ECOWAS REQUESTS RECONSIDERATION OF USG SUPPORT FOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABUJA 000447 SIPDIS SIPDIS AF/RSA FOR BITTRICK, AF/RSA FOR MCCARTY, AFRICOM FOR GENERAL ALTSHULER E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/27/2018 TAGS: MASS PGOV NI SUBJECT: ECOWAS REQUESTS RECONSIDERATION OF USG SUPPORT FOR ESF LOGEX REF: SHRIVES/BITTRICK/MARTINEAU EMAILS Classified By: Political Counselor Walter Pflaumer for reasons 1.4. (b & d). ¶1. (U) Summary: In a February 28 meeting, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace, and Security Colonel Mahamane Toure requested reconsideration of the USG's decision not to fund the October 2008 logistics exercise (Logex) in Burkina Faso, as originally conceived by ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) staff. He also presented plans for a scaled-down exercise to take place sometime early in CY 2009. Toure responded positively to suggestions to use the Freetown equipment depot as a way to lower the overall costs of any future Logex, and to provide a detailed list of a reconceived exercise's requirements prior to the April P3 meeting in Stuttgart. End Summary. ¶2. (C) The February 28 meeting was attended by Colonel Toure, ECOWARN director Colonel Yoro Kone, Director of Peacekeeping and Regional Security General Charles Okae, State Department ECOWAS Advisor Mark Shrives, and Poloff. Toure reiterated the original reasons ECOWAS wanted the Logex to take place in Burkina Faso (central location, political expedience, cost effectiveness, first choice of member states' Chiefs of Defense Staffs, deployment using a wide variety of means of transport),and added that, as the next peacekeeping/peacemaking deployment could possibly be to northern Mali or Niger, they wanted to hold the exercise in a similar physical environment. He also lamented the fact that any delay of more than a few months past the October 2008 date would seriously affect the whole "roadmap", i.e. the plan to have the ESF stood up by 2010. ¶3. (C) When reminded that upon identifying the U.S. as ECOWAS' first choice to be lead nation for the logex, ESF staff failed to provide the USG with even a minimal list of requirements for the exercise, Toure acknowledged that the initial request was unrealistic and poorly supported. He also admitted to have not taken into account the availability of the Freetown depot, which could substantially reduce costs. He then laid out the bare bones of his counterproposal, which he will finalize at the March 19-21 Chiefs of Defense Staffs meeting in Banjul and then forward as a concept paper for the April Stuttgart P3 meeting. In the new scenario, the ESF forgoes what was before essentially an infantry field training exercise plus a Logex, to put on a much scaled-down event in which a battalion-sized logistics unit supplies a company-sized interposition force for seven days. He hopes this will still take place in Burkina Faso, sometime in the first quarter of CY 2009. ¶4. (C) COMMENT: From the initial November 2007 request for USG help to the present, the ESF staff's handling of the Logex planning has been hampered by poor coordination with donors, strategic decision-making unduly influenced by esoteric political considerations, and a lack of effective, realistic goal-setting. It appears that ECOWAS hoped for a U.S.-led repeat of the December 2007 "Deggo" event in Senegal, in which extensive French oversight and staffing ensured success. Furthermore, most of Chief of Staff General Lai's staff slots are still unfilled, and it was the ESF itself that left the "roadmap" via unilateral force-related decisions, such as increasing the size of the ESF from 1500 to 2773. Despite all this, expectations remain high that AFRICOM will still come through with both the financing and logistical expertise to make a first quarter CY 2009 Logex -- along the lines of a Burkina Faso-located simulation of a Malian or Nigerien deployment -- a success. SANDERS