Shame as US official says Nigerian military is afraid to fight

Obama administration officials on Thursday questioned whether the Nigerian military is able to rescue, even with international help, more than 260 schoolgirls abducted last month, giving impetus to a social media campaign calling for the United States to do more to free the hostages.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, administration officials on Thursday offered an unusually candid and public assessment of the Nigerian military.

“We’re now looking at a military force that’s, quite frankly, becoming afraid to even engage,” said Alice Friend, the Pentagon’s principal director for African affairs. “The Nigerian military has the same challenges with corruption that every other institution in Nigeria does. Much of the funding that goes to the Nigerian military is skimmed off the top, if you will.”

American surveillance aircraft, both manned and unmanned, are making flights over the heavily forested region in northeastern Nigeria where the girls are believed to be held. So far, there are few if any clues about the girls’ location.

“We’re basically searching for these girls in an area that’s roughly the size of West Virginia,” Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman, said Thursday. “So it’s a tough challenge, to be sure.”

The administration has also sent about 30 specialists from the State Department, the F.B.I. and the Pentagon to advise Nigerian officials. About half are military personnel with medical, intelligence, counterterrorism and communications skills. Two officers with experience supporting a mission in Uganda to track down the Lord’s Resistance Army, another rebel force, have joined the effort.

Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the top general overseeing American missions in Africa, met with other senior American and Nigerian officials this week in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, to analyze Nigerian operations as well as the military’s “gaps and shortfalls,” Ms. Friend said.

Asked whether Nigerian forces were capable of rescuing the hostages, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told CBS News on Thursday, “That’s an open question.”

“We just don’t know enough yet to be able to assess what we will recommend to the Nigerians, where they need to go, what they need to do, to get those girls back,” Mr. Hagel said.

Gen. Carter F. Ham, a retired head of the military’s Africa command, said, “My sense is that U.S.G. will remain in a supporting role to Nigeria,” referring to the United States government. “I do not think the U.S.G. will seek unilateral action.

At Thursday’s hearing, administration officials condemned the kidnappings and committed American aid to help rescue the girls. But they also voiced frustration at Nigeria’s political and military leaders for failing to heed Washington’s warnings about the extremist group.

“We have been urging Nigeria to reform its approach to Boko Haram,” said Robert P. Jackson, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs. “From our own difficult experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, we know that turning the tide of an insurgency requires more than force. The state must demonstrate to its citizens that it can protect them and offer them opportunity. When soldiers destroy towns, kill civilians and detain innocent people with impunity, mistrust takes root.”

Administration officials say they have tried to persuade the Nigerian authorities to adopt a more holistic approach to fighting Boko Haram, which the State Department branded a terrorist organization last year. The Pentagon, for instance, has supported programs to counter improvised explosive devices and build greater cooperation between the Nigerian military and the public, in part to help generate tips on suspected terrorists. The efforts have had mixed results, at best.

Moreover, finding Nigerian army units that have not been involved in gross violations of human rights has been a “persistent and very troubling limitation” on American efforts to work with the Nigerians, Ms. Friend said.

Senator after senator, of both parties, expressed outrage at how long it has taken the Nigerian government to respond effectively to the abductions. Only on Thursday, Mr. Jackson said, was President Jonathan finally traveling to Chibok, the town where the abductions occurred.

But Ms. Friend was unable to assure the committee chairman, Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, that the Nigerian military had the capacity for a rescue operation, even if it had “actionable intelligence” on the girls’ whereabouts and help from other countries.

As reported by the New York Time nytimes.