stop it. I do know that the ruins 
left behind by this incursion were foreseeable and there was no excuse 
for the United States and the international community to have been 
caught so shamefully unprepared.
  As I warned in January, even after the incursion there was a brief 
window of opportunity to bring some stability to Somalia. That window 
may have now closed. Still, we have no choice but to do what we should 
have been doing all along. It is in our interest to increase support 
for the peacekeepers who are currently being asked to police a state of 
chaos. It is in our interest to identify economic resources that could 
be used for development in Somalia and as an incentive for stability 
and representative government. And it is in our interest to promote a 
broad, international framework for stability in Somalia. It is not 
acceptable for the Transitional Federal Government to resist the tough 
political choices--including the inclusion of rival factions and 
clans--necessary to establish an effective national government that is 
seen as credible and legitimate by its own people as well as the 
international community. It is the Somalis who suffer when there is no 
representative government, and it is the terrorists who benefit. And it 
is irresponsible for other countries in the region to pursue their 
separate, conflicting agendas in Somalia rather than contribute to a 
sustainable compromise.
  The stabilization and reconstruction of Somalia will not happen 
without a real commitment of attention and political capital from the 
United States. We must appoint a Special Envoy to work fulltime on 
Somalia and the Horn of Africa. The ambassadors in the region all have 
their own host countries to worry about every day. And it is not an 
option for the Secretary of State to be ``in the lead on our Somalia 
policy,'' as the Assistant Secretary stated in February. Such unfocused 
leadership results in precisely the kind of sporadic response to events 
in Somalia that has so utterly failed us.
  Last week, the violence in Mogadishu took a grisly and familiar turn: 
the dragging and mutilating of bodies through the streets. It was these 
kinds of images that helped prompt the United States to turn away from 
Somalia 15 years ago. But, as we learned in Nairobi and Tanzania in 
1998, when we turn away from Somalia, we invite disaster. That does not 
mean that there was a military solution in 1993--certainly, the poorly 
defined U.S. military mission in Somalia 14 years ago was not a 
solution. Nor does it mean that there is a military solution now. 
Airstrikes can never, by themselves, dry up a terrorist safe haven, nor 
can they bring to power a stable government with which we can work to 
pursue our mutual interests.
  Yet all too often, military options are all we consider, all we plan 
for, and all we devote resources to. High-level diplomacy has been 
neglected. Economic investments have been short-changed. And, worst of 
all, those who are supposed to be leaders on this issue have already 
gotten distracted.
  We cannot afford to let history repeat itself. If we do not act, 
conditions will continue to deteriorate. Civilians will die. Extremists 
who offer the promise of a modicum of security will not only emerge, 
but will be welcomed by a population desperate for some peace. 
Terrorist networks will thrive. And plots against the United States 
will be hatched.
  The longer we continue to neglect Somalia, the longer we potentially 
undermine our own national security.

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