One way to control when, how and how long an AI will use binoculars is to define your own anims in an addon. Or you can use:
unit selectWeapon "Binocular"
Once to make him use them, but after that he will use them periodicaly for short period's of time.
I've been parping on about this for ages, I did send example anims to some of the Anim pack guys. Perhaps they included something along those lines into one of the anim packs.