The Bush administration should put some muscle behind deploying a peacekeeping force.
Sunday, February 3, 2008; B06
THERE HAS BEEN no shortage of outrage in the Western democracies over the genocidal repression of Darfur's African population. Effective action to force Sudan to stop it, however, has been harder to come by. The latest illustration of the gap between rhetoric and action is the proposed joint United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force, which was supposed to be up and running with 26,000 soldiers by Jan. 1 -- but isn't. In fact, only about 9,000 poorly trained and equipped soldiers are on the ground, most of them African Union troops left over from a previous, ineffectual force sponsored by that organization. Last month, Sudanese troops fired on an African Union convoy, leaving a truck driver wounded, and exposing the force's utter lack of retaliatory capability. This follows a militia attack in September that left 10 African Union troops dead.
Through administrative harassment and diplomatic obstruction, Sudan's government has thwarted the deployment of other forces, including those from more substantial Scandinavian and Asian militaries. The danger is compounded by the splintering of Darfur's rebel groups, which has made it more difficult to bring all the parties into peace talks. But in a tactical military sense, the U.N.-A.U. force's biggest weakness is its lack of helicopters. Darfur is a vast, arid territory. Without at least 24 helicopters, it cannot be credibly patrolled. That must include a small squad of attack helicopters, able to fly and shoot at night, so that peacekeepers can deter attacks such as those that occurred recently. Yet the mostly Western countries that have such aircraft have refused so far to supply them, despite high-level pleas from President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. They cite both the financial cost and the danger to their soldiers of operating in a region where the ultimate authority, Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir, doesn't want them.
Mr. Bashir has played this game before. He shrewdly resists international pressure until it reaches a critical point, then appears to give in -- and then waits for the West to shift its attention elsewhere. To counter this, the Bush administration has to redouble its efforts to find a helicopter donor or donors, while using its leverage to make Mr. Bashir admit more troops. One diplomatic avenue runs through China, which is Sudan's best friend on the U.N. Security Council but may just be willing to do the West a favor in the run-up to this summer's Olympics. The Darfur peacekeeping operation is one part of a solution to a problem that probably calls for an international war crimes trial for Mr. Bashir. It might fail even with adequate troops and aircraft. But it will certainly fail without them.
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