Administration Rejects Calls to Shorten Mission

Clinton Administration officials on Sunday appealed for time for U.S. troops to establish order in impoverished Haiti and rejected suggestions that the United States must alter or shorten its military mission in the Caribbean nation in the wake of the weekend violence and chaos that broke out in Haiti’s second-largest city.

Administration officials said that, from the outset of the Haiti mission, they had anticipated the very kind of incident that occurred in Cap Haitien, where U.S. Marines killed 10 Haitian police officers Saturday night and an emboldened mob ransacked the local police facilities Sunday, seizing arms and turning them over to American forces.

Commenting on the Saturday night firefight, Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John M. Shalikashvili said in separate interviews that such incidents should not prompt Congress to immediately set a firm date for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Haiti, as some members are beginning to favor doing.

Perry, speaking on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press” news show, called the Cap Haitien firefight “typical of what we expected to see” and warned that troops will continue to encounter sporadic resistance from Haitian soldiers, police or paramilitary supporters.

Shalikashvili asserted that setting a date for American troops to depart Haiti “creates a dynamic on the ground” that complicates the U.S. mission, helps America’s adversaries and puts American forces at a disadvantage.

In a brief statement, the White House said, “We regret any loss of life in connection with our mission in Haiti,” but added: “We will continue to work with Haitian military authorities for a peaceful transition.”

But Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said a Senate resolution will be introduced this week directing the Administration to end the initial, unilateral phase of the U.S. mission in Haiti by a date to be specified, probably several months away. He said he believes the resolution will pass.

Nunn--part of former President Jimmy Carter’s delegation that negotiated an agreement last week with the Haitian junta, allowing the peaceful landing of U.S. troops--said he hopes the Senate measure will provide “some flexibility for the President.” But Nunn added: “Hopefully, we’ll be able to turn this mission over to the U.N. at an early date.”

He said the U.S. military must not allow itself to be pulled into rebuilding and democratizing Haiti. That, he said, is a job for the Haitians and the United Nations after the Americans establish order and security.

But Madeleine Albright--the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who was briefed on the matter--sought to downplay the happenings in Cap Haitien, saying: “That was one incident in what has been, I think, an amazingly successful operation. I think Congress is afraid that we are into something open-ended, when we know very clearly that we are not. . . . Every day, I think, has brought progress. That is not to say there have not been bumps in the road and will not be bumps in the road.”

Members of Congress, though, expressed growing doubts about the U.S. involvement in Haiti after the weekend incidents.

Rep. Newt Gingrich, a leading Republican lawmaker from Georgia, said the House will take up a resolution calling for a rapid withdrawal of American forces from Haiti, perhaps by a firm date. He predicted “substantial support” for the measure.

“You just had a firefight last night. None of those 10 Haitian families who just lost somebody are going to love Americans more,” Gingrich said on CBS-TV’s “Face the Nation” news show. “None of their friends are going to love Americans more. . . . I don’t think they (U.S. soldiers) want to wait around for ambushes and for booby traps and for all the things that can go wrong.”

In a development that may help buy the Administration some breathing room, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s exiled president, declared Sunday that he will convene an extraordinary session of Haiti’s Parliament on Wednesday to consider granting amnesty for the military rulers who ousted him.

The agreement accepted last week by Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, the Haitian strongman, and Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby, the army chief of staff, provided for them to relinquish power when an amnesty was granted, or by Oct. 15, whichever came first.

Aristide supporters have expressed severe reservations about any action that would exempt members of the Haitian military and police from all punishment for their abuses and repression since the September, 1991, coup.

“We hope that the security situation will be such that the Parliament can convene and that the parliamentarians currently in exile in the United States can return to Haiti,” said Gwen McKinney, an Aristide spokeswoman.

President Clinton, in remarks at a church in New York, observed about Haiti: “I think more and more Americans are seeing that what we are doing there is good and supports democracy throughout our hemisphere, which is nothing more than saying our neighborhood.”

Administration officials have said they intend to phase out the initial U.S. mission as early as possible. The 13,000 U.S. troops now in Haiti will increase to 14,000 or 15,000 soon, but that force will be reduced in a few months “as the security situation gets established,” Perry said Sunday.

Times staff writer Paul Richter in New York contributed to this report.