US MILITARY TO SCREEN NIGERIAN SOLDIERS BEFORE CHIBOK OPERATION:

Jonathan Initially Rejected US, UK Help’
No Boko Haram leader arrested -DHQ

The United States military, which is being despatched by The Pentagon to assist in the search and rescue of the nearly 300 kidnapped girls of Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, will screen Nigerian soldiers with whom they will operate, a US official has said.
Johnie Carson, a former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under President Obama, mentioned this at the weekend from Abuja during a call set up by the Council on Foreign Affairs.
According to Carson, who said the United States could offer satellite and air surveillance through drones, as well as bring in military advisers to help units of the Nigerian military, the US military would have to vet the units it would work with to ensure they meet US human rights standards.
The Pentagon said it will send about 10 military personnel as part of a broader US contingent to help the country. The Pentagon spokesman, Col Steve Warren added that, “At this time we’re not considering a U.S. operation to help rescue the girls. We’re looking at this as a crisis response to a hostage situation.”
jONATHAN REJECT HELLP: This is coming at a time when reports emerged that President Goodluck Jonathan rejected offers of assistance from the United States and the United Kingdom 24 hours after the April 14 abduction of the students of GGSS, Chibok. Carson remarked that, “This is a proud country with a professional military and intelligence service. Sometimes they accept things, and sometimes they don’t.”
Speaking at the same event, Paul Sullivan, professor of economics at National Defense University in Washington, said the United States could bring powerful search-and-destroy tools to the Nigerian effort.
“We have drones for surveillance, drones for attack, special operations troops, other surveillance and support options and more,” Sullivan said. “We could make life a misery for Boko Haram,” the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.
The USA Today quoted President Obama as saying there would be nothing about providing “boots on the ground” to assist in fighting that may occur in confronting Boko Haram on its home territory.
Before it gets sucked into a mess, the Pentagon will probably want to assess the situation, Sullivan said.
“One of the first steps to the U.S. getting involved militarily is to send military advisers,” Sullivan said. They will encounter “unexpected events,” and Nigeria’s plethora of languages, cultures and political ideologies, he said.
The first task for the U.S. team would be to marshal Nigeria’s best intelligence on the girls’ locations, then help organize a search-and-rescue operation, he said. The girls are probably spread over multiple locations, making it more difficult to find and rescue them.
“The tough part is what to do when you find out where they are,” Sullivan said.
A military attack could result in the girls being murdered, as Boko Haram has done to hostages in past rescue operations. Buying off Boko Haram could have political repercussions.
“It’s going to be very very messy,” Sullivan said. “If they can pull this off with nobody killed and nobody injured, this is going to be miraculous.”
U.S. analysts view Nigeria’s handling of the Boko Haram insurgency as another example of the government’s failure to address legitimate grievances in the country’s mostly Muslim north. The north suffers from poor access to clean water, health care, education and jobs to a much greater degree than the more affluent and mostly Christian south.
“There is a growing sense of extreme marginalization in the north,” Carson said. “There is a concern that government in Abuja doesn’t care about their situation.”
Reacting to the allegation that government rejected help, presidential spokesman Reuben Abati told the Associated Press that there was nothing like that. He said, “That information cannot be correct,” he said. “What John Kerry (US Secretary of State) said is that this is the first time Nigeria is seeking assistance on the issue of the abducted girls.”
The Associated Press added, however, that Kerry has said Nigeria did not welcome U.S. help earlier because it wanted to pursue its own strategy. U.S. Sen. Chris Coons said Friday that it took “far too long” for Jonathan to accept U.S. offers of aid, and he is holding a hearing next week to examine what happened. A senior State Department official also said Friday that the U.S. offered help “back in April, more or less right away.”
“We didn’t go public about it because the consensus was that doing so would make the Nigerians less likely to accept our help,” said the US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue concerns internal discussions between governments.
NSA LOBBIED US: In a related development, another US publication, ABC News, has said the National Security Adviser, retired Col Sambo Dasuki, had been involved in secret talks through lobbyists for foreign help in order to fight terror.
The report said, two months before Boko Haram was designated an FTO by the U.S. in November 2013, Nigeria’s Office of the National Security Adviser signed a $3 million-a-year contract with K Street firm Patton Boggs to “provide comprehensive security advice, including the donation of excess military and law enforcement equipment,” according to documents filed with the U.S. Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Patton Boggs’ point man on the contract, retired Marine Col. John Garrett, recounted in an email communication filed under FARA that he had met with officials at the Pentagon’s combatant command for the region, U.S. Africa Command, in Stuttgart, Germany in December.
On behalf of Nigerian National Security Adviser Muhammadu Sambo Dasuki, Garrett requested information on Boko Haram activities derived from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance overflights of northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state. Patton Boggs also asked for non-lethal protective hardware to be donated to Nigeria such as mine-resistant armored personnel vehicles, night vision goggles and communications equipment from Iraq and Afghanistan stockpiles left over from U.S. withdrawals from those warzones

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Source: Sunday Trust

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