AP interview: Marines seek to ease strains of war

[December 09, 2008]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- As the need for Marines in Iraq winds down, their top general says he would like to shift his troops to Afghanistan, perhaps in numbers small enough to allow a less punishing pace of combat tours.

Gen. James Conway, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an Associated Press interview in his Pentagon office Monday that "there's a greater role for Marines in Afghanistan," with its increasingly deadly insurgency, than in Iraq, where the Marines' mission is mainly peacekeeping and training.

He said he has a "gut feel" that a consensus is developing among U.S. leaders to shift the focus to Afghanistan. And he said that means thousands more Marines could start heading there as early as next spring.

"Our commanders in Iraq believe that they can do the mission with less force. They have made that point to their leadership in Baghdad, they have made that point to me," Conway said. "And therefore I believe there is a window of opportunity to accept a little more risk in Iraq -- if that's even an accurate statement -- to start dealing with what is clearly an increasingly dangerous situation in Afghanistan."

There are about 22,000 Marines in Iraq, mostly in Anbar province, where insurgent violence is relatively low.

Conway, who served two command tours in Iraq early in the war, said he can envision getting all Marines out of Iraq before long.

"Yes, number one, because it's not our mission," he said. "(Marines) do not traditionally train, equip or orient toward what I would call the peacekeeping or nation-building kind of role. There are people that do that much better than us because that's their orientation. That said, we've done a pretty doggone good job of it in a situation where we're being compelled to do that. But it's not our forte."

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Defense Secretary Robert Gates knows Conway's desire but has made no decision.

"I think the secretary understands the Marines' desire to be in the fight. And there certainly is more of a fight these days in Afghanistan than in Anbar," said Morrell. "But, as for the suggestion of the Marines pulling up stakes from Anbar and setting up camp in Afghanistan, there has been no such formal request made."

Morrell said that when a request to deploy specific units comes across Gates' desk, the secretary will consult with commanders and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to determine his course of action.

In explaining his desire to see Marines focus on Afghanistan, Conway said the mix of security, economic and political problems there appears likely to be a central feature of President-elect Barack Obama's national security agenda. Obama has said he wants all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months and he supports the request by U.S. commanders for more forces in Afghanistan.

Conway said that in his view the war in Afghanistan does not require the same number of Marines as are now in Iraq.

"Ideally, we would have no more than about 15,000 Marines deployed" to either Iraq or Afghanistan, he said. That would slow the pace of deployments to the point where Marines could have 14 months at home for every seven-month combat tour. For a time they were getting only seven months at home between tours, although recently that has improved slightly to nine months or 10 months, Conway said.

The extra time at home would not only relieve combat strains but also allow the Marine Corps to restore some types of conventional training, such as amphibious warfare, that it has been forced to put off in order to get Marines ready for the counterinsurgency fight they have faced in Iraq for several years.

Conway, who has a little less than two years remaining in his term as Marine commandant, said he will be traveling soon to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to get an update on the situation on the ground.

It will be his first visit to Pakistan since it emerged after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as a central front in the fight against al-Qaida and affiliated extremist groups that have found haven in largely ungoverned areas along the Afghan border.

"I do look forward to meeting the (Pakistani) leadership and hearing their thoughts on what's happening between Afghanistan and Pakistan and, to some degree, between Pakistan and India, based on what occurred in Mumbai," Conway said, referring to the terrorist attacks in the Indian financial capital.

More than a year ago, when early discussions of sending more Marines to Afghanistan became public, Gates signaled opposition to the idea, saying he preferred to maintain the concentration on Iraq.

At that time, Conway said Gates and others believed the timing wasn't right to take the Marines out of Anbar province. Since then, responsibility for security in Anbar has shifted to the Iraqi government.

[Associated Press; By ROBERT BURNS]

Associated Press writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

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