Oplan Exodus was 'a costly victory,' says military analyst

From InterAksyon (Feb 11): Oplan Exodus was 'a costly victory,' says military analyst



Mamasapano animated forces. NEWS5 VIDEO GRAB

Oplan Exodus, the operation plan to arrest suspected international terrorist Malaysian Julkifli Abdhir alias Marwan and his Filipino protégé Abdul Basit Usman was ill-conceived and bound to end in a disaster, said military analyst Jose Antonio Custodio. He detailed the following reasons as to what were its major flaws:

1. What happens when you walk into MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) territory?

“Even a reporter knows this: You walk in there with guns and you’re asking for a fight. Every man there is armed and even if they are from different groups, they will all join in the fight in a pintakasi (cockfighting term for ganging up). That is a given. Everybody knows that - from decades of war with Moro rebels. The Philippine National Police-Special Action Forces should have known this.

“The question is why was this very important and very commonly known fact forgotten in the formulation of the tactical operation? Napenas as the head of SAF should have further studied the merits and demerits of the plan and at the very least conducted a tabletop war game simulation to check its feasibility.”

2. Why walk through unfamiliar terrain?

“Why did the plan have the lightly armed SAF march through difficult terrain thus making their progress into hostile territory slow and ponderous and why was little thought given to the exit strategy especially as it should have been factored in that local MILF units would join in the fray once the shooting starts?

“Unfortunately, despite the versatility of the special forces as a maneuver and shock force, their utilization in the operation against Marwan smacked of a conservative and conventional mindset that was incapable of proposing out of the box strategies and tactics.

“An alternative plan would have been a helicopter insertion of a small group of police commandos. They already pinpointed the exact location of Marwan with apparent American assistance. They should have done what the Americans did with Osama bin Laden: fly in, neutralize Marwan, get proof of Marwan’s neutralization, fly out. There may be casualties, but not 44 on the SAF side and an indeterminate number on the other side.”

Though the PNP SAF does not have a helicopter fleet, “They could have asked the Americans to discreetly provide unmarked utility helicopters for the operation as it appears that the US is also one of the main proponents of the plan to neutralize Marwan. They were able to get them after - for the retrieval of bodies, why not for the operation itself?

“The casualties of such an alternative operation would be so low whether successful or not that after the initial bickering that would erupt between the MILF and the government over the incident, both sides would then move on.”

3. Was SAF designed for a conventional military operation?

“The PNP-SAF staff planned a conventional military operation with men not equipped and trained for the task at hand. Oplan Exodus had all the appearances of a military operation, but the SAF is designed to operate as a small 'shock' team for situations like hostage-taking, etc. and not for set piece battles of which the Mamasapano engagement turned into.

“Simply put, the SAF is not infantry. As there was little thought given to the exit strategy, no thought then was given to resupply by air if the forces would get bogged down in heavy fighting and of course little consideration given to mutual support between the units of the battalion sized SAF formation that marched into Mamasapano.
“Apparently because the battalion-size (392) group of policemen assembled for the operation was plucked from all over the country, they did not have unit cohesion and would not be expected to effectively mutually support each other, so at the height of the firefight, they could not act cohesively to help their comrades who were pinned down and being routed.

“The SAF expected to be plucked out of trouble by the AFP but as there was no pre-operation coordination between the SAF and the AFP, the Army reaction would not be quick and rapid as the need for clearances and confusion would naturally affect the military, which was kept in the dark.

“No amount of grandstanding by legislators can change that principle of military operations that proper pre-planning coordination is needed to establish effective and responsive support especially in the Philippine context wherein the enemy is not a foreign entity but fellow Filipinos and the risk of unacceptable collateral damage is always very high.”

“But essentially, the problem is institutional. The PNP is a schizophrenic organization with the top echelons occupied by PMA (Philippine Military Academy) graduates and lower ranks by alumni of the Philippine National Police Academy who have a different mindset from their superiors that can contribute to command problems and even an identity crisis.

“Is the PNP a police organization or is it a paramilitary organization? Problems with the command and force utilization by the PNP had already surfaced such as during the Quirino Grandstand hostage crisis (the standoff with Hong Kong tourists held hostage that ended tragically). That incident should have been a wake-up call.”
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Custodio said the PNP-SAF is responsible for the plan that eventually did get adopted. He said he did not believe that the operation was conceived to thwart the ongoing peace talks with the MILF. “It was not Machiavellian. It was simply ill-conceived,” he said.

Custodio also said President Benigno Aquino III could not be blamed for “so-called granting authority to execute the plan. That is a policy directive, different from the oplan itself. The oplan is supposed to be planned by professionals.”

“If hypothetically the policy makers meddled in the drafting of the plan then the PNP-SAF staff, as the professionals and experts, should have moved heaven and earth to protest any unsound and dangerous feature within it that carried the seeds of disaster which is an accepted and properly recognized responsibility of commanders in behalf of the men who will be sent into harm’s way.

“Unfortunately, it appears a misplaced can-do attitude pervaded in the conceptualization, and that was the road to disaster. In other words, the moment the SAF marched into Mamasapano, they were dead men walking.”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/104914/oplan-exodus-was-a-costly-victory-says-military-analyst