Diplomatic Critics of Policy Honored

In this photograph provided by the American Foreign Service Association, Ronald Capps, center, a former political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum who lobbied for direct U.S. intervention in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region, is seen in Iraq in this undated photograph. Capps is scheduled to receive the William R. Rivkin Award, which honors mid-level diplomats who exhibit "extraordinary accomplishment involving initiative, integrity, intellectual courage and constructive dissent," American Foreign Service Association. (AP Photo/American Foreign Service Association) (AP)

WASHINGTON -- It was the stuff of spy novels and action movies and it didn't sit well with Michael Zorick. U.S. intelligence agents were dropping quietly into lawless Somalia with cash and material support for warlords fighting an increasingly powerful and radical Islamist movement with links to al-Qaida.

The covert assistance was meant to bolster opposition to the Islamists and further the war on terrorism in East Africa, yet from his desk at the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Kenya, Zorick saw it taking an ominous turn.

Instead of rallying secular Somalis around the deeply unpopular warlords, the aid was emboldening the Islamists, boosting their popularity and exacerbating already heightened anti-U.S. sentiment. It was also hurting international efforts to restore order after 15 years of anarchy by backing a feeble interim government in the fight on terror.

Disaster, including the possible formation of a Taliban-like state in Somalia, was brewing in late 2005 and early 2006, and Zorick, the only U.S. diplomat in Nairobi watching Somalia full-time, repeatedly warned his colleagues and Washington of the looming danger, particularly as word of the secret support leaked.

His advice was ignored, however.

Now he's being praised for his outspoken stand.

Zorick was presented on Thursday with an American Foreign Service Association award for "constructive dissent" at a State Department ceremony along with Ronald Capps, a former political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum who lobbied for direct U.S. intervention in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region. It never came.

After Zorick objected to U.S. policy, he was ostracized by the foreign policy establishment and moved from Kenya to Chad. Later, even after the covert U.S. aid stopped, his dire predictions came true: the warlords collapsed, the triumphant Islamists marched into Mogadishu and began to consolidate their hold on the country.

Accused of harboring suspects in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the Islamists imposed a hardline brand of Sharia law over much of the country, raising fears that Somalia could become a terrorist haven as Afghanistan had become in the 1990s.

It took an Ethiopian invasion in December 2006 to drive them out and remnants continue to wreak havoc with suicide car bombs and other terrorist attacks against the transitional government.

Zorick has never spoken publicly about his role and declined to discuss it on Thursday. But he said he accepted the award because it was from his peers.

His citation hinted at, but did not mention, covert U.S. operations in Somalia, which have never been officially confirmed by the government but have been the subject of numerous investigative news reports, including by The Associated Press.