A Hairy Fight

"We are undermanned in order to be able to do all we need to do in the south [of Afghanistan]," Conway said. The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, for example, is currently covering 16,000 square miles. "That's a huge area of responsibility. We can't nearly be every place we need to be in sufficient strength to manage that."

In recent weeks, both of those Marine units have had their deployments extended, and there's no clear indication who will take on their ground once they go home as scheduled by November. The Corps, already stretched thin by its Iraq commitments, would be hamstrung to send any more troops into Afghanistan as replacements, Conway said.

Conway's trip to Afghanistan comes as the Pentagon looks to step-up the fight against Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters with a troop surge that could include Marines. Their role in the strategy, however, likely won't be cemented until after Multi-National Force-Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus returns to the United States next month to brief President Bush and other military leaders. After leaving Iraq, Petraeus is set to take over the U.S. military’s Central Command, which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Should Marines be ordered in for an extended role in Afghanistan, they would need to go in as a Marine Air Ground Task Force, Conway said. By design, a self-sustaining MAGTF unit is in charge of its own artillery, air and logistics, and could swell to as many as 40,000 Marines, depending upon its combat mission. "If we're ordered there, we aught to be ordered there in large numbers if we're going to be expected to operate in a country that is that large with what is now a fairly significant enemy presence," Conway said. "We don't want another force in there that isn't fully adaptive for what we think we're going to face."

Pulling out the small number of Marines currently in southern Afghanistan without a plan to replace them, could undo security gains, Conway cautioned, citing lessons learned in Iraq. "If you leave those people [locals who have cooperated with security forces], the method of the Taliban or of Al Qaeda is to come in and exact a punishment."

The potential security gap after Marines go home is a serious worry, despite the fact that winter months are typically considered a more inactive fighting season in Afghanistan, said Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution. Even if current Marine force levels were doubled, force numbers wouldn't be anything close to those in Iraq, he said.

In Afghanistan, which has an area about the size of Texas, there are currently about 70,000 international troops coupled with about 65,000 Afghan security forces the Pentagon wants to see doubled in the next five years. In Iraq, a much smaller country by almost 100,000 square miles, there are about 700,000 security forces between Iraqi and international troops. "The broader issue is whether or not the mission is working even with the Marines there," O'Hanlon said.