Some GIs May Exit Somalia in January : Famine: With operation going smoothly and foreign troops flocking in, U.S. commander says combat units may go home early, be replaced by support personnel.

With Operation Restore Hope running smoothly and foreign armies flocking to join it, the commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command said Friday that he may send some American combat troops home early from Somalia and replace them with support personnel.

Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar said the “significant influx” of other countries wanting to help protect relief food supply lines to starving Somalis “will contribute to an earlier departure (of some American troops) than originally envisioned. . . . I’m confident we’ll see some forces going home in January.”

The overall size of the planned American contingent, expected to reach the target of 28,000 within a few weeks, will not change significantly, Hoar told reporters at the U.S. Embassy compound here. But he added that the large contingents of combat troops from other countries, many arriving without adequate support facilities, may require a change in “the nature of the American forces in theater.”

“We’re going to have very effective (foreign) forces streaming in, and the problem is, always, how to provide support,” he said. One answer, he added, is to beef up American support units and withdraw combat units.

More than 30 countries have promised to send a total of 10,000 to 20,000 troops to bolster the unprecedented U.S.-led operation, which was preparing Friday for a foray, perhaps within days, into the port city of Kismayu.

Those forces are far larger than originally expected and the growing international interest improves chances that, within a matter of months, American commanders will be able to hand over the peacekeeping in Somalia to a multinational force under direct U.N. supervision.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney has said that Operation Restore Hope is aimed at restoring enough order in Somalia, which has no functioning government, to allow food to arrive at the country’s ports and be trucked to the inland towns and villages where nearly 200 people still are dying daily from famine.

Relief efforts had previously been hampered by armed gangs, who were extorting money from aid agencies and looting food from the port to the warehouses in the countryside.

But when the transport lines are opened and operating, the Americans have said they would like to begin to hand over to a U.N. peacekeeping force.

At the same time, American diplomats are trying to pave the way for a political settlement here by discussing imminent U.S. troop arrivals with elders in the targeted towns and conducting “psychological operations,” including airdrops of leaflets explaining the operation.

So far, troops have moved into three cities--Mogadishu, Bela Dogle and Baidoa--without resistance. Five more cities have been targeted by the Marines, and the political situation in several of them is volatile.

Robert Oakley, the U.S. special envoy to Somalia, has helped forge a tentative political settlement between the country’s two main political chiefs, Mohammed Farah Aidid and Ali Mahdi Mohamed. Both men have welcomed the U.S.-led mission.

On Friday, U.S. Marines and French troops escorted more convoys into towns surrounding Baidoa, about 160 miles northwest of Mogadishu, and the city was reported calm. For some of the towns, it was the first relief shipment since the famine gripped southern Somalia in August.

“The sad thing is it is too late for many,” said Paul Mitchell, spokesman for the U.N. World Food Program. “But there’s no question that if the troops weren’t there, it would be total chaos.”

Eager to open the road from Mogadishu’s port to Baidoa and to end the exorbitant prices being paid to airlift food, the World Food Program said Friday that it plans a 20-truck convoy of food, under military escort, leaving the seaside capital before dawn Sunday.

The massive troop presence in the country has relief agencies optimistic that they will soon be able to reach parts of the country that have, until now, been unreachable. They also believe the newfound security will encourage refugees to leave the cities and return to their farms.

But the troops have not been able to stop the looting completely. Two pickups loaded with pilfered bags of rice, bearing a “Donated by the USA” label, and cooking oil were seen Friday on the streets of Mogadishu.

And on Thursday, food delivered by the military convoy to one village 15 miles from Baidoa was stolen shortly after the armed soldiers left. Relief officials said all the food was taken, but the U.S. military command said only about 15% was stolen.

Hoar, noting that it was the first convoy of food to reach that village in weeks, said, “The point is, some food got through.” The last time relief agencies tried to deliver food there, he added, the convoy was robbed and several people were killed.

Some relief officials warned that security for food convoys is only the first step toward restoring peace in Somalia.

“For the long term, there are other things that have to be fulfilled,” said Mitchell, of the World Food Program. “Disarm the gunmen. Create local police forces. And get a political resolution.”

Enrico Augelli, the Italian envoy to Somalia, said he was surprised that the Americans are refusing to disarm the population. “If we only secure the main cities in the country, we risk creating more instability in areas where we are not present,” he said.

Hoar, who spent the day observing the operation in Somalia, said he is confident that the major political leaders in the country are being persuaded to put away their guns, often with the promise that American forces will help them rebuild roads, dig wells and carry out other projects to rebuild the infrastructure devastated by two years of civil war.

But the general added that the political leaders do not control many of the armed bandits who roam the countryside. As an example, he said that even though elders in Baidoa had turned over a cache of weapons to the U.S. Marines as a gesture of good faith, troops there had been fired on several times.

No member of the American force has yet been injured in the operation. (One Marine, though, was undergoing treatment for the potentially lethal bite of a mole viper, which bit him when he rolled onto it while in his sleeping bag.)

But Hoar predicted that the unified military force will face its greatest challenge when it moves into more cities in coming days from “people with no ideological commitments who just want to steal.”

“It’s clear there are certain elements here who view the introduction of military forces into this country with suspicion,” he added. “We fully accept that there are people out there who are going to fire on us.”