US weighs tough action on pirates

Pentagon officials said planning is underway to determine how US and allied military forces, using troops, ships, and aircraft, could disrupt the pirate's safe havens in coastal villages of Somalia. Despite the impoverished nation that surrounds them, the villages are thriving from the tens of millions of dollars in ransom money extorted from shipping companies.

But some analysts expressed concern that the drumbeat for a more muscular US approach - repeated yesterday by some members of Congress - focused too narrowly on a mere symptom of a much larger problem: the failed state of Somalia.

"The idea that you are going to bomb the pirates into the Stone Age is completely naive and it won't work," said Senator Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who has traveled extensively in the region. "It is a much broader problem that has to do with Somalia itself."

Feingold called on the Obama administration to use the current crisis to strengthen the Somali government's ability to provide economic opportunities to its destitute people, some of whom have turned to piracy in desperation. Others, he noted, have been recruited into terrorism by Islamic militants, who are using Somalia as a training ground for global attacks.

But military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were acting on orders from the White House to come up with a more aggressive approach to combat piracy, which they believe is emanating from the semi-autonomous Puntland region of Somalia.

Yesterday afternoon, President Obama reiterated that his administration is "resolved to halt the rise of [piracy] in that region. And to achieve that goal we're going to have to continue to work with our partners to prevent future attacks, we have to continue to be prepared to confront them when they arise, and we have to ensure that those who commit acts of piracy are held accountable for their crimes."

The Pentagon officials said that if President Obama gives them the go-ahead, they will take military action. In December, the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution giving UN member nations the authority to go into Somalia to pursue pirates.

The pirates operate in a vast expanse of water - equivalent to nearly the entire eastern half of the United States - where there is little local naval or coast guard presence.

The armed hijackers, many only in their teens, travel in fishing vessels known as "mother ships." Switching to small speedboats, they use global positioning systems and grappling hooks to locate and then climb aboard targeted vessels - usually merchant ships carrying cargo to or from the Suez Canal.

Last year, Somali pirates were responsible for at least 111 hijackings, according to the International Chamber of Commerce. Although estimates differ, there are at least 270 crew members from various nations, none of them Americans, being held captive in the region.

The attacks have steadily become more brazen. For example, a massive Saudi oil tanker, the Sirius Star, was released in January after the ship's owners paid a $3 million ransom. In the most recent incident, on Saturday, an Italian ship and its crew of 16 were seized and are being held off the Somali coast.

Some leading members of Congress yesterday called on the Obama administration to use military force to keep the shipping lanes open.

"Such measures could justifiably include hot pursuit [and] attacking and destroying pirate infrastructure at their home bases," said Senator James Webb, a Virginia Democrat and former Navy secretary.

Representative Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, insisted that "we cannot allow the criminals who threaten the safety of the seas to remain unchallenged."

Analysts said any military response must have a clear plan and limited objectives.

"We need a multinational force to take down these pirate areas and destroy their resources, logistics, and ability to project power to sea," said Kurt S. Lippold, the retired Navy officer who was commander of the USS Cole when it was attacked by Al Qaeda suicide bombers in Aden harbor in Yemen in 2000. "We can put surveillance assets in that region to observe where the pirate vessels come out from. We can pinpoint their bases, ships, and take down their ability to operate."

But Feingold, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees, and others expressed concern that Sunday's successful rescue after a five-day standoff with pirates would inflate expectations about what military force can achieve.

"It rarely happens like it did with the rescue of Captain Phillips," said Tom Wilkerson, a retired Marine Corps major general and president of the US Naval Institute in Annapolis, Md., referring to the Navy SEALs raid that freed Phillips, of Vermont, on Sunday. "It is not pristine. It is not surgical."

Wilkerson also agreed with Feingold that the US and its allies need a more comprehensive policy toward Somalia that includes assisting the local government.

"For [efforts to combat piracy] to succeed on a long-term basis, there needs to be some form of central government" in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, Wilkerson said.

Feingold said far more is at stake now than the threat to merchant vessels, noting that the Somali government - which has sought international help to deal with the piracy problem - is also at risk of being overthrown by Islamic militants linked to Al Qaeda.

"Our country needs to wake up to the reality that this is not just some African backwater but central to our national security," he said.

Bryan Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com.