MILITARY: Pendleton Special Operations troops heading to Afghanistan

About 200 local Marines and sailors get deployment orders

MARK WALKER - mlwalker@nctimes.com | Posted: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 7:10 pm

Camp Pendleton's footprint in Afghanistan is about to get larger with troops from the base's 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion heading to a war facing flagging public support, increasing congressional scrutiny and a call for more troops by top Pentagon brass.

The assignment, which begins in the next few weeks, directs battalion officers to take command of a task force in charge of all Special Operations missions in sections of northern and western Afghanistan.

"They will be basically overseeing those operations," said Maj. Michael Armistead, the Marine Corps' Special Operations spokesman. "They also will be working with some Afghan National Army forces."

The nine-month deployment represents the first time the Marine Corps has been given the job of managing Special Operations forces, which include Navy SEALS, Army Green Berets and Air Force teams.

Roughly 200 of the approximately 575 troops that comprise the 1st Marine Special Operations Battalion are being sent, Armistead said. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Tuggle, will be in charge of the troops that conduct secret missions that are rarely described in detail.

With the Special Operations deployment, Camp Pendleton will have more than 1,400 of its Marines and sailors at war in the south-central Asian nation of 28 million people. About 1,200 members of the base's 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment have been there since early spring conducting counterinsurgency work in the volatile Helmand province.

Word of the latest Camp Pendleton assignment comes as Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate hearing Tuesday that more troops are needed to gain control over the country.

Even with 68,000 U.S. troops expected in Afghanistan by year's end, Mullen suggested more forces are needed or conditions would continue to deteriorate.

"A properly resourced counterinsurgency probably means more forces, and without question, more time" and dedication, Mullen said at the hearing.

Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in charge of both American and the 32,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, delivered a grim assessment of the war to Washington last month and is expected to follow up soon with a request for thousands of additional troops and more equipment.

That will leave President Barack Obama to decide whether to expand a war that will soon enter its ninth year and that polls say is rapidly losing public support in the U.S. and drawing pointed criticism in Congress. He has already roughly doubled the size of the American military force in Afghanistan since taking office.

Mullen said he does not know how many additional troops McChrystal will request, but he left no doubt that the commander has concluded that the 21,000 U.S. troops Obama already has approved are not enough.

Sitting opposite Mullen, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee was unswayed. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan warned the White House last week that he does not want to see a request for more troops until the United States takes bolder action to expand Afghanistan's own armed forces.

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-El Cajon, and a member of the House Armed Services Committee who served in Afghanistan with the Marine Corps before being elected to Congress in 2008, said Tuesday that every military commander he has talked with in recent days believes more troops are required.

"They say we need more to get the counterinsurgency going and help take control of and hold the villages," Hunter said during a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. "Even more important to me is that we stop seeing our troops getting blown up from IEDs. I don't understand why we can't watch the roads 24/7 and stop seeing guys lose their lives when they're just taking water from base to base."

Hunter's comments came as the Washington Times newspaper reported Tuesday that a military agency devoted to combatting roadside bombs says the Taliban is now using hard-to-detect components in its bombs.

The report from the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization said increased use of plastics is preventing U.S. troops and their NATO partners from using electronic measures to find the bombs.

The rising death toll from those bombs, as well as falling confidence in the Afghan government, is fueling questions in Congress about the mission in Afghanistan.

Lawmaker skepticism is mirrored in waning public support for the war launched shortly after the terror attacks of 9/11. A CNN/Opinion Research poll released Tuesday said 58 percent of those questioned opposed the war, the lowest level of support since the conflict began.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Call staff writer Mark Walker at 760-740-3529.

Ellie