Posted on 08/04/2005 5:53:50 AM PDT by Jarhead1957
Brig Gen. Carter Ham, deputy director for operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff gestures during a Pentagon news conference, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005 to discuss Marines in Iraq. A Marine amphibious assault vehicle on patrol during combat operations near the Syrian border hit a roadside bomb Wednesday, and 14 Marines were killed in one of the deadliest single attacks in Iraq against American forces. (AP Photo/Heesoon Yim)
The Marines have one of the roughest assignments in Iraq: pacifying the perpetually restive Anbar province, home to Fallujah, Ramadi and Haditha, all sites of heavy American casualties since the insurgency went into high gear last year.
Underscoring the heavy load, the Marines have taken casualties disproportionate to their numbers in Iraq.
Marines number more than 23,000 out of 138,000 members of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq, or 17 percent. Yet they have lost at least 530 of the more than 1,820 U.S. personnel who have died there, or 29 percent, Marine officials said.
On Wednesday, they lost 14 when a roadside bomb detonated under an amphibious assault vehicle in Haditha in western Iraq. Just two days earlier, seven other Marines died.
Some military experts pointed to Wednesday's attack to note the Marines are performing duties somewhat different from those for which they are organized and equipped. The amphibious vehicle, for example, was designed to get troops ashore and is less armored than some other infantry carriers.
"It's basically designed to get across the beach and get a few dozen miles inland," said John Pike, a military expert with Globalsecurity.org. "The point being, once (Marines) had managed to secure the beachhead and get a few miles inland, the Army would come ashore and take over from there."
Beyond that, occupation and stabilization duties often require expertise and equipment distinct from amphibious assault and the rapid capture of enemy-held territory, experts said.
"The entire Marine force was designed around the concept of amphibious warfare, which is a good deal different from the kind of conflict they're fighting in Iraq today, hundreds of miles from the sea," said Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank. "The Marines are a light force; they kick in the door but they are not supposed to occupy all the rooms."
Still, the service has tried to adapt to changing missions, studying concepts like urban warfare and nonlethal weaponry. Marines took the lead in supplying food during a famine in Somalia in the early 1990s.
They, along with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, comprised the leading forces in the drive toward Baghdad in 2003.
Since the invasion of Iraq, the Army's effort to keep its troops fresh by rotating them in and out of the country has created a need to use the Marines as a stabilization and counterinsurgency force in parts of the country, experts said.
The Marines killed Wednesday were part of a sweep for insurgents in communities along the Euphrates River between Baghdad and the Syrian border. At the Pentagon, Brig. Gen. Carter Ham said similar operations were under way in several communities at once, to prevent insurgents from skipping to towns without a strong U.S. presence.
He suggested the attacks on the Marines were the insurgents' response to their stepped-up operations.
The Marines killed Wednesday were assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines based in Brook Park, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, and attached to the Regimental Combat Team 2. Nine of them were from a single smaller unit in Columbus. A civilian translator also was killed and one Marine was wounded.
Six more Marines were killed in Haditha earlier this week. A seventh was killed by a car bomb in Hit.
In November, Marines led the assault to retake Fallujah, an insurgent stronghold 40 miles west of Baghdad. They had regular clashes with insurgents there and in nearby Ramadi for months before.
In January, 30 Marines, along with a Navy sailor, were killed when their helicopter went down in bad weather. The military, however, still has not issued a finding on the cause of the crash.
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Associated Press Writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this story.
OK-if no malice was intended I can live with that.
As to great Generals, it's the grunts who win wars.
Indy Pendance: The army rotates the troops every 12 months. The marines, aren't they on a 7 month rotation?
Seems to me the AP is outright wrong. Are we going to let the AP fuel silly service rivalries?
Marines Semper Fi ~ Bump!
What is the fact? My neighbor's sons returned from Marine service in Iraq. They were there a year.
But, how much of the 138,000 are combat troops? Without that number, the AP's assertion is meaningless...no surprise.
I don't know that it is a fact, no on questioned it, until you did.
So, if what you say is true, then 1 year for soldiers, 1 Year for Marines. That throws out the AP's assertion that the Marines are in for the long haul and the soldiers are rotating. Are you going to let the AP play you like that?
Thanks for the bump, I thought my nephew was in the first M1A1 class for Marines. Iraq #1 was over when he got out of school. I think it was in Kentucky. I assumed Marines had none. I should have known Marines would have requisitioned some. Did they paint them green? We did everything we borrowed.
I guess AP misquoted General Hamm. It would not be the first time.
I guess next you'll be telling me about the limited, yet significant role Marines played on the Eastern front becuase the Moscow embassy had a Marine guard.
Apples and oranges. Comparing Ralph Smith's timidity; issuing contradictory orders, disobeying orders, effectively acting like he had a broomstick stuck in his a$$ with his lethargic pace and unwillingness to aggressively enagage the enemy, all of which necessitated his being relieved for cause on Saipan, with what Puller's regiment; which suffered 56% casualties in carrying out Rupertus's orders to take the Umurbrogol ridges, endured, shows how ignorant you are. By the time the 321st got into the fight it was D+9 and they still needed the 5th and 7th Marines to take that ridge. Unlike Smith, Puller wasn't relieved. His regiment, which was thrown into a meat grinder, was withdrawn, over Rupertus's objections, by Marine Major General Roy Geiger, due to the high number of casualties it had suffered and for all intents and purposes was no longer in existence.
I don't know how my post got over to the civil war and WWII, but it did. I have had family in every branch of the services since the civil war. In that war half on one side and half on the other. After that every war on the union side up to and including Iraq.
I salute all you vets.
In the end I perhaps should have noted that Rupertus, not Puller, was largely at fault but the fact is that the Army is not alone in suffering occasional poor leadership.
From military history online: Strategy and preparatory fires aside, it was, the marines' conduct in the taking of the islands where the most critical commentary can and should be aimed...And so finally, it is the conduct of the marines themselves, specifically their leadership, that one must take to task. MG Rupertus was undoubtedly a tough, brave man. He had served ably in Guadalcanal and had been decorated for his leadership there. He had the utmost confidence in his men, their equipment, and his plan. American amphibious doctrine had been working across the Pacific with stunning results over the previous year, and Peleliu would be yet another validation of these methods. In these lies the greatest failing of Rupertus, and the greatest mistake by the marines: overconfidence... Throughout the battle Rupertus, seemingly oblivious to the casualties his division was taking, insisted that the end was in sight, and that outside help was unnecessary. It took an order from his corps commander to get him to remove Puller's 1st Marines from the line, to be replaced by an army unit; Rupertus had repeatedly expressed his lack of confidence in the untried 81st ID, its commander, and the army in general. Apparently, it was a far better decision to sacrifice his own troops rather than take a chance on the army; inter-service rivalry is fine for enlisted men, but at the general officer level it is childish and counterproductive.
I still say that this is something that they don't put in the PI kool-aid.
It would be easier to pacify that section of the country if they were all dead
I have several months experience patrolling in Iraq near the city of Tuz Khurmatu-about a 2 hour drive from where this happened. We are a squadron in an Armored Cavalry Regiment and we have lots of tracks, but we patrol in HMMWVs. The reason being that IEDs are the biggest threat we face and that concentrating your forces offers Haji the opportunity to get incredibly lucky, like what unfortunately happened the other day. HMMWVs move faster and make it harder for Haji to trigger the device where it will do the most damage. I am certain that someone is going to be called to answer for that and I am curious as to how he is going to justify himself.
You are exactly right. I remember when Limbaugh used to say that the military is only for killing people and breaking things, not nation building. That was when Clinton was president, what happened? We need to get back to that mentality, quickly. We need to respond quickly and with an unmatched fury against not only the people who did this, but the people who are letting it happen, whether they are a government harboring people, people who are letting it be planned in the neighborhood mosques or any other scenario. When violence and power are all they can understand, then we should dish it up big enough for them to comprehend.
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