Marines Shift Focus to Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

Marines Shift Focus to Afghanistan
Associated Press | December 11, 2008

WASHINGTON - 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.


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