Presidents at War: Bill Clinton and International Conflicts
Although one does not normally think of William Jefferson Clinton's presidency for its military battles, many military events occurred on the watch of the 42nd President. US military involvement during the Clinton years took place in a number of places, including Somalia, Rwanda, Iran, and Bosnia.
1. Somalia and Rwanda
During the first year of the Clinton Presidency, the Battle of Mogadishu occurred in Somalia in 1993. During this incident, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping American soldiers behind enemy lines. The helicopters had been part of a UN relief effort following a civil war in Somalia. The shooting down of the helicopters resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and saw one taken prisoner. There were many more Somali casualties. Adding to the indignation, some of the American soldiers' bodies were dragged through the streets and this was broadcast on television news programs. Later in the week, on October 6, 1993, President Clinton directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to stop all actions by U.S. forces in Somalia except those required in self-defense. He appointed a special envoy to Somalia in an attempt to broker a peace settlement. He also announced that all U.S. forces would withdraw from Somalia no later than March 31, 1994.
In April 1994, genocide in Rwanda erupted due to a conflict between Hutu and Tutsi groups. Over the next few months, an estimated half a million to one million Rwandans, mainly Tutsi, were killed. By July, the Rwandan Patriotic Front took over the country. The Clinton Administration and the international community was aware of the genocide taking place in Rwanda, but no action was undertaken. By the end of July, nearly two million of Hutus fled the country for safety, spawning the growth of refugee camps in neighboring countries.Thousands of people died of disease and starvation in these refugee camps. Clinton ordered airdrops of food and supplies for the Hutu refugees. In July, he sent 200 non-combatant troops to the Rwanda capital of Kigali to manage the airport and distribute relief supplies. These troops were subsequently withdrawn by October 1994. Clinton and the United Nations were criticized for their non-response to the genocide. When Clinton traveled to Africa in 1998, he said that the international community, presumably including the US, should accept responsibility for the failure to respond to the massacres. When speaking about the Rwanda Crisis, Clinton called it his worst failure, and said "I blew it."
2. Terrorist Attacks on US Embassies in Africa
Another of the military issues facing the Clinton administration was he capture of terrorist Osama bin Laden. In 1996 the Sudanese government allegedly offered to arrest and extradite Bin Laden as well as to provide the United States detailed intelligence information about growing militant organizations in the region, including Hezbollah and Hamas. According to some sources, that U.S. authorities rejected the offer, despite knowing of bin Laden's involvement in bombings on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. This allegation was later investigated by the 9/11 Commission, who found that, although former Sudanese officials claimed that Sudan had offered to expel Bin Laden to the United States, the commission could not find any reliable evidence to support the claim. In 1998, the Clinton administration ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, bit none of these were successful.
In August 1998, terrorists bombed the United States embassies in the capitals of two East African countries, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. About 250 people were killed, including 12 Americans, and more than 5,500 were injured. Intelligence linked the bombings to Osama bin Laden. In response, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. First was a Sudanese Pharmaceutical company suspected of assisting Osama Bin Laden in making chemical weapons. The second was Bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Clinton was subsequently criticized when it turned out that a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan had been destroyed, but his administration maintained that the plant had ties to terrorist organizations.
3. The Balkans
During Clinton's presidency, war was taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a nation in southeastern Europe that had declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. This declaration led to war between Bosnian Serbs, who wanted Bosnia to remain in the Yugoslav federation, and Bosnian Muslims and Croats. The Bosnian Serbs, who were supported by Serbia, were better equipped than the Muslims and the Croats and populated and controlled much of the countryside. They besieged cities, including the capital of Sarajevo, causing widespread suffering. Clinton proposed bombing Serb supply lines and lifting an embargo that prevented the shipment of military arms to the former Yugoslavia, a policy known as lift and strike, but European nations were opposed to such a move.
In the spring of 1998, ethnic tension in Yugoslavia grew. More than 90 percent of the residents of Kosovo were Muslim and ethnic Albanians, many of whom wanted independence from the country. Yugoslav forces were mobilized to quell Albanian rebels. The actions of the military were alleged to amount to genocide and ethnic cleansing. Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. General Wesley Clark was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and he oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced that its forces had suffered no combat deaths, aside from two deaths which occurred during an Apache helicopter crash. A U.N. Court later found that genocide did not take place, but recognized, "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" of Albanians in the region. Slobodan Milošević, the President of Yugoslavia at the time, was eventually charged with the "murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians" and "crimes against humanity."
Two months of NATO airstrikes devastated Yugoslavia. In June 1999, NATO and Yugoslav military leaders approved an international peace plan for Kosovo, and attacks were suspended after Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo.
4. Iraq
In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's possible pursuit of nuclear weapons. Clinton told congress, "Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them... I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, 'You cannot defy the will of the world', and when I say to him, 'You have used weapons of mass destruction before; we are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.'"
To weaken Saddam Hussein's grip of power, Clinton signed H.R. 4655 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq. He then ordered the launch of a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world."
The problems in Iraq would later be addressed by Clinton's successor, George W. Bush.
1. Somalia and Rwanda
During the first year of the Clinton Presidency, the Battle of Mogadishu occurred in Somalia in 1993. During this incident, two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping American soldiers behind enemy lines. The helicopters had been part of a UN relief effort following a civil war in Somalia. The shooting down of the helicopters resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and saw one taken prisoner. There were many more Somali casualties. Adding to the indignation, some of the American soldiers' bodies were dragged through the streets and this was broadcast on television news programs. Later in the week, on October 6, 1993, President Clinton directed the Joint Chiefs of Staff to stop all actions by U.S. forces in Somalia except those required in self-defense. He appointed a special envoy to Somalia in an attempt to broker a peace settlement. He also announced that all U.S. forces would withdraw from Somalia no later than March 31, 1994.
In April 1994, genocide in Rwanda erupted due to a conflict between Hutu and Tutsi groups. Over the next few months, an estimated half a million to one million Rwandans, mainly Tutsi, were killed. By July, the Rwandan Patriotic Front took over the country. The Clinton Administration and the international community was aware of the genocide taking place in Rwanda, but no action was undertaken. By the end of July, nearly two million of Hutus fled the country for safety, spawning the growth of refugee camps in neighboring countries.Thousands of people died of disease and starvation in these refugee camps. Clinton ordered airdrops of food and supplies for the Hutu refugees. In July, he sent 200 non-combatant troops to the Rwanda capital of Kigali to manage the airport and distribute relief supplies. These troops were subsequently withdrawn by October 1994. Clinton and the United Nations were criticized for their non-response to the genocide. When Clinton traveled to Africa in 1998, he said that the international community, presumably including the US, should accept responsibility for the failure to respond to the massacres. When speaking about the Rwanda Crisis, Clinton called it his worst failure, and said "I blew it."
2. Terrorist Attacks on US Embassies in Africa
Another of the military issues facing the Clinton administration was he capture of terrorist Osama bin Laden. In 1996 the Sudanese government allegedly offered to arrest and extradite Bin Laden as well as to provide the United States detailed intelligence information about growing militant organizations in the region, including Hezbollah and Hamas. According to some sources, that U.S. authorities rejected the offer, despite knowing of bin Laden's involvement in bombings on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. This allegation was later investigated by the 9/11 Commission, who found that, although former Sudanese officials claimed that Sudan had offered to expel Bin Laden to the United States, the commission could not find any reliable evidence to support the claim. In 1998, the Clinton administration ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, bit none of these were successful.
In August 1998, terrorists bombed the United States embassies in the capitals of two East African countries, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. About 250 people were killed, including 12 Americans, and more than 5,500 were injured. Intelligence linked the bombings to Osama bin Laden. In response, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan. First was a Sudanese Pharmaceutical company suspected of assisting Osama Bin Laden in making chemical weapons. The second was Bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Clinton was subsequently criticized when it turned out that a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan had been destroyed, but his administration maintained that the plant had ties to terrorist organizations.
3. The Balkans
During Clinton's presidency, war was taking place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a nation in southeastern Europe that had declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1992. This declaration led to war between Bosnian Serbs, who wanted Bosnia to remain in the Yugoslav federation, and Bosnian Muslims and Croats. The Bosnian Serbs, who were supported by Serbia, were better equipped than the Muslims and the Croats and populated and controlled much of the countryside. They besieged cities, including the capital of Sarajevo, causing widespread suffering. Clinton proposed bombing Serb supply lines and lifting an embargo that prevented the shipment of military arms to the former Yugoslavia, a policy known as lift and strike, but European nations were opposed to such a move.
In the spring of 1998, ethnic tension in Yugoslavia grew. More than 90 percent of the residents of Kosovo were Muslim and ethnic Albanians, many of whom wanted independence from the country. Yugoslav forces were mobilized to quell Albanian rebels. The actions of the military were alleged to amount to genocide and ethnic cleansing. Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999. General Wesley Clark was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and he oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced that its forces had suffered no combat deaths, aside from two deaths which occurred during an Apache helicopter crash. A U.N. Court later found that genocide did not take place, but recognized, "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" of Albanians in the region. Slobodan Milošević, the President of Yugoslavia at the time, was eventually charged with the "murders of about 600 individually identified ethnic Albanians" and "crimes against humanity."
Two months of NATO airstrikes devastated Yugoslavia. In June 1999, NATO and Yugoslav military leaders approved an international peace plan for Kosovo, and attacks were suspended after Yugoslav forces withdrew from Kosovo.
4. Iraq
In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's possible pursuit of nuclear weapons. Clinton told congress, "Saddam Hussein has spent the better part of this decade, and much of his nation's wealth, not on providing for the Iraqi people, but on developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them... I know I speak for everyone in this chamber, Republicans and Democrats, when I say to Saddam Hussein, 'You cannot defy the will of the world', and when I say to him, 'You have used weapons of mass destruction before; we are determined to deny you the capacity to use them again.'"
To weaken Saddam Hussein's grip of power, Clinton signed H.R. 4655 into law on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq. He then ordered the launch of a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world."
The problems in Iraq would later be addressed by Clinton's successor, George W. Bush.