Gates rejects moving Marines to Afghanistan

NY Times:

Senior Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had decided against a proposal to shift Marine Corps forces from Iraq to take the lead in American operations in Afghanistan.

Mr. Gates told top Marine Corps officials and his senior aides that the situation in western Iraq, where the Marines now operate in Anbar Province, remained too volatile to contemplate such a significant change in how the ground combat mission in Iraq is shared by the Army and Marine Corps.

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Senior Defense Department officials said Mr. Gates met at the Pentagon on Friday with Gen. James T. Conway, the Marine Corps commandant, and received a formal proposal that would shift Marine forces from Anbar Province and deploy them in Afghanistan.

The proposal was based on Marine Corps concepts in which an integrated “air-ground task force” of Marine infantry, attack aircraft and logistics could carry out the Afghanistan mission, and build on counterinsurgency lessons learned by marines in Anbar.

The idea also was based on an assessment that a realignment could allow the Army and Marines each to operate more efficiently in sustaining troop levels for two wars that have put a strain on their forces.

“The secretary understands what the commandant is trying to do, and why the commandant wishes to transition the Marine Corps mission to Afghanistan,” Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Wednesday during Mr. Gates’s visit to Baghdad. “But he doesn’t believe the time is now to do that. Anbar is still a volatile place.”

Senior military and Pentagon officials familiar with the discussion acknowledged that the Marine Corps proposal might eventually be adopted, although such a decision would be left up to the next defense secretary and military commanders.

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When word first surfaced of the Marine Corps proposal in October, some officials in the Air Force expressed private fears that its mission in Afghanistan could be ended if the mission went to the Marines, who deploy with their own tactical fighter and attack combat aircraft.

Army officials acknowledged that the idea could streamline their force planning, by giving them only one mission to fulfill — although some Army officers also expressed wariness that the Marines were trying to move from an unpopular war, Iraq, to Afghanistan, which has more popular support.

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I am not sure I agree with Gates assessment of Anbar based on the last few months enemy operations. I do think the inter service politics may have effected the decision. However, the Air Force would have continued to operate its big UAVs and I suspect that the special forces command would have still been heavily involved.

The Afghan war may need to go into large foot print mode anyway to suppress the Taliban in the south. If that happened there would not be enough Marines to handle the mission. We really need to look at raising the force to space ratio in Afghanistan, hopefully by adding more Afghan militia to the areas where the Taliban is trying to operate.