Clinton’s Truce With Congress on Somalia Frays

WASHINGTON — The fragile truce over Somalia that President Clinton negotiated with Capitol Hill last week appeared in danger of collapsing Tuesday amid continuing congressional complaints that the Administration’s policy is still marred by confusion and drift.

Fueled by new concerns over the uncertainty surrounding the role that U.S. troops are expected to play in restoring democracy in Haiti, the criticism is expected to peak today when the Senate considers legislation that could force Clinton to pull American troops out of Somalia by the end of the year. A vote could come as early as Thursday.

After a week of stormy speeches by lawmakers calling for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, Clinton seemed to have contained the challenge by saying that U.S. troops would be disengaged from Somalia by March 31.

But on the eve of what is expected to be a heated Senate debate, apparently growing public disapproval of Clinton’s handling of the Somalia crisis and what lawmakers complain is the Administration’s failure to explain its policy aims adequately are giving new life to an amendment that would cut off all funding for the Somalia mission as early as Dec. 31.

As lawmakers trickled back to Washington after a long Columbus Day weekend that many spent in their home districts, many said that the feedback they received from constituents indicated strong disapproval for Clinton’s plan to keep U.S. troops in Somalia for another six months.

“Get out of Somalia,” Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said when asked about the reaction of his constituents. “They say Somalia is anarchy.”

“There was a lot of hostility along the lines of, ‘We help feed them and then they shoot at us,’ added California Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), who said that he encountered “a sense of disgust and outrage” among his constituents over last week’s photographs of a GI’s corpse being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu at the end of a rope.

The Pentagon on Tuesday released the names of two more soldiers killed in the Oct. 3 Mogadishu battle that resulted in the grisly photo. They were Chief Warrant Officer Raymond A. Frank, 45, of Monrovia, based at Ft. Campbell, Ky., and Sgt. 1st Class Randall D. Shughart, 35, of Newville, Pa., based at Ft. Bragg, N.C.

“We have received more than 2,000 calls on this issue, and only two dozen of them indicated any support for remaining in Somalia,” said a spokesman for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). “The overwhelming sentiment expressed has been ‘to get out of there and get out of there now,’ ” he added.

The strong public sentiment, supported by weekend opinion polls, is likely to complicate efforts by the Senate leadership to win support for compromise legislation that would deflect congressional calls for an earlier withdrawal by narrowing the mission of the U.S. forces now in Somalia but preserving the March 31 disengagement date.

Joined by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), who is more supportive of Clinton’s Somalia policy than many Democrats have been, Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) and Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) will offer the Administration’s alternative as an amendment to a defense spending bill coming before the Senate today.

While the Administration hoped initially to get greater flexibility in carrying out Clinton’s plan by avoiding any mention of a date, Senate sources said that the amendment will probably retain the March 31 deadline--although it may leave open the possibility of an extension with congressional consent.

The alternative will be an amendment offered by McCain and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) that would bar any funds in the defense bill from being spent to keep U.S. forces in Somalia beyond the end of the year.

The argument that the leadership and the White House will make in an effort to deflect Byrd, who has been one of Clinton’s harshest critics on Somalia, is that “the President now has his Somalia policy on track” and is heeding congressional calls for a withdrawal in a way that avoids the havoc that a more precipitous pullout might cause in Somalia, a senior Administration source said.

Clinton now has “a plan . . . an American plan,” and Congress should set aside a divisive debate and “let him try to effect and implement it,” Dole said.

But a number of prominent lawmakers complained that the Administration has failed to follow up Clinton’s public address Thursday by adequately explaining and selling its policy.

“The mission hasn’t been very well explained,” said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.).

While not directly related to Somalia, the events in Haiti, where a ship carrying 200 U.S. and Canadian military advisers was turned away by local gunmen who oppose the U.N.-led effort to restore democracy, compounded the difficulties the Administration will face in defeating Byrd.

“We put all of our top guns on the weekend talk shows to sell the policy in order to give cover to members of Congress” to vote with the Administration on Somalia “and then we got smacked in the face with Haiti,” a State Department source said.