Iran tension: Western navy troops start war drills in US

CAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina: With beach landings, 25 naval ships and an air assault, the United States and eight other countries are staging a major amphibious exercise on the US East Coast this week, fighting a fictional enemy that bears more than a passing resemblance to Iran.

After a decade dominated by ground wars against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the drill dubbed Bold Alligator is “the largest amphibious exercise conducted by the fleet in the last 10 years,” said Admiral John Harvey, head of US Fleet Forces Command.

About 20,000 US forces, plus hundreds of British, Dutch and French troops as well as liaison officers from Italy, Spain, New Zealand and Australia are taking part in the exercise along the Atlantic coast off Virginia and North Carolina.

An American aircraft carrier, amphibious assault ships including France’s Mistral, Canadian mine sweepers and dozens of aircraft have been deployed for the drill, which began on January 30 and runs through mid-February.

Monday was “D-day” for Bold Alligator, with US Marines stepping on to the beach from hovercraft, near the Camp Lejeune base in North Carolina.

The American military, mindful that Marines have spent most of their time in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan since 2001, said the goal was “to revitalize, refine, and strengthen fundamental amphibious capabilities and reinforce the Navy and Marine Corps role as ‘fighters from the sea.’”

With defense spending coming under pressure after years of unlimited growth, the Marines — which devoted a brigade to the exercise — also are anxious to protect funding for their traditional role as an amphibious force.

The exercise scenario takes place in a mythical region known as “Treasure Coast,” with a country called Garnet, a theocracy, invading its neighbor to the north, Amberland, which calls for international help to repel the attack.

Garnet has mined several harbors and deployed anti-ship missiles along the coast.

The threat of mines, anti-ship missiles and small boats in coastal waters conjure up Iran’s naval forces, but the commanders overseeing the drill, Admiral Harvey and Marine Lieutenant General Dennis Hejlik, say the scenario is not based on any particular country.

Amid rising tensions with Iran and threats from Tehran to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz, naval officers and military planners are keenly aware of the Islamic Republic’s arsenal of mines and anti-ship missiles.

When asked by reporters last week, Harvey acknowledged that the exercise scenario was “certainly informed by recent history” and that it was “applicable” to the Strait of Hormuz, as well as other areas.

Harvey also said the exercise incorporated lessons from the 2006 Lebanon conflict, when Iran-backed Hezbollah forces hit an Israeli navy corvette with an anti-ship missile.

The Pentagon opened the drill to allied forces for the first time this year, with 650 French troops among those participating.

In their AMX-10 wheeled reconnaissance vehicles and VAB armored personnel carriers, the mission of the French forces was “to land first to secure a path for the Americans,” said Second Lieutenant Chens Bouriche, a French military spokesman.

US plans to cut Army, invest in future: Pentagon

WASHINGTON: The Pentagon on Thursday proposed trimming the Army’s size by 13 percent as the debt-ridden United States winds down a decade of war but vowed new investments to exert power in Asia and the Middle East.

With pressure mounting to balance the US books, President Barack Obama’s administration sought a nine percent cut in the 2013 budget compared with last year’s request by retiring older ships and planes and pulling back two brigades from Europe.

But the administration called for investment on new projects including a futuristic floating base for special operations and drones and assigning elite Brigade Combat Teams with language training to each region of the world.

“We are at a strategic turning point after a decade of war and substantial growth in defense budgets,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said as he unveiled a preview of the Defense Department’s 2013 budget requests.

Panetta vowed to maintain US power in the Middle East and Asia — where China’s growing military has concerned the United States and its allies — including by modernizing submarines and funding a next-generation bomber.

Panetta called for funding to station littoral combat ships in Singapore and patrol craft in Bahrain, part of the US strategy of forward-deploying its military to such small and strategically placed US allies.

“The force we are building will retain a decisive technological edge, leverage the lessons of recent conflicts and stay ahead of the most lethal and disruptive threats of the future,” Panetta told a news conference.

The budget is far from a done deal. Panetta is hoping to ward off calls for steeper cuts backed by some members of his Democratic Party, while Republicans seeking to defeat Obama in November elections have resisted any cuts to the military and instead prefer reductions on social benefits at home.

Panetta proposed a $613 billion budget for the year starting in October — a $525 billion base spending plan and $88.4 billion for combat operations, primarily in Afghanistan. He said the base budget would rise to $567 billion by the 2017 fiscal year, by when the United States plans to withdraw most forces from Afghanistan.

He proposed reducing the number of active US Army soldiers from 570,000 in 2010 to 490,000 by 2017 and cutting the Marines’ strength from 202,000 to 182,000 over the same period.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the proposals were “tough” and said he expected more cuts in the future as the Pentagon looks to meet a goal of saving $259 billion over five years.

“The primary risks lie not in what we can do, but in how much we can do and how fast we can do it,” Dempsey said. “As I have said before, we will face greater risks if we do not change from our previous approach.”

Among the most ambitious future projects, the budget would fund work on an “afloat forward staging base” — a giant barge that can transport special operations or other forces at quick notice, reducing demands on aircraft carriers.

Even with cuts, the US military remains far larger than those of other countries. China, which has the world’s second largest military budget, said it was devoting 601.1 billion yuan ($91.1 billion) in 2011, although many foreign experts believe that the actual figure is higher.

The United States has 285 ships and a goal of 313 in total, although the proposal calls for the early retirement of seven cruisers.

Panetta also called for getting rid of six of the Air Force’s 60 tactical air squadrons — meaning about 120 planes — along with one training squadron.

As previously announced, the Pentagon plans to pull out two of four brigades from Europe — for a total of more than 7,000 troops. The United States now has three brigades in Germany and one in Italy, although it has not decided which to withdraw.

In one proposal that is especially sensitive, Panetta said that Obama would ask Congress to set up a commission to consider closure of military bases “with a goal of identifying additional savings and implementing them as soon as possible.”

Panetta promised to maintain military pay raises over the next two years that are in line with the private sector but warned of “more limited” increases afterward. He also called for increases in fees paid for health care, although he said the costs for retirees would remain below private sector plans. AGENCIES

China says sanctions ”cannot solve” Iran nuclear issue

BEIJING: China said Tuesday that sanctions are not the answer to the stand-off over Iran”s nuclear programme, after US officials said Beijing and Washington had agreed to jointly push for new punitive action.

“China always believes that dialogue and negotiation are the best way out for the issue. Pressure and sanctions cannot fundamentally solve it,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters.

Philippines attacks leave 15 dead

ISABELA: Al Qaeda-linked militants in police uniforms set off bombs and fired at civilians on a strife-torn Philippine island Tuesday in violence that left 15 people dead, officials said.

The gunmen targeted a government office and a church in Isabela city on Basilan island with two home-made bombs, in the latest show of force from the Abu Sayyaf network that is blamed for the worst attacks in the Philippines.

“I think (the attack) is to meant to create havoc… definitely it falls under terrorism,” Major General Juancho Sabban, head of the Philippine Marines, told reporters in Manila.

Isabela city mayor Cherry Akbar told reporters that 15 people were confirmed dead, including five militants who were apparently killed by one of their own bomb blasts.

Six civilians were also killed in the explosions, while three soldiers and one policemen were killed in gunbattles with the militants, Akbar said.

At least 25 militants wearing police uniforms were involved in the attacks, according to the region”s military chief, Lieutenant General Ben Dolorfino.

They sprayed bullets at terrified civilians scrambling away to safety, and engaged in a gunbattle with security forces on the outskirts of Isabela that lasted for at least three hours, according to various military chiefs.

“We have to take control and assure the people that we are on top of the situation,” Sabban said as the fighting was ongoing.

“All we know right is that our Marines right now are under fire.”

Hundreds of US troops have been stationed on Mindanao since the end of 2001 to train and equip the Filipino military to combat the Abu Sayyaf.

Their arrival came after a series of Abu Sayyaf-led abductions, including the kidnapping of three Americans from a southwestern Philippine island resort.

Two of the US hostages were killed, one of whom was beheaded.

US help has led to the deaths of senior Abu Sayyaf leaders and the Philippine military says the group now has only about 300 active militants, down from about 1,000 a decade ago.

However they have proved an enduring threat.

The country”s police chief, Jesus Verzosa, warned last month the Abu Sayyaf was increasingly using improvised bombs in its attacks.

On Tuesday, the first bomb went off about 10:30 am (0230 GMT) outside an education department building near a high school sports grandstand, provincial police chief Antonio Mendoza said in Isabela.

He said the second, rigged to a motorcycle left near a Roman Catholic cathedral, went off minutes later as security forces chased after the suspects.

“It heavily damaged the church,” Mendoza said.

“The men were shooting at civilians as they fled towards a forested area.”

Other recent attacks blamed on the Abu Sayyaf include a landmine blast that wounded three Filipino soldiers on Basilan last month.

Two roadside bombs killed a Filipino soldier and wounded 12 other people in near-simultaneous attacks also on Basilan island in February.

Philippines attacks leave 15 dead

ISABELA: Al Qaeda-linked militants in police uniforms set off bombs and fired at civilians on a strife-torn Philippine island Tuesday in violence that left 15 people dead, officials said.

The gunmen targeted a government office and a church in Isabela city on Basilan island with two home-made bombs, in the latest show of force from the Abu Sayyaf network that is blamed for the worst attacks in the Philippines.

“I think (the attack) is to meant to create havoc… definitely it falls under terrorism,” Major General Juancho Sabban, head of the Philippine Marines, told reporters in Manila.

Isabela city mayor Cherry Akbar told reporters that 15 people were confirmed dead, including five militants who were apparently killed by one of their own bomb blasts.

Six civilians were also killed in the explosions, while three soldiers and one policemen were killed in gunbattles with the militants, Akbar said.

At least 25 militants wearing police uniforms were involved in the attacks, according to the region”s military chief, Lieutenant General Ben Dolorfino.

They sprayed bullets at terrified civilians scrambling away to safety, and engaged in a gunbattle with security forces on the outskirts of Isabela that lasted for at least three hours, according to various military chiefs.

“We have to take control and assure the people that we are on top of the situation,” Sabban said as the fighting was ongoing.

“All we know right is that our Marines right now are under fire.”

Hundreds of US troops have been stationed on Mindanao since the end of 2001 to train and equip the Filipino military to combat the Abu Sayyaf.

Their arrival came after a series of Abu Sayyaf-led abductions, including the kidnapping of three Americans from a southwestern Philippine island resort.

Two of the US hostages were killed, one of whom was beheaded.

US help has led to the deaths of senior Abu Sayyaf leaders and the Philippine military says the group now has only about 300 active militants, down from about 1,000 a decade ago.

However they have proved an enduring threat.

The country”s police chief, Jesus Verzosa, warned last month the Abu Sayyaf was increasingly using improvised bombs in its attacks.

On Tuesday, the first bomb went off about 10:30 am (0230 GMT) outside an education department building near a high school sports grandstand, provincial police chief Antonio Mendoza said in Isabela.

He said the second, rigged to a motorcycle left near a Roman Catholic cathedral, went off minutes later as security forces chased after the suspects.

“It heavily damaged the church,” Mendoza said.

“The men were shooting at civilians as they fled towards a forested area.”

Other recent attacks blamed on the Abu Sayyaf include a landmine blast that wounded three Filipino soldiers on Basilan last month.

Two roadside bombs killed a Filipino soldier and wounded 12 other people in near-simultaneous attacks also on Basilan island in February.

US Gen. Mullen says US is losing war in Afghanistan

America’s highest-ranking military officer admitted that US forces were currently losing the war in Afghanistan and said they had 18 to 24 months to turn around the Taliban’s momentum.

“This is the most dangerous time I’ve seen growing up the last four decades in uniform,” Adm. Mike Mullen told audiences of soldiers and marines, some of whom are weeks away from flying to conflict.

“We are not winning, which means we are losing and as we are losing, the message traffic out there to [insurgency] recruits keeps getting better and better and more keep coming.”

Telling soldiers that he expected to be a tough fight and rising casualties in 2010, he said: “I don’t want to be in any way unclear about that. This is what happened in Iraq during the surge and as tragic as it is, to turn this thing around, it will be a part of this surge, as well.”

Adm. Mullen said the July 2011 date to begin withdrawing US forces is not an end or withdrawal date. “In the long run, it is not going to be about killing Taliban,” he told the marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. “In the long run, it’s going to be because the Afghan people want them out.”

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US Gen. Mullen says US is losing war in Afghanistan was first posted on December 10, 2009 at 8:14 am.

AP Impact – Afghan – Death of a Marin

AP Impact – Afghan – Death of a Marin, Afghanistan — The pomegranate grove looked ominous.

The U.S. patrol had a tip that Taliban fighters were lying in ambush, and a Marine had his weapon trained on the trees 70 yards away. “If you see anything move from there, light it up,” Cpl. Braxton Russell told him.

Thirty seconds later, a salvo of gunfire and RPGs — rocket-propelled grenades — poured out of the grove. “Casualty! We’ve got a casualty!” someone shouted. A grenade had hit Lance Cpl. Joshua “Bernie” Bernard in the legs.

A Marine and son of a Marine, a devout Christian, Iraq war veteran and avid hiker, home-schooled in rural Maine, Bernard was about to become the next fatality in the deadliest month of the deadliest year since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The troops of Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines had been fighting for three days to wrest this town in southern Afghanistan from the Taliban who had ruled it for four years. As dusk approached on Friday, Aug. 14, things had quieted down. The Taliban seemed to have gone. Another day had passed in the long, hard slog for U.S. troops serving on the parched plains and mountains of Afghanistan, in a war that has steadily intensified.

Then, as the Marines were enjoying some downtime, reports of mortar, machine-gun and sniper fire sent them scrambling again. The 11 Americans and 10 Afghan soldiers edged their way into the town’s abandoned bazaar. With them were Associated Press correspondent Alfred de Montesquiou, AP photographer Julie Jacobson and AP Television News cameraman Ken Teh.

Eyes scanning rooftops for gunmen and the ground for buried bombs, the patrol pushed past shops still smoldering from U.S. mortar shells, past Taliban posters on the walls exhorting the populace to fight the Americans. Bernard, his face daubed in gray and brown camouflage paint, was the point man.

A young Afghan in front of the family store showed the patrol a patch of upturned earth in a ditch. It was here that insurgents had fired their mortars a few minutes earlier.

“But don’t say I told you, or they’ll kill me,” the man said.

As he spoke, the Marines got word of the ambush being readied nearby. Two Cobra helicopters circling overhead fired Hellfire missiles at a mortar position. The Marines weren’t sure this had settled the matter with the Taliban. They pushed on.

Then they reached the pomegranate grove.

At first Jake Godby thought Bernard had stepped on an explosive device. Godby, a 24-year-old 2nd lieutenant from Fredericksburg, Va., quickly regrouped his men and directed the returning fire.

The squad found itself stuck under sustained and heavy fire with a wounded man on a narrow crossroad — buildings behind them, insurgents hidden in the orchard in front of them, and a large puddle from a broken water pump in the middle. Godby had the troops advance to the cover of a mud wall and an irrigation ditch. The orange streaks of bullets whizzing in every direction grew visible as the light faded.

“That’s when I realized there was a casualty and saw the injured Marine, about 10 yards from where I’d stood,” Jacobson would write in her journal. “For the second time in my life, I watched a Marine lose his. He was hit with the RPG which blew off one of his legs and badly mangled the other. … I hadn’t seen it happen, just heard the explosion. I hit the ground and lay as flat as I could and shot what I could of the scene.”

Bernard lay on the ground, two Marines standing over him exposed, trying to help. A first tourniquet on Bernard’s leg broke. A medic applied another.

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,” Bernard said. Troops crawling under the bullets dragged him to the MRAP, the mine-resistant armored vehicle that accompanied the patrol.

“The other guys kept telling him ‘Bernard, you’re doing fine, you’re doing fine. You’re gonna make it. Stay with me Bernard!’ He (a Marine) held Bernard’s head in his hands when he seemed to go limp and tried to keep him awake. A couple more ran in with a stretcher,” Jacobson recalled in the journal.

“Another RPG hit the mud wall on the other side of the street from where we were, about 5 yards away. It was a big BOOM, and I just lay my face in the dirt and everything went quiet for about 10 seconds. It was just silence like I was wearing noise-canceling headphones or like world peace had finally descended upon the earth. The air was white with sand. Then I started feeling the rubble fall down around me. And I thought, ‘Is this what it’s like to be shell shocked? Am I all still here? I can’t believe I am.’

“I was fine and surprised at how calm I was and that I could actually still hear.”

The rocket-propelled grenade exploded in a powerful pinkish blast, lighting up the scene and briefly knocking out de Montesquiou and Staff Sgt. Alexander Ferguson. When Ferguson recovered, he helped haul Bernard inside the vehicle. Bernard was driven back to base some 500 yards from there, receiving first aid along the way. Minutes later, a helicopter evacuated him to Camp Leatherneck, the main Marine compound in southern Afghanistan. His vital signs were stable when he left.

At the ambush site, the fighting continued uninterrupted for 10 to 15 minutes. The men could see the grenades coming in at them, and even some of the machine gunners. They estimated they were facing six to eight fighters.

Adding to the confusion, an Afghan soldier with the troops fired his own grenade at the insurgents, but he hadn’t checked whether anybody was close by. A Marine was knocked out by the back-blast.

Another grabbed the Afghan by the collar. “Once he stopped shooting, we were able to get control of the situation,” Russell said.

Some Marines are uneasy patrolling with the Afghan National Army. For one thing, there’s a language barrier. During the shootout at the orchard, the patrol’s Afghan interpreter disappeared and took cover, leaving the Marines unable to coordinate their moves with the Afghan soldiers.

“They’re not lacking courage, they’re just lacking training right now,” said Russell, 22, from Stafford, Va. “At least they were shooting in the right direction.”

The fighting ebbed with nightfall. Godby and some of the Marines equipped with night vision glasses pushed deeper into the orchard, but the insurgents were gone. Intelligence pointed to three enemy dead, several Marines said, but it could not be confirmed.

That night, officers assembled the platoon in a darkened room of the run-down house where the Marines had camped after taking Dahaneh two days earlier. There the officers delivered the news: Bernard had died of a blood clot in his heart on the operating table. He was Golf Company’s third fatality since arriving in Afghanistan in May.

Bernard was the 19th American to die in Afghanistan in August. Fifty-one Marines, soldiers and seamen lost their lives that month. Of the 739 Americans killed in and around Afghanistan since 2001, 151 died last year and 180 so far this year.

Down a rural dirt road in New Portland, western Maine, John and Sharon Bernard sat on their porch and talked about their son.

Joshua, they said, loved literature and showed early interest in the Bible and Christianity. “He had a very strong faith right from the beginning,” his mother said.

His father described him as “humble, shy, unassuming — the very first to offer help.” He didn’t smoke or drink, and always opened the door for others. His main friends were his church group, whom he would visit when on leave, and his sister Katy, 20.

Bernard’s father is a retired Marine 1st sergeant. Three weeks before the Aug. 14 ambush that killed his son, he had written to his congressman, Rep. Michael Michaud, expressing frustration at what he described as a change in the Afghanistan rules of engagement to one of “spare the civilians at all cost.” He called this “disgraceful, immoral and fatal” to U.S. forces in combat.

Joshua loved videogames and snowboarding, and hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail with his father. He hoped to become a U.S. marshal.

“Service and personal honor,” is how his father summarized his son.

Three days after Bernard’s death, as his belongings were being packed for shipment to his family, Cpl. Joshua Jackson, his squad leader, was still referring to him in the present tense.

“He definitely doesn’t hesitate,” said Jackson, 23, from Copley, Ohio. “He’s very good, he definitely has the nerves to do what he’s needed to do.”

He called Bernard “a true-heartedly very good guy … probably one of the best guys I’ve known in my entire life.”

The hardest part is “just wondering if there’s something that I could have done different, or maybe prevented him from dying,” Jackson said. “But that’s something we’ve all got to deal with.”

“I think it’s got to do with being a Marine; you just carry on,” said Godby. That night he got two hours of sleep. Before dawn, his platoon took part in a raid on a suspected Taliban stronghold.

Bernard was determined, his comrades said. That’s why he was chosen as the squad’s point man and navigator, moving at the front of his unit.

Lance Cpl. Jason Pignon, 22, from Thayer, Ill., was his close friend. They had been in the same platoon since 2007 when they joined “the Fleet,” as Marines call the units preparing to deploy. They served together near Fallujah in Iraq in 2008, and again in Afghanistan.

During the firefight, Jacobson had wrestled with a question every war photographer faces: whether to offer to help save a life, or keep out of the way of the professionals and go on shooting pictures.

Some of Bernard’s comrades asked to see the photos. In her journal she described them flipping through the images she had captured that day:

“They did stop when they came to that moment. But none of them complained or grew angry about it. They understood that it was what it was. They understand, despite that he was their friend, it was the reality of things.”

It had all gone very quickly. It was late afternoon when the Taliban fired their first RPGs. It was dusk when the Marine was driven away in the armored vehicle. And it was night when the patrol returning to base saw the dark silhouette of the helicopter that flew him away.

Lance Cpl. Joshua “Bernie” Bernard was 21 years old.

Glenn Adams contributed to this report from New Portland, Maine. ( thanks to http://blog.taragana.com for this report)

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AP Impact – Afghan – Death of a Marin was first posted on September 5, 2009 at 12:07 am.
©2009 “News Trends“.