Top Marine sticks by Afghanistan proposal

By: MARK WALKER - Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- During a private meeting at Camp Pendleton last month, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway suggested to his commanders that it was time to consider shifting the majority of the service's 25,000 troops now in Iraq to Afghanistan.

When word of Conway's proposal emerged last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates hastily labeled the proposal as a matter in its infancy and said that no transition plans were being drawn up.

But Friday, Conway reiterated during an exclusive interview with the North County Times that he was serious about the discussion that would move his forces out of Iraq's Anbar province, where violence has waned in recent months and where 11,000 Camp Pendleton troops are scheduled to deploy at year's end.


"There are some briefs that still have to be conducted," Conway said during the session in his well-appointed Pentagon office. "That situation is by no means settled -- it's under discussion and no decisions have been made."

Military experts have suggested in recent weeks that the Marine Corps' role as an expeditionary fighting force may be better served in Afghanistan. Coupled with recent successes in getting Iraq's Sunni tribal sheiks to work with Marines in Anbar to reduce the level of violence, a building drumbeat to reconsider the role of the Marine Corps in the war on terror is providing some of the ammunition behind Conway's proposal to leave Iraq in the hands of the Army.

In his meeting at Camp Pendleton, Conway said he was increasingly convinced from recent visits to Iraq and assessments from battlefield commanders that it was time to reconsider the proper role for the Marine Corps in the ongoing wars against al-Qaida and the insurgency in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Army spokesman Col. Dan Baggio in Washington said Friday that the leadership of that service has no comment on the idea being floated by Conway.

Known as a hard charger whose first assignment after his commission as an infantry officer in 1970 was command of a Camp Pendleton rifle platoon, Conway responded to a number of other emergent matters during the interview, including troop, equipment and ethical issues that have confronted his forces on and off the battlefields.

Stretched thin
The frequent troop deployments since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, coupled with worn-out equipment issues, make it highly problematic that the Marine Corps could effectively open up a new battlefield beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, said Conway, who commanded Camp Pendleton's I Marine Expeditionary Force during two Iraq assignments.

"We could do it, but not with the speed, vitality or aggressiveness that we would otherwise be able to do if we weren't tied to Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. "The bottom line analysis is, we are accepting risk elsewhere in the world."

Replacing equipment will become critical in the next couple of years, he said, but Marines and sailors now in Iraq and those about to deploy there have the hardware they need, including the new Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft that takes off and lands like a helicopter but flies faster once airborne.

Even if the Corps shifts its focus to Afghanistan, the commandant said he expects the number of Marines in Iraq to remain about the same and in the same Anbar locations where those troops have been in the years since the March 2003 invasion. That could change by the end of next spring when the troop surge ordered by President Bush earlier this year is slated for reduction.

"After that, all bets are off," said Conway, who became the 34th commandant of the Marine Corps in November 2006.

While Conway is suggesting that the Marines play a much larger role in Afghanistan, where the service has a small presence in comparison to the Army, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, said he would prefer to see NATO troops assume more of the combat responsibility in that country.

As more Iraqi military units take over security in Iraq, "the Marines should come home," Hunter, the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said during an interview in his Capitol Hill office last week.

With Pentagon planners deciding the best use for the 186,000 active-duty Marine air and ground units, Conway said he believes Camp Pendleton's Gen. James Mattis, who was confirmed by the Senate earlier this month for his fourth star, will be in a position to influence those discussions, as well as lobby for increased NATO troop forces in Afghanistan.

Mattis, commander of the I Marine Expeditionary Force and Marines throughout the Middle East for the last year, will leave Camp Pendleton and that dual assignment later this month for a billet as head of Joint Forces Command, a group that oversees war planning and assignment of U.S forces out of its headquarters in Norfolk, Va. His new post includes helping shape the commitment and distribution of NATO forces.

"We will have a war fighter in an important job," Conway said of Mattis and his reputation as a highly respected battlefield commander, adding that Pentagon discussions have in part included how the outgoing Camp Pendleton general can affect the NATO force level in Afghanistan.

"That is something that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the defense secretary believe needs to happen," Conway said.

Ethics at the forefront
At home, Conway said that despite criticisms in some circles for recent decisions exonerating troops accused of killing Iraqi civilians, the Marine Corps has shown it is committed to investigating alleged war crimes.

The prosecutions and investigations of two dozen Camp Pendleton troops in those incidents shows the service is dedicated to ferreting out the truth when allegations of wrongdoing are raised, he said.

Separate groups of Camp Pendleton Marines were charged in the killing of a civilian in the village of Hamdania last year and in the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005. An ongoing investigation centers on whether Marines from the base outside of Oceanside killed four captured Iraqis during a battle for the city of Fallujah in November 2004.

"There's an investigation when wrongdoing is alleged," Conway said. "If there's sufficient cause, we will process the charges. All of that equals accountability."

The commandant also said that episodes such as an Army general's criticism earlier this year of a Marine Special Operations force accused of overreacting to an attack and killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan doesn't help the process.

"We could do without some of the comments that are made along the way as these things occur," he said in reference to the Army general's rebuke that came before an official investigation had been launched into the Afghanistan civilian shootings by a Special Forces unit based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

On Thursday, the Marine Corps announced it would convene a board of inquiry with subpoena powers to investigate that incident.

Conway said his directive earlier this year that all Marines stateside, in Iraq and elsewhere undergo enhanced ethical and rules of engagement training is one way to stem the number of cases leading to charges and accusations.

"It's being accomplished," the Arkansas native said of that training. "We haven't seen any more incidents."

On a related front, Conway said Mattis will relinquish his role as the convening authority over the continuing homicide investigations and prosecutions of locally based troops. Mattis' replacement, Lt. Gen.-nominee Samuel Helland, will assume that responsibility when Mattis leaves Camp Pendleton this month.

Conway also said the ongoing prosecutions of drill instructors at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego for allegedly abusing recruits was "unfortunate," but a necessary step in today's Marine Corps.

"There's only one way to teach recruits, and that's to demonstrate the right kind of leadership skills that you want them to use as a model for the rest of their time as a Marine."

Reducing deaths
A push from the Pentagon and Congress to speed production of armored troop carriers better able to withstand roadside bombs responsible for most of the deaths and injuries to U.S. forces in Iraq is beginning to pay off, even if that comes long after combat commanders had said they needed that protection, Conway said.

Nearly 700 of the new explosive-resistant vehicles known as "MRAPs" will be in Iraq by the time the 10,000 troops from Camp Pendleton's Regimental Combat Teams 1 and 5, along with 700 personnel from the I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group, have arrived in Iraq three months from now, the general said. Hundreds more are expected to arrive within the first few months of 2008.

That's key for Marines and sailors heading to Iraq from Camp Pendleton, which has suffered more fatalities there than any other Marine Corps base, with at least 347 of its troops killed since the invasion.

Along with the MRAPs, trucks and other vehicles with updated armor protection are now in place, adding to the expectation of better survivability from roadside bomb attacks.

The next few weeks will also tell whether the Osprey is a suitable replacement for Vietnam-era helicopters and whether the mechanical problems that killed more than 20 Marines during that aircraft's troubled development have been resolved. The first Ospreys to be deployed arrived in Iraq earlier this month and have flown a handful of missions with no major problems, Conway said.

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

Ellie