U.S. Envoy Sees Success in Top Goal in Somalia : Africa: Mass deaths from famine and disease have ended, Oakley tells troops as he ends his 3-month tour.

Marine sharpshooters scanned the horizon from sandbagged machine gun nests atop the gutted U.S. Embassy here Tuesday as U.S. special envoy Robert B. Oakley bade farewell to Somalia and the 16,000 American troops he will leave behind today with the first official declaration of success and a personal confession of just one regret.

During a brief ceremony under Mogadishu’s blistering sun, U.S. military commanders decorated Oakley for his three-month role as point man in the American military intervention in Somalia.

The veteran diplomat then told the troops that he and they have already succeeded in their primary mission--”to put an end to the mass killing of Somalis from famine and disease.”

“My only regret is that I’m leaving before you all have an opportunity to leave, because your mission is accomplished,” said Oakley, whose deft negotiations with warlords in Mogadishu in advance of the American troops’ arrival were widely credited with the force’s bloodless arrival.

He told a small contingent of soldiers and officers who turned out for the ceremony that in Somalia, “hope has been restored. Now, I hope (the Somalis) can, with your help, take it forward.”

Later, during a farewell news conference, Oakley--who has been nearly as controversial here as he has been courageous--avoided setting deadlines for withdrawal of the U.S. troops most Americans had expected home weeks ago. He said their departure depends upon the United Nations’ ability to take command of the multinational peacekeeping force in Somalia.

He referred all questions on the American withdrawal to military commanders. Despite Oakley’s optimistic assessments, they said it would take at least two months to get the bulk of the American troops home, even if the United Nations authorizes its takeover in the next week.

The military command said Tuesday that a U.S. Army soldier died in a traffic accident northwest of Baidoa, the Associated Press reported. The soldier, whose name was not released, was a passenger in a vehicle that spun out of control after the driver swerved to avoid some civilians. He was the fifth American to die in the Somalia operation. Two died from gunfire, one from a land mine and one other in a traffic accident.

Many veteran analysts, aid officials and Somali intellectuals viewed Oakley’s assessment Tuesday, which came against the backdrop of the worst street fighting here since he and the U.S. forces arrived nearly three months ago, as an effort to pave the way for the American troops’ withdrawal in much the same way he did for their arrival.

Amid continuing tension from last week’s anti-American rioting in the capital and continuing clashes between rival clans in the key southern port of Kismayu, which delayed the departure of U.S. forces from the town last week, Oakley conceded that Somalia remains a dangerous nation, particularly for foreigners.

That fact led several international relief workers to assert this week that Oakley is leaving a job only half-done.

“Foreigners are at a somewhat bigger risk,” he told reporters, conceding that the three Western aid workers killed in the three months since American troops took control of Mogadishu and key towns in the worst-hit famine zone far exceeded the expatriate death toll during the entire previous year of civil war.

“You can’t drive around Mogadishu in a car without being in great danger of robbery,” he said. “But at least people can walk around with food now. . . . We have a long way to go, but even in the difficult areas, deaths from starvation are almost gone now.”

Indeed, Oakley’s message, as he made his final rounds during an emotional day, was clear: The massive American presence is about to end in Somalia and it is now up to the United Nations and the Somalis themselves to find solutions to the nation’s fundamental problem--replacing the very foundations of its nationhood.

Oakley painted perhaps the rosiest assessment to date of the situation in Somalia, a nation held hostage to anarchy, starvation and death by heavily armed rival clans for almost two years before a U.S.-led force took control. But he took pains to emphasize that the American mission here had its limits.

“The U.S.-led mission, as assigned by President George Bush, was to protect humanitarian operations,” he said. “It was not to pacify Somalia. It wasn’t to rebuild their political system. Those are jobs that the United Nations was undertaking before and will be undertaking again soon, with a reinvigorated operation, a much broader and tougher mandate and strong support from the United States.”

Still, Oakley--who plans to retire and do some private consulting in Washington--counted among his and the multinational force’s achievements the demilitarization of Somalia’s warring clans. “The time has passed when political power flows from the barrel of the gun,” he told reporters. “There is a sea change in the political dynamic here.”

But even as the ceremonies for Oakley were under way, other American officials said that four people had died in a third straight day of unrest in Kismayu, where recent violence has killed 10 people, all Somalis, the Associated Press reported.

Marine Col. Fred Peck, the U.S. military spokesman, said a grenade blast Tuesday killed three people and wounded 16. And he said a Somali man who tried to stab a U.S. soldier was shot to death by another soldier.

Relief agencies in Mogadishu say their workers have been unable to distribute food in Kismayu because of the violence. Belgian forces have been taking food and water to 10 camps in the city, the AP said.

Fighting in Kismayu erupted Sunday between supporters of warlords Col. Omar Jess and Mohamed Siad Hirsi, known as Gen. Morgan. They have been enemies since clan warfare broke out following dictator Mohamed Siad Barre’s ouster in 1991. Morgan is Siad Barre’s son-in-law.