US Marines ready to deploy up to 20,000 troops
WASHINGTON, (AFP)
US Marines are ready to get out of Iraq rapidly to enable a further
20,000 to deploy to Afghanistan as part of a major buildup there, Marine
Corps Commandant James Conway said Friday.
“The time is right for Marines to leave Iraq,” the top Marine officer
told reporters, reflecting on the improved security situation there.
As part of the drawdown in Iraq, where more than 20,000 Marines are
currently stationed, Conway said he expected an equivalent increase of
“20,000 or less” Marines to Afghanistan, where about 2,200 Marines are
currently deployed, to help fight against Taliban and Al-Qaeda
insurgents.“That’s really where Marines need to be. That’s what we offer
the nation,” he said.
The Marine deployment would help fulfill the up to 30,000 troops
military planners have proposed to inject in Afghanistan within the next
12 to 18 months to bolster the approximately 34,000 US troops already
there. Another 143,000 US troops are in Iraq.
Marines “have been steadily removing equipment from theater in Iraq,”
Conway said. “The timeline we think today is down to six to eight months
to get the rest of our equipment out of Iraq.”
Marines in Iraq are currently deployed mostly in Al-Anbar province, a
mostly Sunni tribal area that had been the sight of much violence and
now has an improved security situation.
“It’s very much a nation-building kind of environment that’s taking
place there” now, Conway said, adding “that is not what we do, and we
need those Marines elsewhere.”
He said he did not want a significant residual Marine force in Iraq.
“When we begin the movement of Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan, we
are asking that the period of transition be as condensed as it possibly
can, and also, that when the door slams on Marines in Iraq, that all
Marines be on the other side of the door,” he said.There are currently
between 60,000 and 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, about
three-quarters of them under NATO command.
Conway recognized that the departure of Marines from Iraq would
depend on the needs of the commander of US troops there, General Ray
Odierno, with provincial elections set to take place on January 31.
The elections would be the first time Sunnis go to the polls in
numbers after boycotting the last elections in 2005.
“The concern on the part of General Odierno is that there could be
violence in the wake of an election, that we could lose some of the
gains that we have made,” Conway said, while cautioning that “not
everybody shares that view.”
US President Barack Obama met Wednesday with Defense Secretary Robert
Gates, the US ambassador to Iraq and senior military officers for what
the White House said was a session to discuss planning for the
withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.
Gates has shied away from endorsing the 16-month deadline. More US
troops have to come out of Iraq, however, to build up US forces in
Afghanistan, which Obama sees as the main front in the battle against
terrorism.
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