THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 21, 1994 TAG: 9410210673
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
Peacekeeping, nation-building and other unconventional operations like the one under way in Haiti ``will be in the calculus'' of America's military for the foreseeable future, the overall commander of U.S. forces in Haiti asserted Thursday.
But the services must continue to work to build a culture in which their disparate forces routinely work together, suggested Adm. Paul David Miller, the Norfolk-based head of the U.S. Atlantic Command. A new training center in Suffolk, which opened this week, is a key to that effort, he said.
Miller, who will retire from the service Oct. 31, conceived an unprecedented invasion plan in which about 4,000 Army troops and their helicopters were carried to the Caribbean by two Navy aircraft carriers. The ships' normal complements of jet fighters and bombers were left behind, unneeded against a Haitian military that had neither a Navy nor an Air Force.
Miller cast the Haiti operation, and the special training the troops involved got for it, as having laid a base for future cross-service efforts. With defense dollars in short supply, the Pentagon must look to joint efforts to get the most out of each service, he has long argued.
The Haiti forces got special training, Miller said, but the new Joint Training Analysis Simulation Center in Suffolk will show field commanders throughout the services how to combine their talents in a variety of settings.
``We'll be able to simulate the activity . . . whether it's this brand of operation or the brand of operation you see unfolding in Iraq,'' he said. ``I think this is going to be a world-class facility.''
Miller, who has granted few interviews since the Haiti operation began, came to the Pentagon to brief reporters on what he repeatedly described as the ``brilliant'' efforts of the troops involved. His performance occasionally took on the tone of a college professor's lecture, as questions gave him a chance to expound on the cross-service ``adaptive force packages'' with which he has become identified in military circles.
He and other senior planners in Norfolk had two detailed plans for the Haiti operation, Miller said. Their preparations were so thorough that they were able to execute an actual invasion that was between the ``kick down the door'' and ``soft-landing'' options they had anticipated, he said.
The fact that no Americans have been killed by hostile fire in the operation is a testament to their training and skill, he said.
Without mentioning them directly, Miller disputed critics who've argued that the military's mission in Haiti has been unclear. U.S. forces have always focused on creating and building civil order in that country and protecting Americans and other foreign nationals living there, he said.
``We provided them the freedom of action and movement throughout Haiti. They never lost that.''
The military has acted to restore Haiti's electric power grid, rebuild water systems and, of late, open schools, Miller said. He viewed the last effort as particularly important, he suggested, because it gave Haitians the message that ``things were about normal.''
Miller said the United States has seized more than 12,000 weapons from the Haitian military, individuals and attaches identified with terrorist attacks on citizens. That effort, and a gun purchase program that brought in about 3,000 weapons, has made the country safer, he said, but there is no plan to intensify it.
``To disarm a country such as Haiti is a pretty tough assignment,'' Miller said.
The Washington Post on Thursday quoted a senior United Nations official who complained that the United States has not done enough to disarm Haiti's paramilitary forces. Before U.N. peacekeepers can replace U.S. troops in Haiti, a major goal of the Clinton administration, the paramilitary units must be disarmed, the unnamed official said.
KEYWORDS: HAITI by CNB