Many Liberians thank departing U.S. peacekeeping Marines

MONROVIA, Liberia -- U.S. military planes and helicopters carried the last few U.S. ground forces out of war-ruined Liberia on Tuesday -- leaving Liberians thankful for their help, but dismayed at their silent withdrawal.

About 30 members of a U.S. military liaison team flew out of Liberia's main airport, ending their work with a West African-led peace mission.

Their ship, the USS Iwo Jima, was no longer visible from Monrovia's shore by Tuesday afternoon, and was due to leave the region within hours.

The Iwo Jima was the last of three U.S. warships deployed in early August off Liberia's capital, Monrovia, where fighting killed more than 1,000 civilians in June and July as rebels besieged the city.

The mission of Joint Task Force Liberia Mission "has been accomplished," a U.S. military spokesman said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The presence of the U.S. troops helped drive President Charles Taylor into exile, clearing the way for a power-sharing deal between his government and rebels after 14 years of devastating conflict.

More than 100 heavily armed U.S. Marines went ashore in Liberia on Aug. 14, prodded by international appeals to intervene as Liberia's three-year civil war pressed upon the capital.

Liberians said Tuesday they had wanted to give the Americans a proper send-off.

"We welcomed the Americans when they arrived here overtly. Why their quiet departure?" asked 39-year-old Mark Tingeh.

"To leave without a ceremony to bid them goodbye is to present Liberians as an ungrateful people," Tingeh said.

U.N., African and European leaders had argued the United States had a special responsibility toward Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves in the 19th century. Liberia had remained a leading African trade and strategic partner of the United States up to the end of the Cold War.

President Bush ultimately agreed to a Marine deployment, but disappointed many Liberians by saying it would be limited to backing up the African peace force -- and would be finished by Oct. 1.

Liberians' hopes were diminished further when most of the Marines who went ashore stayed behind high walls at an airport well outside Monrovia, out of sight to almost all Liberians. Those Marines, members of a rapid-reaction force, pulled back to their ships by Aug. 25.

The 30 or so other Marines acting as liaisons with the African force received warm smiles and greetings from Liberians as the troops moved about Monrovia.

Many Liberians said they felt safer with the Marines onshore, saying their own ill-trained and often drunk and drugged fighters wouldn't dare take on U.S. forces.

Others called the onshore deployment a token force -- and overdue since it didn't come during the deadly heights of the rebel sieges.

"We did not have a say in the coming of the Americans. We just saw them in the Liberian waters," said Romeo Sorsor, a 35-year old plumber. "So they say they're leaving. There's no point in telling us."

The rebels -- battling since 1997 against Taylor, who ceded power to his vice president and went into exile Aug. 11 -- are to be included on Oct. 14 in a power-sharing government arranged under a peace deal.

Despite calm in Monrovia, sporadic fighting has continued in the countryside.

Many Liberians expressed gratitude for any help from the Marines, whose departure overlaps with Wednesday's transfer of peacekeeping responsibility from a 3,000-plus West African force to a U.N. force.

The U.N. mission is slated to number as many as 15,000 peacekeepers. Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande of Kenya, now head of a U.N. military mission in neighboring Sierra Leone, was named Tuesday to head the force.

Opande would fly to Monrovia on Wednesday, U.N. spokesman Patrick Coker said in Sierra Leone.