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Experts Fear Loss Of Crucial Equipment, Skills In Pullout

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The Washington Post

Published: March 9, 2009

WASHINGTON - The U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq will create a shortage of helicopters and logistics support that high-level officials worry will hamper the elite U.S. troops who stay behind to train Iraqi forces and to combat terrorist networks, according to experts studying the problem.

The shortage is part of an overall logistics crunch that the Pentagon is grappling with as it shifts forces from Iraq to Afghanistan, where the terrain and lack of infrastructure require more helicopter transport, engineers and a slew of other support capabilities.

As the U.S. military pulls out the bulk of its 142,000 troops from Iraq by August 2010, troops such as Army Green Berets, who are specially trained to partner with foreign forces, are expected to remain in significant numbers.

Yet those troops currently are dependent upon the basing, aviation, communications and other logistical backing of conventional U.S. Army brigades that are slated to leave the country.

Senior Special Operations officials "are really worried about the conventional Army pulling out of Iraq and leaving us holding the bag unable to support ourselves," said Roger Carstens, who studied the problem as a nonresident fellow for the Center for a New American Security and testified on the issue last week before a House panel.

The leadership of the U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa is particularly concerned about the Army's difficulty in splitting off from its brigades vital capabilities including intelligence, communications and helicopters that are needed by the Special Operations troops, Carstens said.

The Pentagon should consider creating at least two additional helicopter battalions dedicated to Special Operations forces, according to Robert Martinage, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment, who testified before the terrorism subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

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