Film #402 Black Hawk Down
An in depth look at the troubled US intervention in Somalia. We reconstruct the most devastating battles between marines and Somalis using US army broadcasts.
| Year | 1997 |
Transcript
SOMALIA -Black Hawk Down
56mins 45 seconds
The following program contains scenes of graphic violence and profanity. Viewer discretion is advised. FULLSCREEN SLATE 01.00.00
I don't know what the other guys were thinking but I was thinking ‘Wow, we're pretty much invincible.’ SOT: MIKE GOODALE, Army Ranger 01.13
Up until October 3 and 4, every mission we did went exactly the way it was supposed to go. SOT: SHAWN NELSON, Army Ranger 01.24
He walked up to me and said he had a really bad feeling about today meaning Oct. 3 and he tried to hand me his little packet to send off to his parents and I said, I said ‘No, keep it, I'm going to see you in about half an hour anyway, I said nothing's gonna happen’ and that was the last time I saw him. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE, Army Ranger 01.39
When our helicopter came in we immediately started taking fire from the ground. SOT: SHAWN NELSON 02.01
61 going down. We got a blackhawk going down, we got a blackhawk going down, we got a blackhawk crashed in the city. SOT: Radio transmission
All of a sudden they're already shooting at us. SOT: MIKE GOODALE
I was just shooting everything that moved. It didn’t matter to me. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
I just started to yell I'm hit, I'm hit. SOT: MIKE GOODALE 02.25
It was one nasty gunfight. SOT: DELTA STEVE, army commando
Wow I've actually killed a person. SOT: MIKE GOODALE
His eyes were wide open and his mouth was open like he was screaming but he'd already died, he was already dead. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE 02.38
I know I guess it's unethical to shoot women and children but is it unethical when they're trying to kill you? SOT: MIKE GOODALE
What are we doing here, how have we mucked up so badly, how could this possibly have happened? SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY, US Envoy toSomalia 03.04
It's the closest thing to a national holiday in a country without a national government. On "The Day of the Ranger", Somalia remembers America's bloodiest battle since the Vietnam War, when the world's greatest military power collided with one that was merely good enough. TRACK (v/o scenes of celebration in Mogadishu, Somalia, October 1997) 03.13
New World Order descended into chaos as the most ambitious humanitarian mission in modern history ended in bullets, missiles and death.
But if the moral seemed to be "no good deed goes unpunished", that isn’t the story of how good intentions wrought deadly results in Somalia. 03.43
“Somalia: Good Intentions, Deadly Results”Based upon the reporting of the Philadelphia Inquirer, a Knight Ridder Newspaper Title graphic
December 1992: America Must Act SLATE
We're able to ease their suffering. We must help them live. We must give them hope. America must act. SOT: US President GEORGE BUSH 04.22
They came from the richest nations on earth to help one of the poorest. Somalia, an East African country of some 6 million, was being decimated by famine and civil war. 300,000 people -- including a quarter of all children under the age of 5 -- were already dead, with another one-and-a-half million -- roughly a quarter of the population -- at risk. For as long as it took to feed the starving, might would make right. TRACK (v/o starvation) 04.33
We come to your country for one reason only -- to enable the starving to be fed. SOT: GEORGE BUSH
Throughout 1991 and 1992, relief groups had tried to help, but where factional fighting hadn't stopped the flow of food, bandits had. Somalis were dying at an estimated rate of one thousand per day as relief workers were murdered, cargo ships were shelled in port and trucks were hijacked on the road. TRACK(v/o relief effort) 05.10
Under Bush's plan, the US would provide the backbone of a multinational military force to secure supply lines and deliver food to the starving.
And why not? Fresh from victory in the Persian Gulf, where a coalition of nations seeking a new world order had vanquished Saddam Hussein, the UN's mission seemed comparatively easy, and done for all the right reasons. Who could possibly oppose it? Certainly not Somalia. The world had come to save it. (v/o gulf war) 05.48
But Somalia as a nation had ceased to exist. A former British and Italian colony, modern Somalia is a patchwork of ancient tribal homelands populated by fractious clans. It was forcibly united in the 60s and 70s under Stalinist dictator Siad Barre whose corrupt regime was toppled in 1991, leading to civil war between the clans. Bullets had driven farmers from land parched by three years of drought, and refugee camps swelled with the starving and displaced. (v/o animation)TRACK 06.10
Our mission is very clear: our mission is to create a set of circumstances that will allow the delivery of relief supplies, food and medicine to the starving people of Somalia. SOT: DICK CHENEYSUPER: DICK CHENEY / BUSH’s Secretary of Defense 06.42
From my point of view, I felt very strongly that the United States should not become the godfather of Somalia. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
Robert Oakley was one to know. US Ambassador to Somalia in the 1980s, he'd learned firsthand the risks of attempting to solve other people's conflicts, first as a diplomat in Vietnam and later in Lebanon, where US marines, encamped at ground zero in a 7-year-old civil war, were killed by a truck bomber as they slept. In 1992, President Bush asked him to become special envoy to Somalia. TRACK(v/o Lebanon)
We also understood what happened in Lebanon. We ended up as party to the civil war we underestimated the potential threat from the enemy and they blew us up. And we said the same thing can happen with the Somalis. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 07.27
Though pleased by Bush's call for action, the UN was lobbying for a more ambitious plan of "nation building". To end starvation for the long term, the UN believed Somalia needed a stable government. Mogadishu's most powerful faction leader, Mohammed Farah Aidid would have to abandon his goal of ruling Somalia himself and govern in a coalition with his rivals. The UN wanted the US military to clamp down on Aidid and the other factions, and force them to work together. But the Bush Administration remained adamantly opposed. (v/o deployment)(v/o Aidid)
If the mission ended up paving the way for long-term change, fine. But Bush had just been voted out of office and it would be up to his successor to go deeper. (v/o deployment) 08.14
(Soldiers singing amazing grace aboard ship in harbor) SOT: Soldiers
December 1992-March 1993: A Vial of Nitroglycerine SLATE
D-Day in Normandy, it wasn't. 1,800 US Marines and Navy Seals storm the beaches in Somalia and are confronted by…legions of reporters and press photographers. TRACK 08.34
If it seemed comical, the Marines weren't laughing. They knew that beneath the outward calm, Mogadishu could be deadly dangerous, a place where everyone, it seemed, had a gun.
As they began daily patrols, envoy Robert Oakley began daily meetings with clan leaders. 09.04
I made the point to them that these were the same forces under the Central Command that had fought a war against Saddam Hussein not too long ago and they had kicked the hell out of Saddam Hussein, therefore the Somali warlords should be very careful in their response to our proposal to come in and help them, that we were going to be helpful not harmful, but that they should be very much aware of the power that was there. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
And the freedom to use it: under the rules of engagement, marines could shoot if they felt threatened, whether guarding supply routes or confiscating illegal weapons. TRACK 09.38
And for every Somali that was shot under those rules of engagement there were 50 that could've been shot but weren't because the marines were leaning backwards to behave with tremendous discretion and restraint. Therefore the Somalis showed restraint and when they were angry at us and that happened on a number of occasions, while we were there, they would throw stones, burn tires, things of this kind, they weren't using rocket launchers or mortars or command detonated mines; there was restraint on both sides, and an appreciation on both sides, we understood how dangerous the Somalis could be. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
Especially THIS Somali -- General Mohamad Farah Aidid, who'd originally opposed the intervention. An ambassador in the Barre regime he helped overthrow, Aidid was a charismatic and mercurial leader of the clan that controlled South Mogadishu, a man whose unpredictability was of grave concern to the US and UN. TRACK(v/o Aidid) 10.21
We treated Aidid as I say as a man of tremendous power for better or for worse, sort of like a vial of Nitroglycerine, he could go off on you, so we didn't want him to explode and we worked out very very hard to figure out his moods and deal with him appropriately. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 10.42
For Oakley, the key was communication. TRACK
We were working constantly with the Somalis to reduce suspicions and to make them understand that we were there to help them not to hurt them. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 10.59
And the US intervention DID help. It was such a success that when Bush visited at Christmas-time he was received like the nation's savior. TRACK
The office of President of the United States… SOT: US PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON
Just weeks later, Bill Clinton was president. He had criticized Bush in the campaign for failing to work more closely with the UN in solving global conflicts. An expanded commitment to Somalia seemed certain. TRACK
One failed to perceive that beneath the surface there was still a tremendous amount of danger in Somalia and a lot of explosiveness that I think people did not correctly appreciate. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 11.33
Item: January 13: a Marine is killed in a firefight, the first US soldier to die in Somalia.Item: February 24: Somali mobs attack peacekeepers; 9 demonstrators are killed. TRACK 11.52
We don’t want UN, UN is crazy, US or UN, America No! America killed this man! SOT: Angry Somalis
Yet the Clinton team seemed determined to forge a lasting solution. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, National Security Advisor Tony Lake and UN Ambassador Madeline Albright -- she's now secretary of state -- supported the passage of UN resolution 814, expanding the mandate of UN involvement in Somalia. TRACK
Everyone's enthusiasm got the better of their common sense in this case. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 12.29
They were going for a longer term, more lasting kind of solution. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE / UN Envoy
Admiral Jonathon Howe had recently retired after 35 years of military service to become President Bush's Deputy National Security Advisor. When Clinton took over, and with the relief effort going well, the new president nominated Howe to administer the UN nation building effort in Somalia. At the same time the US was winding down its military commitment, Howe effectively took over Bob Oakley's job as head peacekeeper. TRACK
After I got there, I realized how very large the odds were that we would be able to do the job we were sent to do. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE 13.03
Yet Howe believed there was room for hope. Clan leaders, meeting in neighboring Ethiopia, hammered out a UN-brokered agreement designed to bring peace, security and prosperity. Jubilant Somalis welcomed the accord when it was signed on March 29th but Robert Oakley, now back in Washington, was privately skeptical. TRACKV/O Summit meetingV/O Celebration
I always used to say about the Somalis once they've agreed to something then the negotiations start. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 13.31
Especially that part of the document that called for democratic government. TRACK
There were some differences obviously in interpretation, and the more representative it became the less some of the faction leaders liked it. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE
Particularly Aidid. TRACK
March - July 1993: …And When He's Bad, He's Horrid SLATE
We are continuing to support the process of disarmament, not stop. SOT: MOHAMMED AIDID 13.56
There were times he could be quite agreeable and pleasant and understanding and statesmanlike, and other times he could be nasty and devious, and you had to watch him and know him. Like the little girl with the curl: when she's good she's very very good and when she's bad she's horrid. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
I think he liked his situation like it was, not as the UN in a fair kind of representative recovery would’ve made it possible. SOT: JONATHON HOWE
As the UN political effort evolved it became more and more hostile toward Aidid because they were suspicious of Aidid, Aidid therefore became even more suspicious of the UN. Whether you liked them or not they were the most powerful political force and the smartest and the most powerful military force. And therefore he felt he should have the lion's share. Now the question is what is the lion's share, is it everything or nothing? And everyone felt that under Aidid he'd end up taking it all. I'm not sure that was the case in my dealings with him I found he was of two minds, sometimes he felt like he had to take it all and other times he was willing to be the statesman, genuinely the statesman, and make compromises. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY(v/o Aidid) 14.32
But would Aidid be willing to compromise after the Marines went home and the UN forces consisting of Turks, Pakistanis -- troops from some half a dozen nations -- took over? TRACK(v/o transition of power) 15.15
The transition of power was completed on May 4th, as the US-led force marched into history, replaced by a poorly-equipped brigade of 4,000 Pakistanis.
In this case the United States did not have any fighting troops in the UN force. We had what was called a quick reaction force that was under us command all the way. They were never under the command of the UN. They were there in the event the UN got into trouble we'd come to the rescue of the UN force. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 15.40
But the “quick reaction force” was soon drawn into conflict, blasting Aidid's weapons dumps. The escalation began after June 5 when Somalis killed 25 Pakistani soldiers flying the UN flag. They'd been inspecting a weapons depot, but the crowd accused them of trying to shut down Aidid's radio station, next door. Some of the corpses were dismembered and flayed. The UN decided to go after Aidid. TRACK(v/o helicopter attacks)
First of all we got a very strong resolution from the security council on June 6 which essentially said, arrest the perpetrators, get rid of the illegal arms in Mogadishu and stop the vitriolic propaganda that was coming out of the radio station which happens to be Aidid's radio station. In addition it asked for armour and other equipment to be provided since clearly the UN faced a new and difficult situation. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE 16.24
The "armour" included a formidable weapon called the AC-130 spectre gunship, a slow-moving plane that could pulverize an opponent -- a war machine whose terrible firepower would be central to the political post-mortem of October 3rd. Admiral Howe also pressed Washington for another kind of weapon -- one that could arrest those responsible with minimum casualties on both sides. TRACK(v/o ac-130) 16.55
That "special unit" was the Army's Delta Force, the secret counterterrorism troops that grabbed Manuel Noriega in the 1989 invasion of Panama. Delta's 3, 130-man squadrons are the best trained and fittest soldiers in the Army, specializing in getting into and out of dangerous places quickly. In the Gulf War they'd destroyed strategic targets hundreds of miles inside Iraq. Admiral Howe wanted them to snatch Aidid off the streets of Mogadishu to face charges in the ambush of the Pakistanis, essentially removing him from the political picture. (v/o Panama raid)(v/o Gulf war stills)_(v/o Aidid) 17.23
In other words, if you think you're going to be arrested maybe it's time to make a deal. SOT: JONATHON HOWE 17.58
One thing that motivated me was a demonstration on the 13th of June in which Aidid people had been directed at least by the intelligence and evidence we had to fire into the crowd, not only to provoke the Pakistanis but to create a scene in the world press that the UN was out of control and to increase the number of casualties. SOT: JONATHON HOWE(v/o demonstration)
They were marching on a peaceful demonstration. They opened fire. They killed a lot of, thousands of people. SOT: Angry Somali 18.27
But Jt. Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell denied Howe's request for the Delta Force. Even though Delta commanders felt Aidid would be a fairly easy target, Powell didn't want elite US troops involved in an obscure country's civil war halfway around the world. TRACK(V/O POWELL)
But the US was hardly absent. Throughout June UN forces led by US helicopters, continued their attacks on weapons depots; Aidid's forces struck back, shooting US, Pakistani, French and Italian troops, and massacring Somali civilians working for the UN. TRACK(v/o helicopter attacks)(v/o news clippings) 18.50
We can’t have a situation where one of these warlords, when everyone else is cooperating, decides he can go out and slaughter 20 peacekeepers. SOT: PRESIDENT CLINTON
A military response seemed certain. TRACK 19.17
Abdi Hassan Awale was Aidid's Minister of Internal Affairs. On July 12, US spies believed that more attacks were being planned at his office. If the intelligence was correct, an attack could wipe out many of the general's top lieutenants.
So the whole idea of this particular raid was to destroy, disrupt at least for a time, the command and control mechanism that was causing these attacks against us. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE
The US, acting alone, launched a missile attack. TRACK 19.53
The first shell came from behind, above the window. I saw it hit a group of people that were sitting on the floor. SOT: ABDI HASSAN AWALESUPER: ABDI HASSAN AWALE/AIDID’S MINISTER OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS
Then I passed out and when I recovered 25 minutes later, the first thing I saw was broken limbs, hands, amputated parts of the body. I was injured on the side of my head, and I'm still deaf in this ear. SOT: AWALE
I started looking for my son, who was with me in the building at that time, and found him under a heap of dead bodies. Whenever I tried to remove some of the bodies that were over him, and pulled on a body part, it came off in my hand. SOT: ABDULLAHI OSSOBLE BARRESUPER: ABDULLAHI OSSOBLE BARRE/Aidid’s Minister of Justice 20.21
The Red Cross says more than 70 people died in the attack; Admiral Howe puts the number closer to 20. Regardless, the building's been in ruins ever since and, on that July afternoon in 1993, so were the prospects of compromise: US intelligence later learned that Aidid's leaders had actually convened not to plan more acts of war, but to consider Admiral Howe's latest peace proposal. TRACK(v/o ruins) 20.36
The minute I heard about it I said this is a disaster. Result was, all these people, had they been moderates or liberals or radicals before the meeting, all became radicals when it was over. The second thing that happened which was a profound turnaround was that public opinion in general in Somalia swung firmly behind Aidid. People from other clans from way outside Mog began coming in from outside the city to join Aidid's fighters. Aidid's clan unified behind him, the situation became much worse after that. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 21.00
We're ready to die for our country SOT: Angry Somali 21.33
Wasn't the kind of nation building anyone had in mind by that time nation building had essentially gone to background and the battle for Mogadishu had begun. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
Aidid, Aidid! SOT: Angry Somalis
It was successful and unsuccessful. It was executed very well militarily, politically it was not very successful. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE
As the summer went on and this sort of tit for tat though we were killing more Somalis than they were Americans, nevertheless Americans were being killed, so the decision was made something bigger has to be done so we’ll send out the Task Force Ranger. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
August - September, 1993: Everything Went Exactly According to Plan SLATE
The Rangers weren’t there to feed. We had a totally different mission in mind when we went there. SOT: DALE SIZEMORESUPER: DALE SIZEMORE/Army Ranger 22.16
It was pretty clear cut, from my point of view, what we were there to do. SOT: SHAWN NELSONSUPER: SHAWN NELSON/ Army Ranger
Shawn Nelson and Dale Sizemore were among the 150 men of Bravo Company, the 75th Ranger regiment out of Ft. Benning. The Rangers -- average age 19 -- had just finished training in the US with the more experienced Delta commandos -- on average, about ten years older. The Rangers had gotten into the act because Aidid now knew he was a marked man, and grabbing him or destroying his ability to make trouble would require more than the small Delta unit envisioned two months earlier. So the entire 130-man "Delta C" squadron, along with the Rangers and an elite air unit called the nightstalkers, had been airlifted to the base in Mogadishu. The mission: chopper-in to wherever Aidid was hiding, fast-rope to the building, burst inside commando style, then hustle Aidid and his top lieutenants onto waiting trucks that had arrived on the scene. Quite different from what the Pentagon was telling the world, that the Rangers' role was limited, that Aidid would not be a specific target. The Rangers, of course, knew better. TRACK(v/o still photos)(v/o animation)(v/o news clipping)
There was even actually a book of photographs of that warlord, and all of his top aides. SOT: MIKE GOODALESUPER: MIKE GOODALE/Army Ranger 23.37
Back in Washington, Robert Oakley thought that even if you COULD grab Aidid, you'd only create a whole new set of problems. TRACK
The thought that you can destroy an organization, a movement by just taking the head man very rarely works out in practice. Somebody else is going to step up and take his place and you have the martyr syndrome at that stage. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
Our strategy was much broader, it didn't depend on arresting Aidid but we all felt if we could this would be the short cut to a quick resolution of these tensions and we can get on with what we came here to do. SOT: JONATHON HOWE 24.05
August 30. Task Force Ranger scrambled onto their Blackhawk choppers to challenge the enemy, believed to be firing mortars from this compound. Commandos stormed the building, arrested 9 suspected clan leaders, choppered them back to the hangar -- only to discover that they were actually UN employees in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was the first of what would be several such embarrassments. TRACK(v/o still photos)(v/o building) 24.19
Between missions, Task Force Ranger flew out to a desert practice range when they weren't buzzing over the rooftops, 2, 3 times a day on "profile missions" to keep Aidid's organization off balance. TRACK(v/o still photos) 24.44
Downtime in the hangar yielded the Rangers' first catch -- a rat snared in an Evian bottle, while 5 more raids netted dozens of Somalis including Aidid's finance minister. But still no Aidid. 25.09
By this time Aidid knowing that he was being looked for moved used disguises, changed cars, changed locations, did everything to make it more difficult. SOT: JONATHON HOWE
Yet the difficult operations were successful, tactically. Only three Americans were injured and perhaps half a dozen Somalis were killed. TRACK
They were textbook missions little or no resistance at all from the Somali combatants. SOT: SHAWN NELSON
At that point we're thinking wow these Somalis can't really shoot straight, and when they do they can't actually hit us where it counts, so we're pretty much invincible. SOT: MIKE GOODALE
Everything went exactly according to plan. SOT: SHAWN NELSON 25.50
But the brass was getting concerned. In August, as seen in this Army surveillance tape, the American "quick reaction force" that had pummelled Aidid in June and July, had to chopper-in and recover body parts of 4 soldiers killed when Somalis blew up their humvee with a landmine. This Blackhawk helicopter got away intact, but that wasn't always the case. TRACK(v/o video of a chopper)
Increasingly in September we were starting to have helicopters damaged, particularly when they got down low; of course when the special forces get involved and their own very daring tactics and capabilities, they become much more vulnerable they get right in there in the middle of tough areas. SOT: JONATHON HOWE 26.15
Even though the White House had sent Admiral Howe Task Force Ranger, he didn't get to keep the deadly accurate AC-130 gunship that had been used to such devastating effect earlier in the summer. Its tornado-like ability to level buildings on one side of the street while leaving untouched those across the road is critical to keeping the enemy away from a target site. TRACK(v/o AC-130)
The Secretary of Defense put it out to the President that that would give the wrong impression to the Somali people and show them that we're an aggressive force instead a passive force or a relief force. SOT: MIKE GOODALE 27.00
I don't know that it was necessarily a political response; it may have been there were other demands, we don't have that many in the inventory. We had Bosnia and other places of priority, so that may have been the reason. SOT: JONATHON HOWE
Politics or not, truth is the Rangers' own boss -- Maj. General William Garrison seen here swearing in a Ranger who'd just re-upped for another tour -- decided that the AC-130 wasn't absolutely necessary, and didn't challenge his superiors when they balked at the request. The general declined our request for an interview. TRACK 27.29
The decision still haunts many of the soldiers he commanded, who believe many of their friends would still be alive today if the AC-130 had stayed in Mogadishu. (V/o still picture of group photo of Rangers)
October 3, 1993: If You Corner a Cat, It Will Kill You SLATE
October 3rd, just after lunch, and Sgt. Dale Sizemore remembers the conversation he had with fellow Ranger Lorenzo Ruiz. TRACK(V/o Sizemore and Ruiz) 28.06
He walked up to me and said told me h had a really bad feeling about today meaning October 3. I said nothing's gonna happen and that's the last time I saw him. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
The target is a 3-story building in the heart of Aidid's neighborhood, across from the Olympic Hotel. Several of Aidid's top lieutenants are supposedly inside. TRACK(v/o aerials)
3:42 in the afternoon. Delta commandos who've choppered in take positions along the outside wall as someone from inside the target building steps out onto the roof to see what's going on. Moments later the Blackhawks pass overhead, preparing to off-load the Rangers.
As we were sliding down the ropes we could hear bullets snapping by. I kind of thought then that was kind of weird because before for the other missions we had been shot at but it took a while for that to start up once the Somalis realized ‘oh yeah they're over there.’ SOT: MIKE GOODALE 28.51
Abdulkarim Gelle owned the target house. TRACK
The troops were everywhere. They came through my windows, were all over the building, in the street, on the neighbors buildings, everywhere. SOT: ABDULKARIM GELLE
You always expect that someone's going to shoot at you or be in that room. SOT: DELTA STEVE
Call him "Steve", an 8-year Delta Force veteran who insisted on being interviewed in silhouette. He was among the first troops into the target site. TRACK 29.29
At that point, I moved my team upstairs, we cleared a low roof and the moved the team up the stairs and started clearing rooms up on the top floor. SOT: DELTA STEVE
Two blocks away, the convoy waits for word to move in after the commandos take their prisoners The Rangers crouch for cover outside the target building, keeping Somalis at a distance. TRACK(v/o aerials)
Up in the command helicopter, high above the convoy, a Delta Commander keeps things moving. TRACK
Roger, I want to get everybody loaded and out of there asap, advise me if you need to use the roof lz (landing zone). SOT: Radio transmission
Forty seconds later -- disaster. The Blackhawk piloted by Cliff Wolcott -- code named 61 -- gets hit by a rocket propelled grenade, disabling the rear rotor. TRACK(v/o animation) 30.11
61 going down. SOT: RADIO TRANSMISSION
We got a Blackhawk going down, we got a blackhawk going down! We got a Blackhawk crashed in the city, 61
62 he took an rpg62 copy we got one injured
There was a big explosion after an RPG hit it. SOT: SAYID SIRAAT BARRESUPER: SAYID SIRAAT BARRE/WITNESSED CHOPPER CRASH 30.36
Then the helicopter really slowly started to rotate upside down. SOT: SHAWN NELSON
I was standing about 100 meters from here and I saw it come down. SOT: SAYID BARRE
And I remember hearing this horrendous crashing noise. SOT: SHAWN NELSON
We got a bird down, northeast of the target. I need you to move on out to secure that location. SOT: RADIO TRANSMISSION 30.55
I knew I had to get there at any cost, I just had to get to that helicopter and get those guys out of there. SOT: SHAWN NELSON
What you need to do is move fast, basically move like you hair's on fire, from position to position. SOT: DELTA STEVE
Somalis ignite a tire as a signal -- THIS is where the action is - as both Somalis and US troops race for the crash site.
The ground forces are coming in now and trying to secure their own position. SOT: RADIO TRANSMISSION(V/O AERIALS) 31.22
Have many survivors climbing out of the wreckage right now. SOT: RADIO TRANSMISSION
As we're approaching the alley, and I look to the right and saw the helicopter, I could see it upside down, I was looking at the tail basically upside down, and it was the nose looked like it was still impacted on a brick wall. SOT: DELTA STEVE
Soon the soldiers arrived and when they did, we surrounded them. SOT: SAYID BARRE 31.42
There is a large group moving towards them from the southeast along the North-South road. SOT: RADIO TRANSMISSION
They had helicopters, good training, organization. But the minute we saw one of their helicopters come down, we became confident that we could defend ourselves. SOT: ALI SHEIK HASSAN SUPER: ALI SHEIK HASSAN/AIDID MILITIAMAN
All this dust starts getting kicked up around our feet and I started thinking to myself, what the hell, what's all this going on? And I thought wait a minute, he's shooting at us, oh god. All of a sudden we saw this AK-47 and all three of us unloaded on this guy and it was really frightening for me because it's not something you do, you don't shoot people. ‘Wow I've actually killed a person.’ SOT: MIKE GOODALE
I remember hearing rounds hit the building behind me and kind of tear against the building and continue on past. SOT: SHAWN NELSON 32.28
A street is a kill zone. It basically channelizes the enemy's bullets and funnels them down a one-way corridor. SOT: DELTA STEVE
Then all of a sudden my leg just seized up and I started falling backwards. SOT: MIKE GOODALE
As attack choppers provide cover, Goodale is pulled to a nearby building where his buddies give him first aid -- and he first shows the sense of humor that would make him legendary in the firefight. TRACK 32.58
Actually as it turns out I did get shot in the leg but the first place I felt the pain was in my left butt cheek so I of course had to make some jokes about getting shot in the butt. SOT: MIKE GOODALE 33.10
Goodale was the jokester in a 15-man unit assigned to this Blackhawk chopper, code - named super-64, piloted by Mike Durant. With Blackhawk 61 now crashed, Blackhawk 64 -- which had been orbiting over the desert after the Rangers roped in -- joins smaller attack choppers called Ah- 6 "little birds" that are swooping down on attacking Somalis, their miniguns firing 6,000 rounds per minute; the Somalis fire back. TRACK(v/o chopper crew)
62 is taking fairly regular RPG fire and they're all close. SOT: Radio Transmission 33.51
Minutes later, during a gun-run over the crash site, a Somali RPG rocket propelled grenade slams into Blackhawk 64's tail rotor TRACK
64 you OK? SOT: Radio Transmission
Going in hard, going down. Ray! SOT: Radio Transmission
We just lost another Blackhawk, we are taking a lot of RPG fire, we lost it south of the Olympic Hotel, south of National. SOT: Radio Transmission
As soon as I saw the aircraft coming down, I started running toward that place. SOT: YOUSUF DAHIR MO’ALIM 34.23
Yousuf Dahir Mo'Alim commanded a small group of Aidid militiamen. TRACK
People started to rush from all directions. They all knew there were survivors inside who started shooting at people. So we told people to stay away from the place as far as possible. SOT: MO’ALIM
So now there are two battlefields. Up at Crash Site 1, Delta Steve and his team set up a line of fire. TRACK(v/o aerials) 34.43
So I would basically just shoot rounds, real slow and accurate. About 2 blocks up I would have people trying to run across the street, darters is what I called them. And they would be sprinting across the street with weapons. And I would shoot at them. A lot of times you didn't know if you hit them or not because they'll run out of view, and if you hit em they'll probably die somewhere out of view. You don't get that it’s not like in the movies where people just drop. SOT: DELTA STEVE
We are going to try to get everyone consolidated at the northern site and then move to the southern site. We can use more ground transportation if you can get it out here. SOT: Radio Transmission
"Ground transportation": the commander wants humvees, jeeps and 5-ton trucks to move out from base and head for Crash Site #2. TRACK
Best of my knowledge those vehicles have not departed base yet. We're trying to get them to you. They're coming up on the southern crash site and then they're coming to your location. I would estimate probably at least 30 minutes before they're going to meet you. SOT: Radio Transmission
Meanwhile the convoy of vehicles from the target site still hasn't gotten to Crash Site #1. Even with aerial guidance, the narrow streets are just too confusing. TRACK
Take the next right, next right, right now. Right turn, right turn.Roger, next right, next right, other way, other way, turn right. They just missed their turn.Take the next available right. SOT: Radio Transmission 35.57
The situation's getting worse, and the Commander needs those reinforcements -- fast. TRACK
I say again I have urgent casualties at the northern crash site. I need to get that ground reaction force up there asap. Have people still alive in the wreckage at the southern crash site I need a ground reaction force one to go straight to the northern site and one to go straight to the southern site see if you can make that happen over. SOT: Radio Transmission
Back at base, Dale Sizemore heeds the call. He'd been ordered to stay behind because his arm was in a cast, but now jumps aboard a convoy of Humvees headed for Crash Site #2. They're pounded by enemy fire. TRACK 36.37
It was war us against them, our survival against theirs and if it was up to us then it was going to be ours. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
At this traffic circle, they run into the convoy that's given up trying to get to Crash Site #1, and begin battling their way back to base. TRACK 36.57
Sizemore's friend Casey Joyce is one of the casualties. TRACK
His eyes were wide open and his mouth was open like he was screaming but he'd already died. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
A medic then ushers Sizemore over behind a MASH tent. TRACK
He pulled the tarp back and he asked me is that Kowalewski and I looked down and I couldn't say anything because he had been shot with an rpg and it went in one side and it just stopped right here where the head of the rpg was sticking out this side of his chest and the fins were sticking out this side. It looked like Kowaleski but I couldn't believe that it was him laying there. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
Sizemore notices that the corpse has no left hand. It later turns up in the pocket of a soldier with the almost unbelievable name "Aaron Hand," who'd been shot in the leg. TRACK
When he was laying on the ground he saw Kowalewski’s hand and picked it up and put it in his pocket and so the Somalis wouldn't get it which is an amazing thing to think about. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
That kind of mentality is what the Rangers is all about. Not leaving your friends behind and that was part of one of his friends so he took it with him. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
Back at crash site #2 where they're shielded by the wreckage, pilot Mike Durant -- leg broken in the crash -- and 3 others fight off hundreds of Somalis firing at them from behind walls and trees. For more than an hour their machine guns keep attackers at bay. TRACK 38.21
He and his men fought bravely. They were told to surrender. They refused. SOT: ABDULLAHI HASSAN FIRIMBISuper: Abdullahi Hassan Firimbi/Aidid Clan Elder
Two of those men are Delta commandos Randy Shugart and Gary Gordon. TRACK 38.42
You don't surrender, you don't give up. If you look at Randy and Gordy, they didn't do that either one of those, they fought till the end. SOT: DELTA STEVE
For them, the end comes after a deafening 2-minute barrage of fire directed at the chopper. In the silence that follows, Durant knows that the other Americans are dead. Out of bullets, he lays down his weapon, folds his hands across his chest and waits for death at the hands of an on-rushing mob of furious Somalis. TRACK(v/o art)
Yousuf Mo'Alim finds Durant leaning against this tree. Recognizing that Durant is more valuable alive than dead, he struggles to remove Durant while the crowd and its wrath is diverted. TRACK 39.12
There were some dead Americans at the site of the crash. So instead of running toward Michael Durant, the crowd rushed into the aircraft itself, to the bodies, and this deferred most of the angry mob. SOT: YOUSUF MO’ALIM
We don't kill captured soldiers. But the ones killed in the battle? Nothing good comes of them, which is why they were dragged through the street. They deserved it. SOT: ABDIAZIZ ABDIKADIRSuper: Voice of:/Abdiaziz Abdikadir/Aidid Militiaman
Before October 3rd, the people in that neighborhood were subjected to severe punishment from the American Forces. Their houses were destroyed. Their property was destroyed. And on this day, they were trying to destroy whatever they saw of Americans. Dragging their bodies through the town was very unfortunate. SOT: ABDULLAHI FIRIMBI 39.48
While crowds begin to mill around the wreckage, Mo'Alim and his friends carry Durant from the crash site and deliver him to Aidid clan leaders. Half a mile away, the battle still rages. TRACK 40.10
That night seemed to literally be a week long. SOT: SHAWN NELSON
It seemed like a month. SOT: AHMED JAMAH
Like many Somalis we interviewed, Ahmed Jamah fears an American reprisal and did not want his face shown. TRACK
I've never seen a battle like that, not even all the Somali wars that I've been through. SOT: AHMED JAMAH
I remember it seemed like several hours where the little bird pilots, the Ah6 pilots, were making just gun run after gun run after gun run and it literally seemed to be raining spent machine gun cartridges and machine gun links down on our position. SOT: SHAWN NELSON 40.37
Three RPGs off that corner behind us. If you tuck it in tight or lay back about half way maybe pick that sucker out and we'll bust him. SOT: Radio Transmission 41.02
As they'd bring in the people on trucks and they'd have certain intersections where they'd get their people organized, like assembly areas, you could call em that, mass them at these intersections they would come down to prepare to attack us. Well, they'd just start to come down and the helicopters come in and just rake em with machine gun fire and kill probably 20, 30, 40 people at a time. They basically put em in a meat grinder and we kept turning the handle. SOT: DELTA STEVE 41.11
I said hey, when is this relief convoy supposed to get there? They said, they'll be here at 8 o’clock OK no problem 8 o’clock. 8 o’clock rolls by nobody. And then maybe 8:30 and finally I said hey you know are they getting here? Yeah, they're having some trouble rounding up some more vehicles. SOT: MIKE GOODALE 41.34
The US force came to the UN who had tanks by now a few Pakistani tanks the Malaysians had vehicles the Pakistanis had vehicles and asked those forces to join in and participate in the recovery effort which they did. Clearly this hadn't been rehearsed and practiced and language difficulties and all kinds of problems and it took a little while to get this well organized so that going into a very dangerous area in the middle of the night would not turn out to be another disaster on top of the first one. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE 41.55
I was telling this to the radio man I said ‘Listen Chris I told my fiancée I was going to call her tonight and if I don't I'm gonna be in some real deep shit so we gotta get out of here so I can use the phone.’ SOT: MIKE GOODALE 42.31
As battlefield video is beamed back live to headquarters, the generals are worrying, too. And it's becoming clear that delays at base rounding up vehicles aren't the only problem: pilot Cliff Wolcott, dead at crash site one, can't be removed from the wreckage. TRACK 42.48
The (Rangers have got) casualties exposed they can not extract them. We're just waiting on the ground reaction force. It goes without saying we need them up here as soon as we can get ‘em up here. SOT: Radio Transmission 43.03
But on the ground, Somalis are building roadblocks as they had earlier in the summer when the Army shot this videotape. TRACK
Don't let any road blocks down in that area. Roger 51 understands don't let anyone build any road blocks. SOT: Radio Transmission 43.21
We knew which areas the UN troops would be coming from, so we cut off all the streets, all the way back to the airport. SOT: ABDIAZIZ ABDIKADIRSuper: Abdiaziz Abdikadir/Aidid Militiaman
We're taking heavy small arms fire. We need relief now! SOT: Radio Transmission
I understand you need to be extracted. I’m doing everything I can to get those vehicles to you, over. SOT: Radio Transmission
Roger, understand, be advised command element was just hit. Have more casualties over. SOT: Radio Transmission
We gotta have that ground reaction force. I'm unable to see them anywhere on the ground. Can you give me a status. We're running out of medical supplies and ammo. SOT: Radio Transmission 43.57
There's a Somali saying: if you corner a cat, it will kill you. So when they cornered us we had to defend ourselves and fight against them. SOT: ABDIAZIZ ABDIKADIR
Finally, at 11:00, soldiers like Phil Lepre begin moving from base in the rescue convoy. TRACK 44.16
All I’m hearing is bullets bouncing off the tank, boom boom boom, explosions all over the place, I’m like, where the hell am I going into? After I said a little prayer, took off my helmet, looked at my daughter’s picture and I said, Babe I hope you have a wonderful life. SOT: PHIL LEPRESuper: Phil Lepre/Army Rescue Convoy
Three hours later, at 2 am, they reach the crash sites and the three-block area where soldiers like Delta Steve and Mike Goodale are holed-up. Goodale is promptly loaded into an armored personnel carrier -- but the convoy doesn't leave because pilot Wolcott’s body hadn’t been extricated from the wreckage. TRACK 44.47
We weren’t going to leave no one behind. If it would’ve taken 12 hours to get his body out, we would’ve got his body out that night. Because it’s just like a creed, an unwritten law that we will get your body out and we will bring you home. SOT: PHIL LEPRE 45.04
With the body finally recovered, the survivors get a rude shock. TRACK 45.17
They told us that basically we had to walk out on foot, there was no room inside the vehicles, and again I thought this is, this is going to be fun. We've survived I dunno, 10, 12 hours of firefight, and now we're going to have to walk out and fight our way out on foot while all the other folks ride. And I said, not much more they can do to us here. SOT: DELTA STEVE
I don't think I've ever run any faster in my life. SOT: SHAWN NELSON 45.42
It was a bullet-riddled mad dash up to the Pakistani sector that the troops would later call the Mogadishu mile. TRACK
Every nook and cranny and every window and every doorway and building, hotel or structure we ran by we took fire from or were returning fire on combatants. SOT: SHAWN NELSON
Incredibly, only one soldier is injured and, notably, there were no roadblocks. Aidid's Minister of Defense says that was deliberate. TRACK 46.11
This decision was taken to leave them alone, otherwise, that was enough we thought to show them that we could fight. SOT: AHMED OMAR JESSSuper: Ahmed Omar Jess/Aidid’s Minister of Defense
At half past six, the convoy reaches the safety of the Pakistani-controlled stadium, where morning sun reveals the horror. TRACK 46.27
It started sinking in, wow, a lot of people are hurt lotta people are dead. SOT: MIKE GOODALE
I felt so alive because I was literally that close to death SOT: SHAWN NELSON 46.46
I looked back to the side of the jeep where I was mostly sitting all night and it was it looked like Swiss cheese, it was amazing to think that I'd never got shot. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
18 Americans died in the firefight. Somalis? Estimates run well over a thousand wounded and 500 dead, many of them women and children. TRACK 47.10
Everyone became a fighter that day. SOT: ABDULKARIM GELLE 47.20
The men were hiding behind women and shooting underneath their arms and it got to the point you just have to shoot the woman and shoot the man behind her. It's a bad deal for her, but she was helping him so in actuality it was her own fault and I felt no remorse about any of it. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE
The kids would carry rocket propelled grenades so it was a family affair, it's not like they were innocent civilians. We did what we needed to do to keep people away from our crash sites. If you're coming to a gunfight, you're wrong. There's only one reason to come to where people are shooting: to fight. People don't come there to dance. So we treat them accordingly. SOT: DELTA STEVE 47.45
I just put it out of my mind that they were even people and just knew what I had to do and just kind of pictured them as targets that were trying to hurt me. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE 48.07
I know I guess it's unethical to shoot women and children but is it unethical when they're trying to kill you? SOT: MIKE GOODALE
October 4-9 1993: Innocent People Being Killed Is Not Good SLATE
Enough’s enough. We’ve done our part, we’ve fed the starving masses, we’ve stopped starvation and saved thousands of lives. It’s time to bring our troops home. SOT: Rep. CURT WELDONSuper: Curt Weldon/U.S. Congress 48.39
But simply pulling up and leaving wouldn't be so simple. TRACK
I’m a soldier. I have to do what I’m told. SOT: MIKE DURANT
After Mike Durant was captured by Mo'Alim and delivered to Firimbi, he was kidnapped by bandits who demanded a ransom from Aidid for Durant's return. They got their money, but not before making this video. TRACK
I'm not a Ranger. SOT: MIKE DURANT
Returned to relative safety of the Aidid clan, he was guarded by Firimbi. TRACK 49.08
We became friends. Every morning when we got up, he used to say to me, “Let us pray to God pray that I may be released.” He used to read his bible, and I used to read mine. SOT: ABDULLAHI FIRIMBI
Jonathon Howe saw an opportunity in the aftermath TRACK
This was a devastating blow to the Aidid community and the word we got very shortly afterwards from that faction was, we'd paid any debts we had to Aidid, we want peace. We're through with this, this has gone too far. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE 49.28
Robert Oakley, still on the sidelines, was overcome when he heard about the firefight on the radio. TRACK
A feeling of what are we doing here, how have we mucked up so badly, how could this possibly have happened? SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
Oakley was asked to come to the White House by national security advisor Tony Lake, and attend a strategy session with the President and his top advisors. TRACK 49.56
At the end of it we came up with what I thought was a sensible approach which was to gradually pull the Americans out, cause it was quite clear to me that public opinion would not stand for our lingering in Somalia any more than they had for our lingering in Beirut after the marine barracks was blown up. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
Innocent people being killed is not good. SOT: MIKE DURANT 50.22
With marching orders to recover Durant, Oakley packed his bag for Mogadishu, where after 5 days, Ethiopian diplomats were able to arrange a meeting with Aidid staffers. And consistent with the seemingly schizoid nature of all dealings with Aidid, the message of conciliation that'd been sent to Admiral Howe was very different when Oakley demanded Durant's immediate release -- no strings attached. TRACK(v/o Oakley with photographers)
They said ‘But we Somalis never do that. It's an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We can't do that, look at all the blood that's been shed, look at all the people you're still holding.’ And I said ‘Well you've got to.’ I said ‘Let me be honest. If you don’t, this is not a threat, but if you don't I tell what I think will happen. After some weeks the US will be very, very frustrated. You'll be asking for things. This will be seen as a hostage situation. And we'll say we won't give in to hostages and you'll say we have to have a price. By the time the shooting is over, given the tanks and the aircraft carrier with aircraft and the gunships and everything else that's going to be here, there won't be anything left in south Mogadishu. Won't be any cats, dogs, goats, people, women, children you name it everything, it's going to be gone. Because the amount of firepower is so great and the amount of hatred and anger behind it is so great so don't create this sort of a situation, I beg of you. ‘ SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 50.48
24 hours after Robert Oakley's ultimatum, and against the advice of many in his clan, Aidid released Durant. The search for Aidid was over and American troops would soon begin coming home. TRACK 51.48
Admiral Howe, virtually shut out of the decision making, felt the Clinton administration’s sudden turnabout was a big mistake. TRACK 52.00
We were at a point where that battle and the sacrifice made there perhaps could have been the catalyst that led to a solution. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE
Attempts to talk Aidid into an agreement resumed, but Howe’s successors at the UN got predictable results. TRACK 52.21
They would get very close and think gee we're gonna get another agreement we're going to be able to sign and then at the last minute Aidid would pull out. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE
Aftermath: 18 Americans…For What? SLATE
We went in someone’s backyard and tried to tell them what to do and how to do things and they basically if we didn’t have the firepower and the training we had, they would’ve kicked our butts that night. SOT: PHIL LEPRE 52.42
I think everybody that was there we wanted to get into it a little bit but we didn't necessarily want what came out of it. SOT: MIKE GOODALE
I think we should have stayed committed and continued the mission and completed the mission instead of withdrawing the way we did. SOT: SHAWN NELSON 53.05
This is the warrior mentality and once you get into a war you want to win. And if you have your people killed you want to win even more, kill even more of the enemy well in this case we had killed I don't know a thousand, maybe more Somalis that one day, the 3rd and 4th of October and all in all we'd killed 5 or 6 thousand Somalis and so far as I was concerned, this had been the wrong course to take. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY
We tried to work in the margins, and if you’re going to be in there, and you’re going to be involved, you need to provide the muscle and the resources, and the people to make something that you undertake successful. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE 53.40
There’s 18 Americans soldiers in there that died. For what? SOT: PHIL LEPRE
Most Somali people and I think this is one of the misunderstood things about the whole US and UN effort really appreciated what the US and UN and the counties that went in with us did for them. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE 54.00
Give them the food and let them deal with it don't put my friends at stake. Or me at stake. We've got plenty of starving people in the United States that won't shoot at us when we're trying to do it. I wouldn’t trade one American life for 10,000 Somalis. It just wasn’t worth it at all. SOT: DALE SIZEMORE 54.16
Michael Durant wrote me a letter saying that one day he will come back to Somalia, and that he will tell the American people how good the Somalis are. And I believe that one day or another, the American public will change its attitude toward the Somali people. SOT: ABDULLAHI FIRMBI(v/o pictures of Somalis) 54.40
It's still chaos in Somalia, the strongest win, they haven't learned the lesson one would hope they'd learned, the need to get together which is very unfortunate. But I guess the lesson they learned was you just have to keep fighting which is really too bad. SOT: ROBERT OAKLEY 54.58
The warlords had to agree that the time had come for cooperation and for working together not for fighting with each other. And I don't think that necessarily had come, but it was our hope that it would. SOT: JONATHAN HOWE(v/o music)
There isn’t a day that goes by I don’t think of Somalia. SOT: PHIL LEPRE 55.25
Somalia still has no national government, and the clans continue their civil wars. The northern part of the country is recovering, but then, it never saw the kind of strife that tore Mogadishu apart. TRACK(v/o pictures of Somalis) 55.31
Washington's quest for blame led to Defense Secretary Les Aspin, who resigned in December 1993 amid second-guessing of his decision not to send heavy equipment like the AC-130 gunship to Somalia. He died of a stroke in 1995. TRACK
Mohammed Farah Aidid died of a reported heart attack in August 1996, after being shot in Mogadishu. Army General William Garrison, who commanded Task Force Ranger, retired the very same day. Sources say he winks at the coincidence. TRACK
One week after the battle of Mogadishu, Bill Clinton ordered Navy ships to turn back from a peacekeeping mission in Haiti when an anti-American mob assembled on the docks of Port-au-Prince. And although US forces would later keep the peace in Bosnia, they would be part of a NATO force numbering 60,000 -- troops that weren't deployed until AFTER the warring factions had committed themselves to the Dayton peace accords. TRACK
President Clinton was re-elected in a landslide 10 months later. TRACK 56.40
Credits
ENDS 56.45
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