“But it … is not as restrictive as perhaps we thought it might be at the outset,” he added. “And I think in time, it will be proven that we’re going to shoot artillery. We’re going to drop bombs. We’re going to fire tanks, if they’re in support of us, to do what we have to do.”
Another difference is support from the Afghan police and military, which were virtually non-existent compared to Iraq. The Marines spent much of their final two or three years in Iraq training those groups to take over the fight; now they may have to do the same thing in Afghanistan, but again taking into account a considerable difference in culture and attitude.
“With regard to Afghan troops, it’s still not where it needs to be. We now have about 4,000 that are working with [Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade] in the south. We have a promise, however, that there is going to be a … 215th Afghan Corps that’s going to be built,” Conway said. “It’s going to be in the south, associated with our terrain, and … as opposed to the earlier thought process of building infantry battalions and artillery battalions and com battalions and log battalions pretty much simultaneously, they’re going to build rifle companies, Afghan rifle companies. They’re going to get them into the fight. They’re going to be training and operating alongside us. And those numbers are going to dramatically change in the next few weeks and months.”
A major concern in southern Afghanistan is the town of Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in Helmand province that is considered a direct threat to the security of adjacent Kandahar province, home to the nation’s second-largest city. As a result, the Marine Corps presence in Afghanistan is heavily centered on Helmand.
Marjah has been compared to the Iraqi Anbar province city of Fallujah, which became home to an assortment of terrorists and insurgents and, ultimately, scene of the most fiercely fought battles of the war.
“You win the confidence of the people, whether it be Iraq or Afghanistan, by being the strongest tribe. That means there can be no place in our area of operations where we don’t go. And right now, Marjah is one of those places, so Marjah has to be cracked open,” Conway said. “The people there, I think, will welcome us when that happens, because we are getting reports that there is a murder-intimidation campaign at work there …
“The idea from the very beginning [in Iraq] that we needed to insert a wedge between the extremists and the moderates showed itself in 2006, when the Sunnis out in Anbar with us rose up and said, ‘We’ve seen these guys; we know what they do; we’re tired of the murder and intimidation and we’re going to turn on them. With your help, we will slaughter them’ – their term. And that’s what started to turn that thing.
“I think we can start to create what we saw in Iraq, which was very effective Joint Coordination Centers that said, ‘Hey, police, you got it. Day in and day out, if you get bad guys coming in, take care of it. If you can’t, call the Afghan army. If they can’t handle it, call the U.S. Marines.’ And that way, you start to turn over responsibility for them. Key to all of that is the support of the people. You’ve got to win them over. You’ve got to get them off the fence so they truly believe there is a central government that’s going to support them and these police are honest people.”
Another similarity-with-a-difference between Iraq and Afghanistan is the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which became the weapon of choice for the enemy in Iraq, responsible for an estimated 70 percent or more of all U.S., Iraqi, and coalition casualties. IEDs also are becoming more common in Afghanistan, but much larger than the ones Marines typically faced in Iraq.