Afghanistan War: Special Operations War Plan Proposed

WASHINGTON -- Adm. Bill McRaven, the head of U.S. special operations, is mapping out a potential Afghanistan war plan that would replace thousands of U.S. troops with small special operations teams paired with Afghans to help an inexperienced Afghan force withstand a Taliban onslaught as U.S. troops withdraw.

While the overall campaign would still be led by conventional military, the handfuls of special operators would become the leading force to help Afghans secure the large tracts of territory won in more than a decade of U.S. combat. They would give the Afghans practical advice on how to repel attacks, intelligence to help spot the enemy and communications to help call for U.S. air support if overwhelmed by a superior force.

The Associated Press learned new details of the draft plan this week.

The special operations proposal was sketched out at special operations headquarters in Tampa, Fla., in mid-February, with Central Command's Gen. James Mattis and overall Afghanistan war commander Gen. John Allen taking part, according to several high-level special operations officials and other U.S. officials involved in the war planning. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the proposal has not yet been presented to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta or the White House.

If approved by the administration, the pared-down structure could become the enduring force that Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak indicated Tuesday at the Pentagon that his country needs, possibly long after the U.S. drawdown date of 2014.

McRaven's proposal amounts to a slimmed-down counterinsurgency strategy aimed at protecting the Afghan population as well as hunting the Taliban and al-Qaida. It's not the counterterrorist plan advanced by Vice President Joe Biden, which would leave Afghan forces to fend for themselves while keeping U.S. special operators in protected bases from which they could hunt terrorists with minimum risk, according to a senior special operations official reached this week.

Thousands of U.S. troops could remain in harm's way well after the end of combat operations in 2014, tasked with helping Afghans protect territory won by U.S. forces.

The Pentagon asked the top officials to draft this and other proposals to present to the White House after NATO allies decide how large a force to keep in Afghanistan, according to a U.S. official familiar with the administration's deliberations.

Leaders of NATO nations are to meet May 20-21 in Chicago to discuss the war, among other issues.

The Pentagon by September will draw down the 23,000 troops that remain from the surge of 33,000 troops sent to Afghanistan in 2010 to buy time for the Afghan military and government to build both the numbers and expertise necessary to defend and govern themselves. Plans for the remaining 68,000 troops in Afghanistan are not yet complete, but most U.S. troops are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Allen, the commander of forces in Afghanistan, has indicated he would like to keep as many troops on the ground for as long as possible. But with a solid majority of Americans now against the continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan and the sped-up departure of some of America's NATO allies from the war zone, the Obama administration is feeling some pressure toward a faster drawdown.

The McRaven plan could provide a way to shrink troop numbers quickly without leaving a security vacuum as U.S. troops depart, as has happened in Afghanistan before when NATO forces left an area.

"This is the least bad option," said retired Marine Col. T.X. Hammes, senior fellow at the National Defense University and longtime critic of the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. "It's probably the smartest thing we could do to keep the Afghan government functioning long enough to safely withdraw."

In the back-of-the-envelope version of the strategy, a couple thousand special operators, like Navy SEALs and the Army's Delta Force, would keep working with Afghan special forces to raid terrorist targets, the senior special operations official explained.

U.S. commanders would seek to keep the same number of defense intelligence troops in country to feed data to the smaller force and would also rely heavily on the CIA for intelligence, while an as-yet-undetermined number of conventional forces would provide everything from air to logistical support to keep all the special operations teams running, officials said.

Some two-thirds of the roughly 6,000-strong special operations force would head to Afghanistan's rural towns and villages to advise inexperienced Afghan forces. This would include expanding the Village Stability Operations program in Afghan villages, in which special operators help what is essentially an Afghan government-backed armed neighborhood watch to keep the peace.

Reliance on the program already had forced it to grow so quickly, however, that U.S. commanders had put regular military forces into some of the sites. That is how Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a regular soldier with no prior Afghanistan experience, ended up at one of the sites. He stands accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers in a shooting spree last month.

U.S. officials say they will take more care with selecting who gets deployed into such sensitive and remote posts in the future.

The commanders building the new team also would draw heavily from the group known as "Afghan Pakistan hands," the 700-plus force of troops and civilians given months of extra language training in Pashtu, Dari or Urdu, the three main languages of Afghanistan and Pakistan, officials say. Around 50 of the "hands" are deployed to the Village Stability Operations to serve as translators, both of language and culture, between special operations troops, Afghan government officials and local villagers.

The insider knowledge of both the "hands" group and the special operators with multiple Afghan tours is intended to minimize the chance of further antagonizing Afghans and driving them to support the Taliban.

U.S.-Afghan relations have been strained in the past year, exacerbated by the killings of at least 16 U.S. and NATO troops by their Afghan allies in recent months, the inadvertent burnings of Qurans by U.S. troops in January and the shootings of the 17 Afghan villagers. Afghan President Hamid Karzai initially asked that the U.S. retreat from rural areas.

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Comments

[Ian Does]

03:22 PM on 04/16/2012

dont even know why we are there, most of the troops dont even know why they are there

[rissole]

11:21 PM on 04/15/2012

If the war in Afghanistan ends so does the Dubai property market.

[DrBillo1]

07:43 PM on 04/15/2012

Save the innocent young and send over the real trained military men--a lot of parents would be more optimistic,but can they be controlled?

[hagagaga]

07:17 PM on 04/15/2012

This is how all wars against guerrillas should be fought. If you do it any other way, you're doing it wrong. The easiest way to win against a guerrilla force is to fight them the way they fight us.

[cuoi]

05:18 PM on 04/15/2012

Anybody. What percent of our income tax goes to war related expenses?

[sylvia wadlington]

02:35 PM on 04/15/2012

Corporations have made billions off the Middle Eastern wars, it's is time we let them fight and pay for these wars themselves.

[madcityy]

12:25 PM on 04/15/2012

we need to taKE ALL OUR TROPPS OUT NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

THIS IS A WASTE OF MY BROTHERS IN ARMS BLOODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[foresure]

11:33 AM on 04/15/2012

Two best new things in the world.

a) The Taliban are becoming assimilated to American culure. They are taking "spring training" before the season actually opens. This should extend the "writing season" for all those embeded journalist.

b) They've got new stylish coffins. Look light weight and easy to handle. Much better than the drab, traditional coffins in the traditional shape.

I'm waiting to see them manufactured with the American Flag already embossed on the top.

[foresure]

11:28 AM on 04/15/2012

What can one say about this sumptuous feast for the media?

First there is the reference to the "fighting season". It gives the proper sports/entertainment tone to death an destruction.

The Romans understood "bread and circus".

Only since we are about cutting the "bread" we are now promising our citizens, endless circuit.

Now for a real breakthrough. Instead of seeing legless soldiers grinning upon receiving a medal at Johns Hopkins Hospital, we have the delight of seeing a pre-teen girl, in a stylish military outfit, crying because her father has been deployed.

One small step for pro-war journalism, one giant leap for the military industrial complex.

[KIVPossum]

09:50 AM on 04/15/2012

Get the ef out! It's a lost cause and has been since the get-go. Stop wasting lives and pouring money down a rat hole.

[foresure]

11:36 AM on 04/15/2012

KIVpssum:

Lke everything it depends on your perspective.

"Stop wasting lives and pouring money down a rat hole".

Yes from your perspective, and mine.

But think of the CEO's who depend on war money for their $1 million a month salary.

Think of the grieving 19 old widow has has just come into $500,000, tax free.

[BG-back]

07:38 AM on 04/15/2012

So now backwater and other shady sorts will resume spreading 'freedom and democracy'?

[foresure]

11:37 AM on 04/15/2012

BG-back:

Exactly, isn't the Military Industrial Complex clever and resourceful?

[Yasser Yousufi]

05:46 AM on 04/15/2012

I knew it! They are brewing something more sinister than just taking on the Taliban. They want to permanently occupy Afghanistan just to keep an eye on Russia and China regardless of thousands of deaths to Afghans or their own soldiers. The Taliban were right in judging the intent of NATO and ending their talks~!

[mamacat]

01:41 AM on 04/15/2012

First, we let Osama escape from Tora Bora, and then, we got involved with fighting the Taliban. Who decided that our mission should be fighting the Taliban? We can prevent al Qaeda from ever again setting up training camps without fighting the Taliban. After all, the Taliban had no foreknowledge of the events of 9/11, and they were willing to turn Osama over for trial. But no, that wasn't good enough for Dubya -- he decided we had to occupy the country, once Osama had escaped to Pakistan.

Good ol' Dubya -- we could always count on him to do the exact opposite of whatever the circumstances dictated.

[BG-back]

07:45 AM on 04/15/2012

Its amazing how few people know that the Taliban offered to hand over obl for trial but dubya refused. This war could have been avoided.

Sorry to say but the blood of hundreds of thousands (|r@q, @fgh@nistan) is on the hands of @mericans, given that the U$ calls itself a democracy...

[foresure]

11:38 AM on 04/15/2012

BG-back:

I had heard that, and believe it to be true. Do you have a reference I can cite?

[rf dude]

01:33 AM on 04/15/2012

Oh, what could _possibly_ go wrong with that...

[shylove2]

07:59 PM on 04/14/2012

I think that might just be why new bases for them are still under construction or finiishing up... it kind of like a switch over to secret silent secret prolice that dose't get reported back to us as to casualties or costs from then on... sort of a reverse Vietnam timing for a change... althought it is more like CIA then Military then Special Forces instead of the old CIA then Special Forces then Military approach.