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