Envoy to Kenya Had Opposed Somali Mission

The U.S. ambassador to Kenya cautioned the State Department this month not to “embrace the Somali tar baby” by sending in troops and risking casualties at the hands of “natural-born guerrillas,” a national magazine reported Saturday.

U.S. News & World Report said it obtained a diplomatic cable written by Smith Hempstone in which the ambassador urged that no troops be sent to Somalia, whose chaotic condition he said was beyond “the quick fix so beloved of Americans.”

“I must confess that I have been bemused, confused and alarmed at the Gadarene haste with which the USG (U.S. government) seemingly has sought to embrace the Somali tar baby,” Hempstone wrote in the memo to Undersecretary of State Frank G. Wisner.

Hempstone was asked by the State Department on Dec. 1 to comment on the Somali situation, U.S. News said.

The ambassador’s advice contradicts the judgments reached by President Bush, who announced Friday that he was ordering 28,000 American troops into Somalia to stop armed gunmen from sabotaging international relief agencies’ efforts to feed starving Somalis.

Bush and his military advisers said they expected to complete the mission within three months and that they did not expect serious armed resistance from the Somalis.

But Hempstone said he saw no easy way out for the American forces and little likelihood that their presence would provide lasting relief for the Somali crisis.

“Somalis . . . are natural-born guerrillas,” he wrote. “They will lay ambushes. They will launch hit-and-run attacks. They will not be able to stop the convoys from getting through. But they will inflict--and take--casualties.”

Asked for reaction, State Department spokesman Martin Judge said, “We can’t discuss the contents of a classified cable; that’s longstanding policy.”

Judge said Bush “laid out very clearly” the reasons for the decision to go to Somalia and the State Department has nothing to add.