Top Marine eyes shift from Iraq to Afghanistan

Conway, who has repeatedly pressed for more Marine involvement in the Afghanistan fight, said commanders say they need as many as 10,000 additional combat forces there to quell the insurgents.

Conway said air power would continue to play a primary role despite the risk of civilian casualties that have angered Afghans and made U.S. and NATO forces more unpopular.

He said it was unclear how many civilians died in an August 21 air strike in western Afghanistan, despite a U.N. finding of evidence that about 90 were killed, most of them children. But the general accused the Taliban of operating among civilians to reap a propaganda advantage from military attacks.

“This is a dirty game being played,” Conway said.

“Air power is the premier asymmetric advantage that we hold over ... the Taliban. They have no like capability,” he said. ”We’ll continue to drop bombs. We will also continue at every effort to preserve civilian lives who unfortunately are a part of the battlefield.”

A U.S. military official declined to say which branch of the U.S. armed forces carried out the August 21 attack.

The United States has 33,000 troops in Afghanistan, including 3,400 Marines who are due to leave the country by the end of November.

Smaller Marine deployment
Conway said the size of any Marine deployment to Afghanistan would be smaller than the one now on duty in Iraq.

He declined to recommend a specific troop number but said the corps ultimately would like to have 15,000 troops deployed worldwide. There are currently 34,000 Marines on worldwide deployment, only 5,600 of whom are deployed neither to Iraq nor Afghanistan.

U.S. defense officials have long recognized the need to redeploy troops from Iraq to Afghanistan but no final decision has been made.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other top Pentagon officials are considering ways to increase the number of U.S. combat brigades in Afghanistan to confront the Taliban.

So far, the Pentagon has taken only small steps by ordering one-month tour extensions for Marines and deploying less than 200 additional support troops.

Conway suggested a drawdown of Marines in Iraq could allow for the replacement of about 1,200 troops from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment that are in the country until November 30 to train Afghan security forces.

But he said it was unlikely that fresh Marine forces would be deployed to replace the 2,200 Marines fighting Taliban insurgents in southern Afghanistan.

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