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Shift of Marines to Afghanistan back on table

Even if peace breaks out across Anbar province and the rest of Iraq, Marines may not get a break from the current op tempo.

Next stop: Afghanistan. Not this year — but maybe in 2009.

Senior Pentagon officials say the proposal to shift Marines out of Iraq and into Afghanistan in large numbers is back on the table.

Top military leaders shot down the idea last fall when Commandant Gen. James Conway said publicly that he’d like to leave Iraq to the Army and essentially take over the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

But since then, the Pentagon opted to send more than 3,000 Marines into Afghanistan — the largest contingent of leathernecks deployed to that country in nearly four years — and efforts to get other NATO countries to commit more troops there have fallen flat.

Sending more Marines to Afghanistan may be the best option.

“I think it’s going to be very much tied to force levels in Iraq and then, should we be in a position to move forces into Afghanistan, I think that certainly would come back into consideration,” Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed.

“I think that’s a possibility,” Gates said.

Both officials emphasized that no specific planning is underway to move a Marine expeditionary force into Afghanistan. Also, there are no plans to extend the current Marine units past their planned departure dates.

Gates appeared to backtrack from his comments last fall, when he flatly rejected Conway’s proposal. “I think my response was it won’t happen on my watch. That was a statement of fact rather than a policy statement,” Gates said.

Gates will presumably step down in January, when a new president takes over the White House.

Mullen echoed Conway’s recent remarks that keeping the Corps in both countries might not work.

“The Marines have been on a very challenging rotation. And to be in a position that sort of has a foot in both countries is going to be, you know, it will be challenging,” Mullen said.

The commandant is “concerned about being able to best optimize the forces that he has,” Mullen said.

Conway expects to be increasingly focused on Afghanistan — and possibly Pakistan — in the future, according to a recent memo he distributed among top Marines.

“I think, in 10 years, we’ll discover that [al-Qaida members] have decided that they cannot win in Iraq, but that they can possibly be successful in Pakistan or Afghanistan. I think that’s where the preponderance of their effort is right now,” Conway said in the memo obtained by Marine Corps Times.

“Afghanistan, in some ways, will be an even tougher fight than Iraq. Iraq has the resources for a bright future. Afghanistan has a future, but it may not be as bright in terms of natural resources and exportable products. Afghanistan has a couple of the hard-core elements needed for a long-term insurgency — read: safe haven.

“The near-term strategy, I believe, as we stand down forces in Iraq, is to look at where they need to go. ... Do we need to gain some dwell time and some health for our ground forces in particular? Do we turn ... as rapidly as possible, to Afghanistan and try to get that situation under control? My belief is that Afghanistan has to take priority.”

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