ABSTRACT
The development of the Somalia humanitarian crisis in 1991-1992 found the United States poorly positioned to follow events and to plan and implement an appropriate response. The embassy had been evacuated and looted in January 1991, when the civil war came to Mogadishu and forced President Siad Barre to flee to his tribal base in southwestern Somalia. The problems of Somalia were subject to extensive analysis in the various concerned agencies, and a network of planning and coordination groups was built up that would be used even more intensively in the Unified Task Force (UNITAF) and United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II) phases to follow. Any operation like the UNITAF-UNOSOM intervention in Somalia is by nature political and will involve the intervening powers intimately in all the dynamics of the situation. The public and the legislature's concerned need to be brought into the game plan and their understanding and support put on a solid basis.
