Keynote Address of Senator Russ Feingold At the Center for Strategic and International Studies Conference Somalia’s Future: Options for Diplomacy, Assistance, and Peace Operations As Prepared January 17, 2007 Thank you, Dr. Hamre, for that kind welcome. I appreciate the work that CSIS has done to bring together a great group of people today, and for your continued leadership on many of the challenges facing the African continent. Steve Morrison and Jennifer Cooke, thank you for your continued efforts to create a substantive, focused discussion on this issue. You’ve provided a valuable forum for this discussion. Let me also recognize and thank Dr. Dick Solomon, President of the U.S. Institute of Peace, who I understand is not here, as well as Ambassador Princeton Lyman from the Council on Foreign Relations, and Dr. Howard Wolpe, former Congressman and long-time leader on issues relating to U.S. engagement in Africa. I have benefited tremendously over the years from the knowledge and experience of both of these men. We have an incredible amount of experience in this room. To all of you, thank you for putting on this important event and for asking me to stop in this morning. And thank you all for coming today. This really is a critical time, and I’m glad that so many dedicated people have decided to spend the day working on what has become one of the toughest issues we’re facing in Africa. Like everyone here, I am seriously concerned about recent developments in Somalia. Now, as has been mentioned, I’ve been working on issues relating to Somalia for all 14 years of my Senate career. In fact, the very first question I received after being elected – even before I was sworn in - standing in front of my garage, was not about education or health care, but about Somalia. I was asked, “What do you think about President Bush’s idea to send troops into Somalia?” Now, standing here in front of you as the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Africa, I am hoping that we can make an aggressive, sustained effort to bring about a real transition to peace in Somalia. But while there have been a few positive developments in the last few weeks – like the Transitional Federal Government returning to Mogadishu - it is far too soon to suggest that Somalia is on a stable path towards peace. Much more needs to be done to establish the conditions that will actually lead to a lasting peace. In fact, it has become increasingly evident that we only have a small – and I think quickly closing – window of opportunity to act. First, we have only a limited amount of time to establish the conditions that will lead to political stability in Somalia. That means establishing a political framework that will help the Transitional Federal Government create a government that is actually capable of representing and providing security and services to the Somali people. Ethiopia’s military incursion, starting on December 24th, initially changed the security and political dynamics on the ground and enabled the TFG to enter Mogadishu. Unfortunately, the TFG is already running the risk of missing a critical window to establish itself as a credible, transparent, and representative government. Recent media reports from Mogadishu highlight how difficult it has been for the TFG to prove its legitimacy. The Ethiopian military presence in Somalia, too, presents a very significant challenge. While a sustained Ethiopian military presence in Somalia will have a destabilizing effect, of course, it’s also true that a withdrawal could also create the same conditions that lead to the rise of the Islamic Courts in Somalia in the first place. Such a withdrawal could perpetuate the interests of warlords and the hard-line extremists within the Islamic Courts if there is no security force capable of securing Mogadishu and the rest of the country. I met with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa a few weeks before he launched the military incursion. At the time, he expressed his concern about timing and how long his country’s military could sustain operations. Now the Ethiopian government appears eager to withdraw and if they do so– this could have serious consequences. And that leads to another critical timing issue. Without the deployment of a follow-on peacekeeping force of some sort, Ethiopia’s eventual withdrawal could mean great difficulty for the Transitional Federal Government and the people of Somalia. The question is not whether or when the Ethiopians leave, but what will take their place in Somalia. At this point, the Ugandans have warily agreed to send upwards of 1,500 Ugandan soldiers into Somalia. But their deployment could take weeks that the Ethiopians may not want to spend waiting around. And 1,500 soldiers, in the most optimistic assessment, is a woefully inadequate force to counter the major challenges to this fragile government, and to a political reconciliation process. But these are only a few of my concerns. I’m also concerned about how the U.S. government has responded to developments in Somalia. While the situation on the ground is increasingly complex and tense, our response – or lack thereof – to developments in a key region suggests that our government is still trying to figure out how to address failed states, terrorist safe havens, instability, and regional conflict. I intend to take a hard look in my subcommittee in the coming year at past actions and at how we can equip our government to better handle situations like this. As you know, recent reports that terrorists and hard-line members of the Islamic Courts in Somalia are on the run are capturing headlines. Pentagon and State Department officials have said that a U.S. military aircraft targeted what they believed to be Al Qaeda operatives who have been harbored by the Islamic Courts last week. Most of the coverage on Somalia in the last few weeks, in fact, has been almost exclusively related to these counter-terrorism efforts. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I am limited in what I can say publicly about this. But I think we all can agree that now, more than ever, Somalia’s instability matters to the region and to our own national security. So we cannot conceive of Somalia only in terms of a manhunt, because this is not an effective policy to protect the people of the United States. We know well the consequences of allowing lawlessness and chaos to take over Somalia. Over the past several years, lawlessness in Somalia has spread into Kenya and Ethiopia and has been convenient for illicit and underground organizations that do business on the black market worldwide. Somalia has also long been a refuge for terrorists, including three individuals suspected in the 1998 bombings of US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, Dar Es Salaam, and Tanzania. Targeting terrorists is important, but it’s not enough. In fact, if we just focus on that, we risk a significant backlash that could hurt efforts to establish stability in Somalia, and our broader regional efforts. Counter-terrorism efforts must be accompanied by a broader political and diplomatic strategy for the Horn of Africa. Al Qaeda leaders have made clear that they see instability in Somalia as an opportunity to extend their influence. Accordingly, the United States needs to address that instability so that Al Qaeda can’t use Somalia as another staging ground from which to harm America. If we don’t, that country will remain what it has been since the early 1990s – a haven for terrorists and warlords, and a source of crippling instability in a critical region. So what we need is a comprehensive stabilization and reconstruction strategy that will bring lasting peace to Somalia and the region. Unfortunately, this strategy has yet to be developed. A bipartisan group of Senators supported my effort last year to require the Administration to put this comprehensive strategy together. We passed a provision in Congress that was signed by the President in November. That strategy was actually due yesterday and my staff was informed that the State Department has yet to comply. This Administration needs to establish a framework within which it can develop key priorities and objectives for Somalia, as well as more effective collaboration with the international community and the region. We’ve seen in other parts of the world what a mistake it is to make decisions without the benefit of a vision, or a strategy, or a plan. I want our government to avoid making bad or rash decisions – or worse than that, no decisions at all -- and I want to ensure that our approach to Somalia takes into consideration the complex nature of the problem and the need to view Somalia comprehensively – not just solely through a military-focused, counter-terrorism lens. We know that Somalia’s weak transitional government has a challenging road ahead to establish itself as the representative government for the people of Somalia. By all accounts, Somalis have not yet rallied behind that government. In fact, a recent LA Times article highlighted the fact that gun prices in Mogadishu are apparently rising because of steep demand. And many of the warlords who have long used Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia as their own personal and violent fiefdoms are moving freely around the country. The hard-line extremists have receded into Somalia’s sandy landscape, but Somalia’s anarchic tendencies still remain unchanged. So let me talk about what I think we and the international community need to do. The United States should take at least three critical steps to bring stability to Somalia in the coming weeks and months. These steps aren’t linear or sequential. I’ve learned that when dealing with Somalia, it doesn’t necessarily help to lay things out in a sequential fashion. These steps are all inter-related and mutually reinforcing. And unfortunately, without just one of these key elements – if we don’t have all three - efforts to stabilize Somalia could be severely hindered. First, the United States needs to ramp up diplomatic efforts to build support for a robust international peacekeeping force that can deploy to Somalia. It will be impossible for Somalis to begin the tough work of strengthening a central government if there is no security, and an international peacekeeping force could help stabilize the country until the transitional government can stand up its own security forces. While I recognize that this move could be controversial, I don’t see that we have another choice. We must move quickly to ensure that Ethiopia’s military incursion isn’t just another chapter in Somalia’s tumultuous history. While Ethiopia may have won a tactical success in Somalia, it failed to deliver a strategic victory because no one – not the international community, nor Ethiopia itself – was prepared for the consequences of what they did. The U.S. will need to help in deploying this peacekeeping force – not necessarily with troops, but with airlift and logistical support and training. This force will need a clear mandate and the capability to bring about stability throughout the country, and it will need far more than the brave Ugandan troops who may soon be on their way to Somalia. Second, and maybe most importantly, the U.S. must work vigorously with Somalis, regional players, and the international community to help the Somalis create an inclusive national government. The Transitional Federal Charter, signed by numerous Somali clans and tribes in 2004, may serve as a starting point or reference, but because a lot has changed and because some portions of Somali society have reportedly rejected it as a governing document, it will need to probably be revisited. While America’s record isn’t perfect, we have experience working with complex and ethnic- or tribal-based political systems around the world – from Bosnia to Afghanistan to Liberia. Without a political solution, no peacekeeping force will be capable of bringing about stability in Somalia, and no government will be capable of cobbling together a political coalition with the legitimacy to lead the country forward, and we’ll be left again with the same conditions that benefited war lords and Al Qaeda. We need to support this effort vigorously. We need to increase our diplomatic capability to deal with Somalia. This represents a critical challenge to how our government is organized, and we need to get it right. We need to put some of our best minds on the problem – both here in Washington and in the field. This is complicated work and we also need a senior-level envoy to work on it full-time. Dispatching a U.S. special envoy – and quickly -- would help elevate our ability to deal with these multifaceted political issues and help rally and coordinate international efforts. Now third, and to help facilitate the previous two elements, the U.S. needs to kick-start Somalia’s stabilization and reconstruction efforts by creating a significant trust fund that will help the Somali government get down to the business of governing. This fund will be needed to support disarmament and demobilization efforts, infrastructure projects, capacity building and jobs creation, and to help rebuild Somalia’s decrepit infrastructure. It will also be needed to help develop the rule of law and security forces that respect human rights. We can also learn from the reconstruction efforts undertaken by the U.S. and the international community in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Kosovo. Because Somalia’s institutions are so weak and the needs of its people are so great, it is key that donor countries, the United Nations, and nongovernmental organizations contribute to stabilization efforts. We need these organizations to coordinate their work to make sure that every dollar is used to help the people of Somalia – not inadvertently diverted to prop up parochial and destabilizing interests. These are the three big areas we need to move on immediately. There are other important areas too. As we’ve seen around the world, efforts like this are complex. They take large sums of money, time, and patience. And if this is going to work, it’s going to have to be significant in size. But we have an opportunity to do this right – and to do it in a way that is comprehensive. And that is where I believe Congress comes in. Senator Norm Coleman and I are working on a bill right now to address these major areas that I just mentioned. But our colleagues in Congress are going to need to understand that the window of opportunity to effect change in Somalia is closing. The coming months are a time for action – to authorize and appropriate funds, to conduct rigorous oversight to ensure that this Administration takes a balanced and comprehensive approach, and to authorize activities that will help our government and the international community organize effectively to address instability in Somalia. The price tag will be significant. So, too, will be the risk of failure if we don’t act. Previous U.S. attempts to resolve the competing and violent dynamics in Somalia have failed. We Americans cannot forget that. But we cannot allow our past to overshadow the pressing security concerns we face in the region today. We have an opportunity to help the Somali people dig themselves out of almost two decades of chaos and to strengthen U.S. national security at the same time. But if our government does not move quickly and aggressively on all fronts, we can be sure Somalia will continue to be a haven for terrorist networks and a source of instability that poses a direct threat to the United States. Let me close by saying this: I hope that all of you use today as an opportunity to share and revise ideas, options, lessons, and analysis that will help the U.S. and international community contribute to stabilizing Somalia. I also hope that you start with the premise that the United States can do more. And while I urge you to be thorough and to be open about past failures, I’d hope that you look forward and help establish us momentum for what promises to be a long trip. Finally, I urge you to think big – your work here at this conference will help set the tone and pace for how we move forward, and ideally will help the people of Somalia and the security of the American people as well.

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