5th Fleet boss: Navy to go after pirates

[SlightlyCatholic]

NORFOLK, Va. — Sailors will soon be back in the pirate-hunting business again, following Tuesday’s United Nations resolution authorizing aggressive military action against pirates bases in Somalia, according to the top Navy admiral in the Middle East.

The resolution gives militaries the go-ahead to conduct air and shore attacks against pirate bases. The resolution, coupled with plans to create a joint U.S.-European pirate court in Kenya to prosecute hijackers, lay the groundwork for the new naval action, said 5th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Bill Gortney.

“We’re going to aggressively go after these pirates” once the judicial system is in place, Gortney said in a telephone interview Friday. “The sailors need to know that the international community, the international governments are working it really hard” to put the legal framework in place.

Whether that — along with the U.N. resolution — translates into hostile boardings, airstrikes on pirate enclaves or covert take-downs in the dark of night remains the subject of a revised playbook now in the works at the Pentagon.

“What are the rules of engagement? What are the collateral damage limits? What are the positive identification limits?” Gortney asked. “There are a whole litany of things that have to occur.”

This year has seen 40 successful hijackings, including the capture of a Ukrainian freighter with a load of Soviet-era tanks and a Saudi supertanker filled with 2 million barrels of crude oil. Fourteen ships and some 281 mariners are still being held for millions in ransom money.

Until now, the Navy has been hamstrung by international laws and rules of engagement that allow sailors to use force only if they catch pirates in the act of taking over a ship, or if Navy ships are fired upon. The 1.1 million square miles off the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden has given pirates in small boats vast swaths of unpatrolled water from which to launch attacks.

In the past few weeks, Gortney has counseled shipping companies to arm themselves and take defensive measures because coalition ships can’t be everywhere at once.

“There’s no downside to being a pirate right now. It pays pretty well. And it’s pretty much risk-free for them,” Gortney said Friday. “It’s not going to be that way once the international community provides us the mechanism, the tool we really need, which is to hold them accountable.”

Those changes went into motion Tuesday with the U.N. passage of the U.S.-sponsored resolution. According to the State Department, the resolution “authorizes states cooperating with the Somali Transitional Federal Government to extend counter-piracy efforts to include potential operations in Somali territorial land and air space, to suppress acts of piracy and armed robbery at sea.”

Maritime forces already have U.N. permission to pursue suspected pirates inside the international 12-mile boundary into Somali waters. The new measure gives the green light to strike on land in from the air.

Prosecuting pirates
The second piece of the puzzle — where to put the pirates once they’re captured — also has made pirate-hunting difficult for U.S. forces.

As it stands now, warships have no place to drop pirates off for prosecution once they’ve been captured. When Danish sailors captured pirates earlier this year, they disarmed the pirates and left them on the beach in Somalia in what’s being called a “catch-and-release program.” British forces worked out a deal in November to put captured pirates into Kenyan custody and now both countries have an agreement to continue the arrangement.

“Nations are very wary of taking pirates onboard their ships,” said Lord West, British undersecretary of state for security and counterterrorism, in an Associated Press report. “It is extremely difficult — where can you put them — if you’re not going back to your home country, and even going back to your home country causes immense problems in terms of legal prosecutions.”

Gortney said the legal system of a regional nation, likely Kenya, will end up providing that “tool” the coalition navies need to act more forcefully.

“When that happens we’re really going to move out and aggressively go after this problem,” he said. “And it will no longer be good to be a pirate, because you’ll do time.”

However, the upcoming legal agreements, along with the U.N. resolution permitting air- and land-based military action, do not mean it will be open season on pirates. As a naval aviator for 32 years, Gortney said he is very conscious of potential consequences when “kinetic” solutions are sought.

“We do not want collateral damage. We do not want innocents being hurt,” he said, noting the U.N. resolution is now being put into a U.S. military template establishing requirements, such as rules of engagement and positive identification.

“The U.N. resolution gives us more authority to operate ashore. Those authorities will be operationalized, and they’ll trickle down to me, probably with a lightning bolt,” he said.

Likewise, the judicial framework being crafted by American and European Union authorities will make capturing pirates a law enforcement action, forcing sailors to be as meticulous as crime scene investigators.

“As we go roll up these pirates, when we get the judicial system [in place], we’ll need to make sure we adhere to the rules of evidence,” Gortney said. “We’ll have to make sure our sailors are prepared to get that evidence so we can get a conviction.”

Today there are warships from the U.S., U.K., Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey, India, Saudi Arabia, Greece and Russia patrolling off the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden. The Chinese government has announced it, too, will be sending a warship into the same waters to protect shipping bound for its ports.

“I think civilized societies just can’t tolerate criminal activities that are flaunting the rule of law,” Gortney said. “It’s just not right and we know the ultimate cause [is conditions in] Somalia.”

Well, it's good to know that the Navy is getting in the fight against these guys. Piracy has been a problem for a long time, and our naval forces will once again be giving them loud reasons to head abaft at flank speed.

[JohnP]

Originally Posted by Seminarian_Tim

Well, it's good to know that the Navy is getting in the fight against these guys. Piracy has been a problem for a long time, and our naval forces will once again be giving them loud reasons to head abaft at flank speed.

Big ocean, little boats.

[SlightlyCatholic]

Well at least those little boats aren't attack subs or Boomers...although our Navy is going to have to be very careful that we don't have another USS Cole off the coast of Somalia.

[DoubleHelix]

Figured this might be relevant to the topic at hand

GUANGZHOU, China (Dec. 26) - Chinese warships headed toward Somali waters Friday to combat piracy, the first time the communist country has sent ships on a mission that could involve fighting so far beyond its territorial waters.

The deployment to the Gulf of Aden, which has been plagued by increasingly bold pirate attacks in recent months, marks a major step in the navy's evolution from mostly guarding China's coasts to patrolling waters far from home.

The move was welcomed by the U.S. military, which has been escorting cargo ships in the region along with India, Russia and the European Union. But analysts predicted the Chinese intervention could be troubling to some Asian nations who might see it as a sign of the Chinese military becoming more aggressive.

The naval force that set sail from southern Hainan on Friday afternoon included a supply ship and two destroyers — armed with guided missiles, special forces and two helicopters. China announced it was joining the anti-piracy mission Tuesday after the U.N. Security Council authorized nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases.

The rest of the article is at http://news.aol.com/article/china-se...pirates/287321

I think it wouldn't be out of reason to question the motives of the Chinese. They could be going to help, but as one person put it, they could be going to scout out other countries' fleets.

[Woody]

Chinese are not going to be happy if their exports keep getting nicked .
Even Royal Navy has stopped whining about its Ipods and shot a few pirates.
Somailia really needs to be a working country to stop this though.

[JohnP]

Kerry urges caution in taking action on Somalia

By Andrew Miga - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Dec 29, 2008 16:48:00 EST

WASHINGTON — As a young Navy swift boat commander in Vietnam, Sen. John Kerry was no stranger to the perils of hot pursuit in combat.

He was awarded a Silver Star for beaching his boat after a rocket attack and racing ashore to chase down and kill a Viet Cong fighter armed with a rocket launcher.

Nearly 40 years later, as incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry favors using hot pursuit against pirates in the waters off Somalia, but urges a cautious approach before U.S officials consider sending American forces to chase them ashore. Kerry plans committee hearings next year looking at the problems posed by piracy.

The Massachusetts Democrat, who was on President-elect Barack Obama’s short list to be secretary of state, said a hot pursuit policy on Somalia’s coastline is “long overdue.” But he warns against any “haphazard, sloppy” military missions.

“You gotta know what you’re getting into and where you’re going and under what circumstances,” Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press. “I mean, if you send five police officers raging into the center of Mogadishu, you are asking for trouble. You gotta be smart.”

Responding to the growing problem of piracy in Somali waters, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously earlier this month to authorize nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases.

The resolution could set the stage for increased American military action in Somalia, a chaotic country where a U.S. peacekeeping mission in 1992-93 ended with a humiliating withdrawal of troops after a deadly clash in Mogadishu. The movie “Black Hawk Down” portrayed the ill-fated operation.

The senator said he was mindful of the dangers of hot pursuit cases, particularly given his Vietnam experience and his work as a longtime member of the Foreign Relations panel.

“If you’ve just got one patrol boat and it chases guys in and people go ashore without enough firepower, without knowing what they’re up against, you can get into a lot of trouble,” Kerry said.

He knows hot pursuit cases can be ripe for controversy. As the Democratic nominee during the 2004 presidential race, Kerry was accused by some former swift boat veterans of lying about the Silver Star he won as a result of the onshore confrontation in South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.

When Kerry’s boat crew came under rocket attack during coastal operations in February 1969, he ordered his men to beach the boat. An enemy fighter armed with a rocket launcher sprang up 10 feet away, aiming at the Americans. The fighter hesitated, then turned and fled. Kerry ran ashore, chased him and killed him.

During the 2004 race, a book entitled “Unfit for Command,” by John O’Neill and Jerome Corsi, assailed Kerry’s military record and claimed he earned his Silver Star not in a barrage of enemy fire, but rather by killing a fleeing Viet Cong teenager. The group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth also ran campaign ads questioning Kerry’s military service.

His plans for looking into the impact of international piracy follow one of the Bush administration’s last major foreign policy initiatives.

Some military officials have questioned the plans. Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, commander of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, said it is hard to identify pirates and warned that innocent civilians could be killed. The risks, Gortney said earlier this month, “cannot be overestimated.”

Pirates have attacked more than 90 vessels and seized about 40 boats carrying goods to luxury yachts off Somalia’s 1,880-mile coastline. The ransom from their seizures has totaled about $30 million.

“It’s bizarre,” said Kerry. “You look at the amounts of money they’re paying out in ransoms and it’s incredible.”

I thought this was a good follow up on this article.

[JohnP]

This came in off the Marine Corps Times:

Marines could fight pirates once again

U.N. resolution gives more options to nations with ships in Gulf of Aden
By Dan Lamothe - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 29, 2008 15:46:53 EST

It has been more than 200 years since Marines invaded the African port of Tripoli, Libya, taking on pirates who terrorized civilian sailors from the Barbary Coast to the Atlantic Ocean.

Now, the U.N. Security Council has opened the door for another war on piracy, voting unanimously Dec. 16 to approve a resolution that authorizes nations to conduct land and air attacks on pirate bases on the east African coast of Somalia, where extreme poverty has led to a large spike in attacks on ocean vessels.

U.S. officials, including Commandant Gen. James Conway, have not indicated that Marines will be called on to fight pirates. But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other officials welcomed the resolution and look forward to addressing with allies “this troublesome problem.”

“Obviously, I’m not going to discuss any specific U.S. military planning or possible operations,” Whitman said. “The Department of Defense is committed to safe and secure international waterways.”

The resolution comes at the end of a year in which more than 40 vessels have been hijacked off Somalia’s 1,880-mile coast, mostly to the north in the Gulf of Aden. Before the latest seizures, officials said 14 vessels remained in pirate hands, including a Saudi tanker carrying $100 million worth of crude oil and a Ukrainian ship loaded with tanks and other weapons bound for Kenya. More than 250 crew members also were being held hostage.

Speaking at the U.N., Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the resolution will have a significant impact since “pirates are adapting to the naval presence in the Gulf of Aden by traveling further” from the coastline into areas not guarded by warships sent by the U.S. and other countries.

“What we do or do not do in cases of hot pursuit we’ll have to see, and you’ll have to take it case by case,” Rice said. “I would not be here seeking authorization to go ashore if the United States government, perhaps most importantly, the president of the United States, were not behind this resolution.”

In recent years, the U.S. role in fighting piracy has been almost entirely a Navy undertaking. But the Corps has helped on occasion, such as when members of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit mobilized Aug. 8 with sailors aboard the amphibious assault ship Peleliu to thwart an attack on the Gem of Kilakarai, a Singaporan cargo ship.

With land-based attacks now an option, defense analysts said amphibious missions using smaller military ships seem possible.

“Trying to kill pirates with a destroyer is kind of like killing an ant with a bazooka,” said Benjamin Friedman, a defense analyst for the Cato Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. “Smaller ships are the ideal piracy tools.”

That doesn’t mean there will be Marines involved. Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson, a spokesman for Conway, said that while there is precedent for Marines to take on pirates, “I don’t think [a decision] has filtered down to the level where the Marine Corps is really looking at it.”

Regardless of which nations take on the fight, they face a path wrought with potential pitfalls, analysts said. Chasing pirates ashore sounds easy, but it is “problematic in execution,” said retired Lt. Col. Frank Hoffman, a counter-terrorism and homeland security analyst for the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va.

“These guys are not actually running around the streets of Mogadishu carrying a Jolly Roger flag, wearing earrings and shouting ‘AAARRGG!‘“ Hoffman said. “They blend into the streets too fast. Only when they remain in lairs along inlets and isolated small harbors can we effectively target them for raids.”

The commander of the Navy’s 5th Fleet, Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, said U.S. forces should expect to go after pirates more forcefully following the U.N. resolution. Crucial to that process, he said, is making sure innocent civilians aren’t harmed.

“We do not want collateral damage. We do not want innocents being hurt,” he said.

Remembering Mogadishu
There’s also history to consider: U.S. forces launched a peacekeeping mission in Somalia in 1992, but troops were quickly withdrawn after the 1993 battle of Mogadishu, a bloody fight in which 18 U.S. troops and more than 1,000 Somalis were killed, as depicted in the 2001 movie, “Black Hawk Down.”

Retired Col. Gary Anderson, who, in 1993, served as the military liaison officer for the Corps in Somalia, said Marines will face familiar challenges if they are ordered to occupy coastal villages where pirates organize attacks.

“If you’re going in and seen as an occupier, you’re going to have resistance, and you’re going to have an insurgency,” said Anderson, now an analyst for the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank in Arlington, Va. “We’ve been through it once before there [in Somalia], and we lived through it. … Straight military solutions don’t always work very well, and we’ve seen that in Iraq. Why apply a failed policy again?”

It would be better for the U.N. to organize a coast guard comprising mercenaries and former pirates to ward off future attacks, Anderson said.

“You can attack those villages and go after the boats, but I’m not sure that’s really going to get at the root of the problem,” Anderson said. “At some point in time, someone has to come up with an alternative to piracy, since many of them turn to it as a money-making proposition. It’d make sense to give them a chance at a halfway decent day’s work.”

An international response also should be appealing for the U.S. because piracy has caused little impact on the global economy, Friedman said.

“It’s easy to sort of get caught up in it and miss the bigger picture, which is that it’s an annoyance,” Friedman said. “We ought not to overreact too much.”

———

Staff writers Philip Ewing, Andrew Scutro and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[JohnP]

General Patton made a statement along the lines of grabbing the bastards by the nose and kicking them in the pants.

Everyone is so afraid of another Mogadishu incident. The problem with "Black Hawk Down" was not with our Armed Forces. It was with the policy makers that tied the hands of the nail biters and bullet spitters.

There were resources on the ground, ready to go and kick butt but someone in the state department chain was afraid of offending the press and held the troops on the base leaving them unable to assist their brethren.

When the Navy and the Marines were unleashed in Tripoli, there was no longer a threat with pirates in the Mediterranean.

Take off the velvet gloves, put on the metal gauntlets!