Pat Dollard

Tweet

USA Today:

The just-retired Marine Corps commandant says he doubts the U.S. military can withdraw from Afghanistan’s volatile south by a July 2011 deadline set by President Obama for the start of force reductions.

In an interview before his retirement Friday, Gen. James Conway said troops may be able to be pulled from elsewhere in Afghanistan by the deadline. The majority of U.S. forces engaged in a troop surge ordered by Obama are fighting in the south.

“Counterinsurgencies just take time,” Conway said. “I hope the focus is not … time constraints as much as it is the will to win.”

Marines have been spearheading offensive operations in Helmand province, a sprawling region of villages and opium farms in the south. The Army and other coalition forces have been pushing Taliban fighters out of Kandahar province for months.

“There’s still significant fighting in both places and both places represent the birthplaces of the Taliban,” Conway said.

Both campaigns are central to the White House’s strategy to seize the initiative from the Taliban. The strategy is backed by a surge of an additional 30,000 U.S. troops, bringing U.S. troops levels to 100,000.

The White House has said the pace of the withdrawal will be based on conditions on the ground. Conway has said the July 2011 date may give the enemy “sustenance” in which they feel they have to hold out only for so long.

“I think the thought process ought to be: We’re there until we win this thing,” Conway said. “If you accept (the deadline) as conditions-based, the whole thing is much more palatable.”

T.X. Hammes, a researcher at the National Defense University and author of a book on insurgencies, says the campaigns in Helmand and Kandahar are critical to success against the Taliban.

“It wouldn’t make sense to draw down forces from your most important areas first,” he said.

NATO plans to discuss turning security over to Afghans at a summit next month in Portugal. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said NATO needs to determine the timing of such a turnover. He has said the “worst thing” that could happen is to pull out from an area that has yet to be secured.

“Our Marines feel like they’ve got the momentum,” Conway said.

However, Conway acknowledged that the centerpiece of the Helmand campaign, an offensive in Marjah, a former Taliban stronghold, has not gone as anticipated. Marines and Afghan forces drove out Taliban forces in a February assault but efforts to build an effective local government have faltered.

“It was touted as government in a box,” Conway said. “It was going to be coming in to rapidly expand and start doing things for the population to gain their allegiance. And that just didn’t happen.”