Conway: Corps will be in Afghanistan past 2011 - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Conway: Corps will be in Afghanistan past 2011

Marines are holding the initiative in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, the Corps’ top officer said Tuesday, but he cautioned they will likely remain there longer than expected.

The Obama administration has said U.S. forces would begin to withdraw from Afghanistan in mid-2011, but continued violence and questions about the Afghan security forces ability to bear more responsibility have called that timeframe into question. Marines, Commandant Gen. James Conway said, will not be among the first to leave.

“Though I certainly believe some American unit somewhere in Afghanistan will turn over responsibilities to Afghan security forces in 2011, I do not think they will be Marines,” Conway told reporters at the Pentagon after his return from a four-country trip that included visits with Marines and sailors in Afghanistan’s volatile south.

Helmand and Kandahar provinces, he said “are the birthplace of the Taliban. … It will be a few years before conditions on the ground are such that turnover will be possible for us.”

Conway acknowledged that public support for the war is waning, and noted that the completion of the surge to almost 100,000 troops has only just been completed.

In Marjah, where Marines have been waging a tough fight since February, the enemy has been outmaneuvered and driven out, but they’re not gone and are probably “trying to string this out as long as they can” with sniping, indirect fire and attacks on helicopters, he said.

Though the Marines are holding them at bay, it’s still too early to hand over responsibility to Afghan forces, he said.

“I can’t say if Marines will be in Helmand or start withdrawing next year or not,” he said. “What I can say is that I do not believe conditions in the birthplace of the Taliban in Helmand — or Kandahar for that matter, with our brothers, Army brothers, to the east — are going to be such that we think we can simply turn over to Afghan forces and leave. … That’s what I’m trying to prepare Marines for.”

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