A top Marine Corps general overseeing coalition forces in Afghanistan on Monday warned against a hasty retreat from the country and revealed that specialists in several areas will have to remain past the 2014 Obama withdrawal because Afghan troops won’t be up to speed in key areas.
Maj. Gen. John Toolan, on a short publicity tour to talk up the successes in Afghanistan as some lawmakers push to cut the mission short, told an Atlantic Council audience that specialists in intelligence, battlefield medicine, artillery, criminal investigation and special operations will have to stay on past 2014 when Afghan troops and police are supposed to take over in the war on the Taliban.
“They are going to need our support,” said the commander of 2nd Marine Division.
Toolan said that while Afghan troops excel at human intelligence, they don’t have the surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that U.S. forces have. He said that the coalition has been providing battlefield medical support, and they don’t have the doctors and medics ready to take over. More critically, he said that American “fire support” should stay past 2014 because an imprecise shot could kill innocents, undermining the government’s efforts.
“An errant round, an errant bomb, could just exacerbate the whole problem again, so that’s going to have to stick around for awhile,” said Toolan, who recently returned from a yearlong deployment as commander of II Marine Expeditionary Force Forward and Regional Command Southwest in the Helmand and Nimroz provinces.
Toolan provided a positive report on the successes in formerly war-torn Helmund Province but warned that a hasty exit and local corruption threaten to reverse U.S. advances. He left the impression that Afghan military, police and even local leaders feel empowered to take control of their neighborhoods thanks to the support of the coalition forces, who are slowly pulling back.
He did have some harsh words for France, which has threatened to withdraw prematurely due to troop attacks, and Pakistan, which has ignored his requests to brake the influx of “lethal aid” into Afghanistan for Taliban fighters.
Toolan also asked the media and public to look at the larger victories in Afghanistan and not be detoured by the rare, though deadly, attacks that make headlines. He conceded that there are “insider threats” from Taliban suicide bombers, but that for every deadly attack that gets worldwide attention, there are 100 other events that tighten the bonds between Americans, coalition forces and the Afghans. “We have built a pretty strong bond and that needs to continue,” said Toolan.
