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thedrifter
05-15-08, 09:06 AM
Last modified Wednesday, May 14, 2008 7:44 PM PDT


North County Times



MILITARY:Anbar handover looms

By MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

Editor's note: Staff Writer Mark Walker is traveling in the Middle East with Lt. Gen. Samuel T.Helland, commander of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force.

CAMP FALLUJAH, IRAQ ---- The U.S. military is preparing to hand over primary responsibility for security in the Anbar province in mid-June.

The transfer is scheduled to take place in the city of Habbaniyah, Marine Corps commanders said Wednesday.

Read a related story and Mark Walker's trip snippets.

The upcoming transition in the sprawling province once believed lost to the insurgency is considered one of the larger success stories of the Iraq war.

Word of the transfer came during a briefing by Marine Corps commanders in a conference room inside the command headquarters at Camp Fallujah.

Attending the briefing were Camp Pendleton's Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, head of Marine Corps forces in the Middle East, and the base's Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the on-ground commander of troops in Anbar.

The ceremony will not mean that the Marine Corps will be leaving Anbar anytime soon, Helland warned.

The Marines will stay here, likely on fewer bases and in fewer numbers, to support the Iraqi army and security forces, said Helland, who also commands Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Helland told the commanders that Army Gen. David Petraeus does not want to see the success gained on what he called the "left flank" of the Iraq war squandered.

"He has to be able to rely on Anbar remaining stable," Helland told about 40 Marine commanders attending the briefing. "So for now it's going to be steady the course."

Even so, the transfer of security responsibility goes beyond the symbolic, the military says. It places the onus for maintaining the gains over the last year squarely on the Iraqi army and security forces.

The Anbar insurgency was considered the toughest assignment in Iraq until Sunni sheiks, tired of killings by al-Qaida and insurgents of their own members, began working in earnest with the U.S. military last year.

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-08, 09:08 AM
North County Times



MILITARY: Commanders moving operations north and preparing for Anbar handover

By MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

Editor's note: Staff Writer Mark Walker is traveling in the Middle East with Lt. Gen. Samuel T. Helland, commander of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force.

MAMELUKE DESERT, IRAQ ---- After spending the last several weeks in this hot and largely barren landscape ferreting out weapons caches and hunting insurgents, three Camp Pendleton Marines say it is the simple things they miss.

"A hot shower and a hot meal," said 21-year-old Lance Cpl. Michael Stillfried as he sat beneath a sun screen, preparing his rifle for the next patrol.

For 23-year-old Cpl. Saul Mendez, it's music and Mexican food. The San Diego native is on his first combat deployment.

"We're just living the good life out here," Mendez laughingly said of the conditions that include sandstorms, scalding heat and MREs, shorthand for meals ready to eat.

Sgt. Daniel Saechao, 25, a Sacramento native on his second combat deployment, said he yearns to replace the bucket of water he uses to shave and bathe with a hot shower.

The three Marines from Camp Pendleton's 9th Communications Battalion are among some 11,000 troops from the Oceanside base and the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego who are serving in Iraq's Anbar province this year.

The three are part of Operation DAN, a joint effort with U.S. Army and Iraqi army troops to cut off the "rat lines" of insurgents traveling from Syria to the Iraqi city of Mosul, considered one of the last heavy concentrations of the anti-government forces.

The Marines move across the deserts in heavily armored vehicles, hopping from point to point in search of the insurgents.

Operation DAN stands for "Defeat al-Qaida in the North" and is one of numerous combat and civil-affairs efforts throughout Anbar province being led by Camp Pendleton's Maj. Gen. John Kelly, Multi-National Force West commanding general and deputy general of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Kelly and his boss, Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, visited some of their troops and commanders operating in the northern desert area on Wednesday, flying aboard CH-46 helicopters to reach their troops in the field.

Dozens of miles north of Kelly's headquarters at Camp Fallujah, Brig. Gen. Richard Mills is leading Operation DAN in the Lake Thar Thar region.

"We're working a 6,000-square-mile area we've taken over from the Army," Mills said. "We're trying to shut down the rat lines and stop any insurgents from moving through this area."

Since the operation began, Mills said, "we're also finding a lot of weapons caches, and we discovered an IED facility north of Lake Thar Thar."

After lunching on MREs with Mills and a contingent of his Marines, Helland, who is head of Marine Corps forces throughout the Middle East, visited another Marine unit that discovered several piles of old, spent shells and other material that could be used to manufacture roadside bombs.

It was a massive roadside bomb that killed four Camp Pendleton Marines two weeks ago in this once insurgent-laden province.

In an earlier briefing with two reporters in his office at Camp Fallujah, Kelly said five suspects in the beheading of 11 policemen and one policeman's son last week had been detained by Iraqi security forces.

The suspects are believed to be insurgents who crossed over from the Syrian border, he said.

Marine contingents of 25 to 40 troops, along with private security contractors, are embedded with 110 police units throughout Anbar to give the Iraqi forces extra protection and training, the general said.

As his troops conduct more combat operations in the northern desert region, Kelly said his goal in the seven months remaining on his assignment is to improve the economy and government in Anbar.

When the security in and around Fallujah has reached the point where he believes the Marines can move on, Kelly said he will move to close down Camp Fallujah and shift command center operations to nearby Taqaddum Air Base.

"We're making an evaluation now of what we can do to move the Marines north and move to more of an overwatch environment," he said. "The moment of truth is when we take the training wheels off for the Iraqi army and security forces."

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

Ellie

thedrifter
05-15-08, 09:09 AM
North County Times



MILITARY: Bugs, barracks and blocks - Mark Walker's trip snippets from the Middle East

By MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

Editor's note: Staff Writer Mark Walker is traveling with Marine Lt. Gen. Samuel T. Helland, commander of Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force, as he visits troops in the Middle East.

1. About 500 Marines at Bastion Forward Operating Base in southern Afghanistan are coping not only with oven-like heat but also with insects, spiders and snakes. The Marines, who live in air-conditioned tents at the base established by the British just two years ago, have to fend off venomous snakes, super-sized ants with stingers and camel spiders. Ready to deal with those kinds of problems is a battalion aid station that provides emergency medical care to troops wounded by enemy fire -- or bugs and critters.

2. At the heavily fortified Kandahar Airport in southern Afghanistan, the command post is called “TLS,” an acronym for the Taliban's Last Stand. The airport was the site of the final battle for coalition forces in defeating the ousted regime in 2002.

3. Despite being established six years ago, Bagram Airbase in northern Afghanistan remains a largely World War II-era living experience for the more than 14,000 U.S. troops stationed there. Adjacent to the busy airfield where operations take place around the clock are bare wooden barracks housing up to eight people each. While the base is key to coalition efforts in the region, the facility has a long way to go to get cleaned up and offer improved living conditions for the troops and contractors living in very close quarters.

4. Just outside the heavily fortified walls of Bagram Airbase, missilelike kilns rise high into the air, pumping out black smoke. The kilns manufacture dusty, gray earthen blocks that are used for most of the home construction throughout the region.

5. At Kabul Airbase, thousands of NATO and U.S. troops stage for operations against the Taliban and al-Qaidi groups. The base represents the best example of the coalition forces, with troops from around the world sharing the Spartan facilities.

6. If good fences make good neighbors, so do tires and stones. The desert around Kuwait city is scattered with tires in a seemingly random placement. Kuwaitis use the tires to mark areas of the desert where they camp. In Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest nations, stones are used in many places to signify property lines.

7. There is more electrical service available throughout Iraq's Anbar province than when Saddam Hussein ruled. But there also is more demand, causing outages to continue, said Maj. Gen. John Kelly, the commander of Marine Corps troops in the province. Along with stability has come more television and other appliance purchases among the population, spiking the demand for electricity.

8. Wells in the Iraqi desert are unlike any seen in the West. Long, wide descending trenches as much as 40 feet wide and more than 200 feet long are dug and tapped for precious water.

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

Ellie