By Geoff Fein
The drawdown in Iraq and the ramp up in Afghanistan are two of the biggest logistics challenges the Department of Defense has ever taken on in recent memory, according to a top Pentagon official.
While the withdrawal from Iraq may not be as large, as far as tonnage, as the drawdown following Operation Desert Storm, it is taking place on a timetable, in an environment where there is still a threat and where United States troops continue to operate, and is taking place after being there for many years, Ashton Carter, under secretary for defense, acquisition, technology and logistics, told attendees last week at a Center for Strategic and International Studies sponsored event on defense logistics.
Operation Iraqi Freedom wasn’t like checking out of a hotel after a brief stay, Carter said. “This is like leaving a home you have been in for a while. We were more settled in… [there was] more equipment.”
He noted there is still a lot that needs to be done as troops depart.
The United States had 350 forward operating bases (FOB) in Iraq about a year ago, Carter said. “We are closing them, getting those numbers down.”
There have been upward of 147,000 contractors, he added. That number is down to 100,000 and will eventually drop to 75,000.
And there has been as much as 3.4 million pieces of equipment in theater as recently as eight months ago, Carter said.
“It’s now down to 2.2 million and we have to move another 1.2 million before August,” he said.
But there is more to moving equipment than just packing it up and shipping it off, Carter said.
There is a variety of equipment in Iraq, traditional military equipment that will go back home with the units, equipment that was never associated with units but was bought for Iraq and put in Iraq–what Carter referred to as “theater provided equipment.”
“There is also ‘white’ equipment. That’s the non-military standard equipment brought to support the fight over the years,” he said. “Some of it is in the hands of contractors. Some of it is in the hands of troops.”
“White” equipment includes items such as refrigerators, air conditioners and desks, Carter added.
There are also 29,000 vehicles in Iraq, down from 41,000, he noted. The military has moved 12,000 vehicles in just the last few months and will have to move many more by August’s deadline, Carter added.
“This is an enormous migration of equipment,” Carter said. “One of the things that has paced us is deciding where something goes. [If] it doesn’t belong and isn’t needed in Iraq anymore, where does it go? Does it go home to become part of the Army or Marine Corps of the future? Do they want it, does it fit in?”
If the services don’t want it, what about the Guard or Reserves, do they want the equipment, Carter asked. If not, should the equipment go to Kuwait for a future contingency, should it be moved to Afghanistan, left behind for the Iraqi forces, or does the United States give it to someone else who needs it, he said.
“All those decisions need to be made before a piece of equipment is moved, so it’s not just the physical moving of it, it’s decisions about where does it go,” Carter added.
But while Iraq presents its own set of unique logistics challenges, the continuing operations in Afghanistan pose even greater problems, he said.
“We can’t get effective until we get in and we can’t get in and get set until we’ve moved the people and equipment and the means to sustain them through the very slender arteries, the couple of ground lines of communications…the air bridge,” Carter said. “We are working everyday to widen those arteries.”
One example of the challenge of getting equipment to troops in Afghanistan has been the deployment of the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) All Terrain Vehicle (MATV).
“Because it is a military piece of equipment we prefer to move it by air,” Carter said. “That means flying from Charleston (South Carolina) where government furnished equipment, radios and so forth, are installed in the vehicles as they are delivered from Oshkosh.”
The MATVs are flown to Kandahar or Baghram to be matched with a unit and deployed, he added.
DoD is interested in fielding the MRAP-ATVs faster and by a means other than by air, to free up the “air bridge” for other urgent needs, Carter added.
“We are beginning to put MRAPs on ships now. Now that we have shipped a whole lot of them into Afghanistan, and those are being deployed and digested, we have a little time,” he added. “We are putting MATVs on sealift, taking them into theater on sea lift, transferring them there to airlift because the legs are shorter and you can [get] them in more quickly.”
Eventually, the DoD would like to be able to use ground transportation for getting MRAPs into theater, Carter said.
“Everyday is an effort to get equipment into Afghanistan, and the people who do this work are truly remarkable,” Carter told the attendees. “I think it is fair to say there has never been as a dramatic a logistics effort as we are seeing in Afghanistan, it is truly remarkable. It is one of the most important things I have ever seen in the defense world, transpiring in very, very few weeks and months, and it is a tremendous tribute to the logisticians in the DoD today to do that.”