That's fair for the army. But even then, prioritizing a Jedi prisoner over crippling the actual army they had is a horrible tactical decision, if the Jedi are going to commingle with the army. Doubly so by having the Jedi and the army be almost entirely separated. And even further exacerbated when they know there is already another Jedi actively working on freeing the captive.
It's still about getting things to happen without telling us why, or decisions being made which are objectively bad.