Pat Dollard | Young Americans

…send in the Marines!

Marines Will Bolster Canadians In Kandahar
Reinforcements for thinly stretched troops in the region should help reduce casualties, U.S. Defence Secretary says

By Paul Koring

WASHINGTON — Hard-pressed Canadian troops in Kandahar will get help - and fewer may get killed - as more than 2,000 battle-hardened U.S. Marines with counterinsurgency training and experience start arriving next month in southern Afghanistan.

“My hope is that the addition of the marines will provide the kind of help that will reduce the levels of casualties,” U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday when asked about the disproportionate number of Canadians killed battling the Taliban.

Mr. Gates, still dealing with the brouhaha caused by published reports that suggested he had faulted the ability of Canadian, Dutch and British troops for counterinsurgency warfare, said he never intended his general criticism of NATO training to apply to Canada’s troops in southern Afghanistan.

“I have no problems with the Canadians,” he said at a Pentagon news conference yesterday.

“Our allies, including the Canadians, the British, the Dutch, the Australians and others, are suffering losses as they demonstrate valour and skill in combat.”

In Canada, the nation is deeply divided over whether to extend the fighting mission in Afghanistan beyond its current mandate of February, 2009.

The arrival of the marines, expected to reinforce NATO forces in southern Afghanistan for this year’s so-called summer fighting season, will add a massive punch to the thinly stretched Canadian and Dutch forces in Kandahar and neighbouring Uruzgan province.

Although Canada has about 2,500 soldiers deployed to southern Afghanistan, only about 500 are “outside the wire” directly involved in counterinsurgency operations at any time.

A much bigger percentage of the 2,200 marines will be available for combat because the U.S. military already has a huge logistics, support and administrative structure in Afghanistan.

The marines will report to Canadian Major-General Marc Lessard, who takes over command of NATO’s southern regional command next month as part of a rotation including the British and Dutch.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit will provide “a manoeuvres force so it has the flexibility to move wherever in Regional Command South that the Canadians deem is necessary to go after the enemy. I mean, this is a fighting force that will greatly enhance the capabilities of the Canadians and our allies who are down there taking it to the enemy,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said earlier this week.

“There is a fighting season in Afghanistan. And so we’re getting those marines there at the beginning of that fighting season,” General James Cartwright, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday.

“We learned last year that if you’re there and ready to go in the spring, it makes a big difference.”

But the one-time, seven-month deployment of the marines will mean that at least three battalions will be required to replace them and Mr. Gates served notice yesterday that NATO allies are needed to fill the gap.

He said he wanted “them to be thinking seriously about who can backfill against the marines when the marines leave early next winter, so that that capability won’t be lost.”

Mr. Gates also ordered another 1,000 U.S. Marines to Afghanistan to act as trainers and mentors to the Afghan army, which despite showing significant improvement, lacks the equipment, firepower, training and numbers to take on the Taliban insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The 3,200 U.S. Marines will partly fill a 7,000-soldier shortfall in Afghanistan that NATO nations have refused to address for more than a year.

About 45,000 foreign troops are currently deployed in Afghanistan. About two-thirds are American.

Most of the rest, including sizable contingents from Germany, France, Italy and Spain, are stationed far from the insurgency in the south and forbidden by their governments to deploy close to the fighting.

For months, Mr. Gates has been pushing some of the European allies to share more of the combat burden.

But in a radio interview yesterday he acknowledged that “many of them are in minority or coalition governments where support for the activity in Afghanistan is fragile, if not difficult to come by.

“And one of the reasons why I decided to tone down the public criticism is that, frankly, I think they’re doing as much as they can.”