Amid Questions About Delay, Troops Prepare to Fan Out From Somali Capital : Relief: Debate over precise role of U.S.-led operation sparks renewed anxiety on Mogadishu’s streets.

The expanding U.S.-led military operation to free Somalia from war and starvation prepared Monday for its first foray into the heart of the famine-struck nation as deepening debate about the troops’ precise role here spread confusion and anxiety on the capital’s streets.

In Washington, President Bush told top military leaders that their mission in Somalia has not changed, despite suggestions by U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali that U.S. troops should also take on the job of disarming the country.

With Boutros-Ghali’s statement plainly in mind, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said that disarming Somalia’s clan leaders and roving gangs has “never been part of our mission, and that has not changed.” He told reporters that Bush has praised U.S. military leaders for doing “a first-class job” in the unprecedented relief effort and told them the operation is being carried out “exactly as it had been planned.”

But Fitzwater sought to play down any differences between the Administration and the secretary general, saying: “There is perfect cooperation between the United Nations and the unified command. I think we’re together with him.”

At the United Nations, Boutros-Ghali insisted that the U.S.-led military force must disarm the Somali factions. Even so, he, too, downplayed his differences with the White House, noting in a rare news conference: “What is important is that there is a political will on both sides to have continued consultations to find a common denominator between our two positions. I believe this is not a real problem and that this problem will be solved very easily.”

In Mogadishu, the U.S. military’s Joint Task Force remained tight-lipped about the timing of its much-anticipated assault on the starving city of Baidoa, a critical test of the U.N.-sanctioned force’s ability to fan out from the capital and rescue a remote city.

“We’re going to be going to Baidoa when we go to Baidoa, if we go to Baidoa,” said U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Fred Peck, the task force spokesman. He added that the 3,000 Marines now in the Somali capital have been hard at work preparing an assault force large enough not to simply retake Baidoa from the armed clans and looters who have held it hostage to hunger but to hold it for weeks or months to come.

“It does take time to get the trucks and equipment necessary to make a cross-country journey of some 200 miles,” he said, adding that the steady flow of cargo in the six days since the Marines secured Mogadishu has brought the force close to needed levels. “It’s not a question of going to Baidoa for a day. . . . When we go there, we’re going to stay there until this ballgame is over.”

Fitzwater said in Washington that U.S. special envoy Robert Oakley will travel to Baidoa today to talk with local clan leaders before U.S. forces enter the city. Oakley made a similar effort--with considerable success--before the Mogadishu landing.

But on the lawless streets of Mogadishu on Monday, the deepening debate over the role of the military forces--who now occupy the capital’s strategic ports and only coincidentally patrol its armed neighborhoods--was clearly a top topic of concern.

Disarming this country--where up to 50% of adult males still possess arms--is critical, both for the Somalis who hunger for security and for the multinational peacekeeping force, whose members struggle with the ambiguity of their job every day.

Most Somali men, women and children, whose homes have been looted and whose neighborhoods have been terrorized by armed thugs for two years, awake daily hoping to see a city blanketed with Marine roadblocks. But the checkpoints for weapons, which the U.S. Marines set up last week, have disappeared; the French Foreign Legion has reluctantly withdrawn its posts too.

The French decision came after Legionnaires at one checkpoint, joined by several U.S. Marines stationed just down the road, opened fire on a passenger truck that crashed through the barricade, killing two Somalis and injuring seven.

Still, just hours after the roadblocks disappeared, the streets again filled with assault rifles--and a renewed sense of civilian anxiety.

The air of unease also afflicts the anxious U.S. Marines, French Legionnaires and Belgian troops who joined them Monday. Privately, many Americans--who daily escort food convoys through blown-out buildings and brave nightly sniping on foot patrols through a downtown so dangerous it has been dubbed “the Bermuda Triangle”--express great discomfort with their rules of engagement.

“It’s weird driving right by a bunch of street thugs with AK-47s,” said one U.S. Marine on patrol. “And every now and then, there’s a gunshot or two. But you don’t fire back because you can’t find the target. We’re on patrol, but we’re not cops. We’re soldiers. But it’s not clear who’s the enemy. It’s a weird gray area.”

Indeed, in a city where international relief agencies still employ hired guns to protect against looters, it is all but impossible to tell aggressors from defenders. And despite the sudden reappearance of Somalia’s professional, independent police force, which largely has confined itself to unsnarling traffic jams, Mogadishu remains a Wild West town where the new sheriff has little reach or power.

That became clear in horrifying fashion Monday outside a French garrison, where troops stood by while a howling mob stripped and beat a Somali woman who crowd members asserted had consorted with the Legionnaires, viewed by many here as the enforcers of Africa’s former colonial ruler.

“We’re not meant to be the police force of Mogadishu or any other city,” Peck said during Monday’s briefing, striving to explain the U.S. Marines’ precise role in Somalia. He conceded that Monday’s brutal beating was “an ugly incident” but stressed that it is not the foreign troops’ job to enforce the peace.

Meantime, American officials also disclosed that the Bush Administration has begun pressing other governments to begin peacekeeping operations in Somalia earlier than expected.

Times staff writers Art Pine in Washington and Stanley Meisler at the U.N. contributed to this report.

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