What the Marines will do in Afstan

Outgoing ISAF commander US Gen. Dan McNeill (he is being replaced by US Gen. David D. McKiernan) describes in considerable detail how he sees the arriving Marines operating. It seems to me they will serve in effect as a theatre manoeuvre force for the ISAF commander to be used in Regional Command South and East, and that any real subordination to the Canadian general in charge at RC South (as the US had mentioned) will be pretty notional.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Canada will get the additional NATO combat forces in Kandahar that Parliament is expected to demand if it approves a motion Thursday to extend the mission there to 2011, according to the White House and the U.S. commander of all 50,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Gen. Dan McNeill also told Canwest News Service in an exclusive interview Wednesday that U.S. Marines being deployed to southern Afghanistan in April for seven months, would help the Canadian battle group, fighting the war against the Taliban in the province of Kandahar.

"You should say to the Canadian people that I am not likely to be sitting on my thumbs after the Marines depart," Gen. McNeill said of the deployment of 3,200 Marines to the south that ends this fall. "We will have here a credible force and with some exceptions I am able to move some of it around the battlefield to take care of business where I need to."

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said Wednesday he was personally assured last week by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that Washington would do everything in its power to find a partner with 1,000 troops to join Canada in Kandahar province...

The exact mission of the incoming Marines has been something of a mystery since Washington made the unexpected announcement in mid-January. There was "a high probability that some of the Marines under ISAF control will be involved in tactical operations in Kandahar," Gen. McNeill said. "About the middle or end of April, you will have somewhere between three and four times the number of American shooters in the south than you have today . . . Two thousand of them (will be) under the NATO flag, and 1,200 under the OEF (the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom) flag [without breaching security, does anyone know what the OEF forces in the south now are? I've found a reference to Army Rangers at KAF. And are there any US Army units now under Regional Command South? - MC]. In effect, they will all be in support of operations that the Canadian task force is doing there."

In a rare public acknowledgment of the vital secret role that Canada's Joint Task Force commandos have been playing in Afghanistan as part of OEF rather than the NATO force, Gen. McNeill complimented these special forces on "some mighty fine work against insurgent bombers last year." He wondered why the JTF, whose missions in Afghanistan the Canadian military has adamantly refused to comment on, had not received more media attention in Canada.

Gen. McNeill was also full of praise for Canada's top general, Rick Hillier.

"He is a skilled dude isn't he?" he said. "It is more than just speaking to the Canadian people. I doubt there is a person in the Canadian uniform today who has not clearly heard where he wants to go and I doubt you can find anyone in a Canadian uniform who doesn't want to get there with him."

While acknowledging that the Marines would assist the Canadians in Kandahar, he cautioned they also likely would be involved in fighting elsewhere in the south, too, and possibly even in the east of the country where the U.S. army [oops!] has responsibility.

"I would ask that you be understanding of me when I tell you that I won't play all the cards in my hand," he said, in explaining why he could not divulge more of the Marine's part in his evolving battle plan. "The insurgents read our papers just as closely as we do."

Among the possibilities was to have the Marines support British troops who have been involved in heavy fighting at, what Gen. McNeill called "the door that leads to Kandahar."

Wherever the Marines go in the coming months, the four-star general said he expected they would add a new dimension to the battle.

"They are bringing a number of the things that I have said clearly and consistently that NATO has failed to resource here -- numbers of soldiers, flying machines and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance platforms."

After revealing that he had become a close reader of Canadian media reports, Gen. McNeill said he took strong exception to some media assessments in Canada that the war in Afghanistan had become a "mission impossible."

"I believe that those who utter such things have not considered the facts," he said.

After Operation Medusa, which was undertaken by battle groups led by the Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry and the Royal Canadian Regiment during the summer and fall of 2006 "the media was replete with (stories of) Taliban being resurgent and coming back," McNeill said. "But it looks like that didn't happen. It looks like the force to recognize on the battlefield last year was NATO and its Afghan allies and the brothers from OEF . . .

"The only thing they (the Taliban) accomplished in 2007 was to stay in the newspapers (through IED attacks and suicide bombings). They did not accomplish that much on the battlefield [emphasis added]."

One of the reasons Gen. McNeill felt progress had been made since he took command about one year ago was the growing number of IEDs -- the cause of most Canadian and NATO casualties in Afghanistan -- being discovered...

Another positive was that coalition forces had "had much success in disrupting (the Taliban's) command and control and it resulted in killing a lot of (their) low- to mid- and high-level leadership and that has had an effect on the battlefield in the south and the east. There has been some of that in Kandahar and there will be a few more of it in Kandahar. I will make that prediction."

An area were there had been "some dramatic improvements in past year" had been in the east of the country, Gen. McNeill said. This had been achieved by doubling the number of U.S. troops there and by "generous" discretionary funds the U.S. Congress had allocated for American commanders to spend [emphasis added], he said...

Update: On the ground:

Welcome in Kandahar wows marines
Canadians 'have been very gracious in teaching us what they've learned': colonel
...
Speaking in the crowded plywood office that is his temporary headquarters, Col. Petronzio [commander, 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit] said detailed operational assignments for the marines' seven-month tour in southern Afghanistan were still being worked out with Maj.-Gen. Marc Lessard, the Canadian who commands NATO forces in Afghanistan's southern provinces.

U.S. Gen. Dan McNeill, commanding all 50,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan, said in Kabul last week that the marines would work with the Canadians in Kandahar, but would likely also support British forces in Helmand, the two provinces where fighting has been worst.

"We will go anywhere. We are prepared for anything. Everybody brings a little piece of something," Col. Petronzio said of the Canadian, British, Dutch, Danish, American and Romanian troops in the south. "Together, there is a great capability. The pieces can be bolted on as needed."