Joining combat, but only from war room

It’s common practice. World leaders would assign an "anonymous source" to "leak" to the press a new policy or plan whose implication they are unsure of. It’s really an idea float, and the intention is to gauge support or unnerve the enemy or discover points of resistance.

Whoever in Washington put up a certain Colonel Davis to talk about US troops going into combat with Islamic extremists in Sulu was gunning for all three objectives. Buoyed by polls that 70 percent of Filipinos favored US training of Filipino soldiers in nearby Basilan early last year, Davis’s handler pushed it further to joint operations this time around. He elicited a response from Abu Sayyaf terrorists: a nervous brag that they’d throw a "welcome party" of suicide bombers. But the unexpected resistance from both sides of the Pacific made Davis shut up.

The influential Washington Post, for one, demanded in an editorial that George W. Bush first clear the joint-combat plan with Congress and the American public. It decried as "a bad start" the dispatch within a few days of 1,750 soldiers when Congress is in recess and Americans are in the dark about why their boys should die in the jungles of Asia.

Resistance was as fierce in Manila. Malacañang spokesman Ignacio Bunye called Davis a loudmouth who didn’t know any better. "There will be no combat role for US troops, period, period, period," he said. Equally emphatic was Defense Sec. Angelo Reyes, who has yet to fly to the US to iron out details of what should be a mere joint training. "I am categorically saying that anything they say that is contrary to the Constitution and the laws will not materialize."

Exit Davis, enter White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, though with a backward step. US troops would "assist" Filipino forces, yes, but he did not say if they’ll take part in combat. "The Armed Forces of the Philippines will conduct operations supported by United States troops against the Abu Sayyaf group," Fleischer chose his words carefully. "The Armed Forces of the Philippines has the lead and US forces will assist them."

The word assist is broad, however, and that is where Philippine Congress resistance also lies. Opposition senator Aquilino Pimentel has warned Reyes about treason if he lets US soldiers engage in direct combat against Filipinos, terrorist or not. For the Constitution specifically forbids any foreign military presence except for training exercises.

Assist already has been interpreted, though, to mean joint training in the peripheries of a combat zone. Balikatan 02-1 was held from January to June 2001 in Basilan where an Abu Sayyaf faction reigns. No less than Vice President Teofisto Guingona had opposed it at first for violating the Visiting Forces Agreement that forbids Balikatan in combat zones. But Malacañang melted his resistance by making him draft the terms of reference. US trainers were thus limited to Zamboanga and Cebu air bases, and in Basilan towns where Abu Sayyaf terrorists can only conduct small forays. With that, the US not only was able to build a landing strip and a circumferential highway on the island, but also help rescue an American hostage and kill her kidnappers.

No one could argue with that 2001 success. US officers were training Filipino troops in the use of modern weapons and equipment, from night-vision goggles and bulletproof vests to new cannons and night-flight helicopters. Using tiny location sensors, they were able to track Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Sabaya in the Zamboanga jungles with kidnapped American missionaries Martin and Gracie Burnham. Filipino troops raided Sabaya’s camp and were able to get her out alive after Sabaya shot her and Martin in frustration and flight.

This was followed with another success. In a predawn operation, the Filipino trainees encircled and rammed the boat on which Sabaya and company were trying to escape. US trainers were out of sight, in an AWAC flying high up in the dark sky. But they tape-recorded the skirmish; they might even have given the trainees instructions on what to do. But not one of the 3,300 US soldiers actually engaged Sabaya’s band. Everything they did was done from the war room. Is that direct combat or part of training exercise? That’s the fine line that Washington’s defense chief Donald Rumsfeld and Manila’s Reyes gingerly will have to work out for the forthcoming Balikatan 03-1 in Sulu.

The difference between the two Balikatan exercises, however, is that no American hostage is to be freed in Sulu. Thus, the US press is not as supportive of Balikatan 03-1 as it was of 02-1. Malacañang is just as hard-pressed for a compelling reason to bring the joint training to peripheries of combat zones in Sulu. It had used the line before that practically all of the Philippines has combat zones, what with the guerrilla fronts that the communist New People’s Army has established in most provinces. But selling that idea again would be tough.

Filipinos know that the Abu Sayyaf terrorists are remnants of the old Moro National Liberation Front. Many of the Abu Sayyaf recruits are sons of Sulu-based MNLF rebels who fought for Mindanao separation for 30 years before signing a peace pact with the government in 1996. Majority of the rebels now occupy government positions in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao or have found gainful employment. Several hundreds have been integrated into the Armed Forces and the National Police. But hundreds more had supported MNLF leader Nur Misuari’s mutiny in Jolo on the eve of the 2001 ARMM election. Those back-to-rebellion MNLF members reportedly give succor to Abu Sayyaf bands that soldiers are pursuing in Sulu jungles. A US military presence in the island could fire up Muslim passions, even if only for training. Much more if for combat, albeit from the safety and confines of war rooms.

But then, policy-makers can fall back on those trusty surveys. They must be praying now that a new poll will bring out the same 70-percent support for US "assistance" in the fight against home-grown terrorists.

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