PDA

View Full Version : I MEF readies for Iraq



thedrifter
11-27-07, 10:12 AM
I MEF readies for Iraq

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

Camp Pendleton unit expects to find a more secure Anbar province

CAMP PENDLETON -- Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force will find a much calmer Anbar province when it arrives in the sprawling western Iraqi region in a few weeks.

Military leaders said attacks are down dramatically as a result of Sunni tribal cooperation, and Iraqi army battalions are now taking the lead in many daily operations. They said, however, that Anbar remains a very dangerous place for U.S. forces.

"Rest assured, this is a wartime deployment for us," force spokesman Lt. Col. Chris Hughes said during an interview from his Camp Pendleton office on Monday.

About 11,000 Marines and sailors from the I Marine Expeditionary Force's headquarters group and the 1st Marine Division's Regimental Combat Teams 1 and 5 are in the final preparation stages for the force's fourth deployment to Anbar since the U.S.'s March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

While Camp Fallujah and Al Asad Air Base are the primary destinations, the troops could wind up in other parts of the country, Hughes said.

"If Multi-National Force-Iraq or Central Command wants us somewhere else, we are absolutely prepared for that," he said.

On Wednesday, the new head of the I Marine Expeditionary Force, Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, is scheduled to talk with reporters about the upcoming deployment and other issues.

Helland was named earlier this fall to replace Gen. James Mattis, a revered commander who led local troops in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and who is now head of Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va.

Helland, the former head of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, recently returned from Iraq and is expected to provide his perspective on the security situation.

The local Marines and sailors heading back to Iraq will replace the II Marine Expeditionary Force based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Although the Pentagon has not announced any other major local units being deployed, some are expected to get that assignment early next year. But the overall size of the Marine force in Iraq next year likely will be less than it has been in past years, several officials have indicated.

The increasing stability in Anbar, coupled with the reduction in the escalation of forces ordered by President Bush earlier this year, point to less need for the Marines.

The drawdown of the "surge force" that put 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq is getting under way, and the military has said it expects the overall number in Iraq will fall to about 140,000 or fewer by mid-year.

The sense of improvement in Anbar and across Iraq was underscored Monday by Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"You listen to the commanders and they're really talking about what's changing. What they see is opportunity, with caution that at any time it could change and go bad," Cartwright said. "But they really see that if it does, it will be short-lived, that the change in the environment out there is starting to take hold in a permanent way.

"That's probably the biggest thing that I saw from the commanders, was an assessment that, yes, they'll have setbacks in the future, but it is moving in the right direction."

That's a vastly different circumstance from the view of Col. Pete Devlin, the U.S. Marine Corps' top intelligence officer in Iraq in the summer of 2006. Back then, Devlin maintained that the prospects for achieving security in Anbar were dim.

"The social and political situation has deteriorated to a point" where U.S. and Iraqi troops "are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency," Devlin wrote at the time.

All that changed just a short time later, when American military commanders reported Sunni tribal leaders were turning against foreign al-Qaida fighters and Iraqi insurgents, in part because of attacks that targeted the civilian population.

The improvements are underscored by the latest casualty figures, which show the number of U.S. deaths on pace for the lowest monthly total of 2007, according to the Web site icasualties.org, which tracks fatality and injury reports for all coalition forces.

Through Monday, 32 members of the U.S. military had been killed this month, the second lowest monthly total since March 2006.

Since the invasion, 3,876 U.S. service members have perished in Iraq, including 330 from Camp Pendleton, the Marine base with the highest number of fatalities.

Camp Lejeune has lost 280 troops in Iraq, while Twentynine Palms in the Mojave Desert has lost 112 and Miramar 10. The only U.S. base with more troop losses is the U.S. Army's Fort Hood in Texas, which has lost 422 soldiers.

The last death of a Camp Pendleton-based Marine occurred on Oct. 8.

-- Contact staff writer Mark Walker at (760) 740-3529 or mlwalker@nctimes.com.

Ellie