US embassy cable - 04BOGOTA11758

C O N F I D E N T I A L BOGOTA 011758 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/15/2014 
TAGS: ASEC, PREL, PINR, CO, MOPS 
SUBJECT: URIBE RETIRES ARMY COMMANDER, RETAINS REST OF HIGH 
COMMAND 
 
Classified By: Ambassador William B. Wood, for reasons 
1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
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Summary 
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1. (C) On November 10, Minister of Defense Uribe announced 
changes to the Armed Forces high command: Armed Forces 
Commander General Ospina and all the service chiefs except 
Army Commander Major General Carreno will remain in their 
positions.  Carreno will retire.  Joint Task Force Omega 
Commander Major General Castellanos will replace Carreno and 
Director of Operations of the Joint Staff Major General 
Fracica will replace Castellanos.  Embassy has good relations 
with the commanders who will remain, as well as with 
Castellanos.  The choice of Castellanos was a victory for 
jointness and cooperation among services, a high Embassy 
priority.  Fracica is an aggressive, results-oriented 
commander but has sometimes been reluctant to work closely 
with us and tends to be hard on his subordinates.  End 
Summary. 
 
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Preliminary Changes Announced 
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2. (C) On November 10, President Uribe announced preliminary 
changes to the Armed Forces High Command.  Armed Forces 
Commander General Ospina, Navy Commander Admiral Soto, Air 
Force Commander Major General Lesmez, Police Commander Major 
General Castro, and Chief of the Joint Staff Major General 
Padilla will remain in their current positions.  Army 
Commander Major General Carreno will retire.  Joint Task 
Force Omega (JTFO) Commander Major General Castellanos, 
currently in charge of Plan Patriota, will replace Carreno. 
Director of Operations of the Joint Staff Major General 
Fracica will replace Castellanos as JTFO Commander.  The 
deputy commanders of all three services are expected to 
retire.  Changes to lower level officers will be announced 
later in the year or in January. 
 
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Focus on Results 
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3. (C) President Uribe's decision to keep Ospina and all but 
one of the service commanders indicates his satisfaction with 
their results and trusts them to continue to deliver.  We 
enjoy excellent relations with Soto, Lesmez, and Ospina. 
 
4. (C) Carreno's departure was a victory for MOD Uribe, who 
had to convince President Uribe to replace the aggressive but 
volatile and Army-centric Carreno.  His departure should 
alleviate counterproductive inter-service competition.  In 
contrast to Carreno, Castellanos is skilled at joint 
operations and his appointment to Army Commander should close 
the breach between the Army and the rest of the services, 
including the police.  We also expect our relationship with 
the Army to improve.  While Carreno was often reluctant to 
share information with us, Castellanos has been a valuable 
interlocutor throughout his time as JTFO Commander and in his 
prior position as the Army's 5th Division Commander. 
 
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Plan Patriota Loses Talented Leader 
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5. (C) Castellanos showed impressive results in leading Plan 
Patriota Phase 2A in Cundinamarca Department and the 
still-ongoing Phase 2B in southeastern Colombia.  Fracica had 
been angling for several months for the JTFO command and is 
already well up to speed on Plan Patriota.  However, he is 
hard on his subordinates and can be slow to use actionable 
intelligence.  As Joint Staff Director for Intelligence, he 
was sometimes difficult for us to work with and made public 
remarks critical of the U.S. 
WOOD