Set No Deadline for Haiti Withdrawal : Disarm the thugs but don’t risk U.S. lives with a cutoff date

American troops in Haiti, their numbers now in excess of 20,000 and still climbing, have begun moving aggressively to disarm the organized bands of thugs who under the dictatorship of Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras have been allowed to conduct a reign of terror across the island nation. This risky business was not part of the original job description provided for the U.S. forces. It was instead supposed to be the Haitian police and military who would be chiefly responsible for disarming the so-called attaches and imposing some palpable sense of civic order. But the police and the military have little interest in the task. So now it’s Americans who, in addition to trying to restore basic services and preside over a largely undefined “transition to peace,” must disarm men who know that without their guns, they are fair game for a long-victimized populace that understandably despises them.

It’s one more sign of dangerous mission creep for the U.S. troops, and yet in the rueful logic of the intervention it has also become unavoidable. Clearly there can be no hope of achieving calm and order while armed goons are left free to murder, rob and otherwise prey on their fellow citizens. Some of the leaders of these gangs were taken into custody over the weekend and on Monday and are being kept confined. The United States, as it keeps telling Haitians, is not an occupying force, so that pretty much leaves it without authority to prosecute or punish people who, under any reasonable system of justice, surely deserve prosecution and punishment. Exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is scheduled to return to Haiti around Oct. 15, the date by which Cedras and his fellow coup-makers are supposed to be out of office. The fate of the arrested attache leaders will be left up to him.

Congress, meanwhile, shows growing bipartisan apprehension about the mission of the U.S. troops in Haiti and the duration of their stay. Some want to set a deadline for withdrawal, with next March 1 most often mentioned. But arbitrary termination dates for any military operation are inherently dangerous and politically foolish. The message they send is that those against whom the mission is directed need only lie low before safely resuming their activities. Worse, as the U.S. commander in Haiti, Lt. Gen. Hugh Shelton, has warned, an arbitrary withdrawal date jeopardizes lives by inviting attacks on U.S. troops in the final days and weeks of their presence.

In these circumstances it seems that the best course is to order the U.S. expeditionary force in Haiti to move as swiftly and vigorously as possible to eliminate the threat posed by armed opponents of civic order. The Clinton Administration’s policy in Haiti, while it has seldom been less than ambiguous, does apparently aim at laying the groundwork for political and economic progress unhindered by authoritarian rule. Assuring public safety--and that means disarming thugs and bringing the police and military under tight control--remains the essential precondition for any progress.

We did not welcome the Haiti intervention. But now U.S. troops are there. They deserve to be supported and their orders should be clear and emphatic: Do what’s needed to disarm the thugs, and give Haiti a chance to be free from terror.