U.S., in Shift on Somalia, to Pursue Peace With Aidid : Africa: Administration envoy is asking regional leaders for help. Hunt for fugitive warlord would be suspended if he stopped attacks. Bodies of two more GIs recovered.

The Clinton Administration, in a sharp reversal of its policy, said Friday that it is ready to give fugitive Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid a place at the table in a new round of peace talks and to suspend efforts to hunt him down, provided he ceases his attacks on U.S. and U.N. forces.

The invitation is part of a new diplomatic push for a peaceful political settlement that technically will be coordinated with U.N. diplomatic efforts but--like the 5,300 troops being sent to Somalia now--will be directed entirely by Washington.

President Clinton’s decision to pursue an independent strategy reflects growing dissatisfaction with the approach taken by the United Nations, which, with U.S. support, had branded Aidid a renegade and sought to arrest him--a move that in turn brought retaliatory attacks from Aidid’s militia forces.

Now, State Department officials say, the door will be open for Aidid to join in negotiations on a long-term political settlement.

Robert B. Oakley, former special envoy to Somalia, is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to recruit leaders of neighboring African countries to help bring the Somali factions to peace talks. Negotiations among 15 Somali factions in Addis Ababa last March produced a peace accord, but by June it had fallen apart.

Separately, the Pentagon confirmed that, to complement the diplomatic initiative, the expanded U.S. military force assembling in Somalia will cut back its efforts to capture Aidid and his lieutenants and concentrate instead on restoring security throughout Mogadishu.

The disclosures came as the first echelons of newly deployed U.S. troops and warships began moving to Somalia. An initial airlift is to leave this morning, followed by a detachment of cargo vessels. The trip by sea is expected to take 21 days.

Meanwhile, in Somalia, a U.N. spokesman said Friday that the bodies of two of the five U.S. soldiers still listed as missing after last Sunday’s firefight have been recovered from Mogadishu’s streets, raising the known American death toll in the battle to 15. There also were reports that the body of a third American had been found, but the U.N. spokesman said he could not confirm it.

A memorial service was held Friday at Ft. Benning, Ga., for six of the dead soldiers, and one of them was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Tim McDavitt, a New Zealand army captain now serving as U.N. military spokesman in Mogadishu, said U.N. forces have begun using loudspeakers to deliver messages of hope to the other missing U.S. servicemen who may be in the area.

“We hope they were able to hear the message,” he said. “It will be a comfort to them.”

At the same time, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said a delegate from that agency was permitted to visit the captured helicopter pilot, Army Chief Warrant Officer Michael J. Durant, on Friday, and took back a letter to be delivered to his family.

The spokeswoman said the Red Cross representative found Durant in good condition and in good spirits. “He is very strong mentally,” she said. The session was conducted under longstanding international procedures, without any witnesses.

Friday’s briefing at the Pentagon marked the first clear explanation the Administration has given for how the new troops and weapons will be used. The Administration has been criticized widely for failing to outline its strategy.

In a briefing for reporters, a senior Pentagon official said the U.S. quick-reaction troops still will respond in force whenever they are attacked and will continue cordon-and-seizure operations designed to establish U.S. and U.N. authority in the city.

But they said the elite Ranger units that had focused on capturing Aidid will be kept at the ready, primarily to rescue Durant, if his whereabouts are discovered. They will be aided, if necessary, by four AC-130H gunships being sent along.

They also warned that the Navy strike aircraft aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln now on its way to Mogadishu would be used primarily to blow up Aidid’s arms caches located throughout rural Somalia if the clan leader seeks to rearm his troops.

The caches have been kept intact under an early agreement between Somali clan leaders and the United States; the warlords agreed to deposit most of their weapons in rural-based storage-houses if U.N. military authorities promised not to destroy them.

Officials said the Abraham Lincoln also has approximately 250 precision-guided munitions, which could be dropped from strike aircraft on urban targets to destroy buildings or arsenals.

However, officials stressed again that the additional military deployment essentially constitutes a holding action and that the United States is relying mainly on its diplomatic initiative to end the fighting. They conceded that the new force is not large enough to quiet the country on its own.

The prospect of giving Aidid a role in the negotiations is a difficult pill to swallow for both the United States and the United Nations because fighters loyal to the warlord have attacked and killed or wounded hundreds of soldiers from the U.N. force, including Americans.

But officials are concerned that any peace agreement that excludes Aidid and his clan would not succeed in bringing an end to the fighting.

Aidid had participated in the negotiations that produced the March accord. But, according to analysts, he decided to act militarily in June after it became clear that U.N. forces would be an obstacle to his claim to the presidency in Somalia.

Department spokesman Mike McCurry said Aidid has given no indication yet that he would be willing to lay down his arms and begin talking. Moreover, he said the U.N. warrant for Aidid’s arrest remains in force--a factor that may make Aidid wary about coming out of hiding.

But a senior State Department official said later that if Aidid chooses to join the peace process, he will be allowed to do so.

A Friday broadcast on a radio station controlled by Aidid seemed to indicate that the warlord might be ready to talk, Reuters news agency reported.

Although the program denounced the new U.S. troop deployment, it also said Aidid’s faction “is ready for any peaceful program such as the March Addis Ababa accord in which the leaders of all the Somali factions agreed on . . . reconstruction and reconciliation.”

“Anything outside this cannot bring peace,” the broadcast added.

Oakley, chief of the civilian side of the predominantly American operation that gave way last spring to U.N. peacekeepers, maintained cordial relations with all Somali faction leaders, including Aidid.

Even so, Aidid’s broadcast described Oakley as “the originator of the current crisis between the U.N. and Somalia,” saying he “was sent to Somalia by the former U.S. President, (George) Bush, and it is a shame for the current Administration to bring back such a person.”

A senior official said U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali would find it difficult to accept the separate U.S. initiative, which easily could eclipse existing U.N. efforts.

In addition, the U.N. Security Council has taken a far harder line than the Clinton Administration in dealing with Aidid, insisting that the clan leader must be arrested and punished for his earlier attacks on U.N. forces.

Separately Friday, Clinton defended Defense Secretary Les Aspin’s decision to deny the military’s request last month to send more armored vehicles to Somalia, saying that “obviously, if he had known then what he knows now, he’d have made a different decision.”

Speaking to reporters before leaving for a one-day trip to New Brunswick, N.J., Clinton also conceded that by setting a March 31 date for a U.S. pullout from Somalia, he might have given Aidid an opportunity just to wait out the U.S. withdrawal and try a takeover after that.

But he also insisted that by then, other U.N. forces will be in Somalia, and he said the United States already will have been there a year longer than it promised in the first place. “We have obligations elsewhere,” the President said.