War Operations Update

Marines Prep for Long Iraq Deployment; Far-flung Fifth Fleet Hunts Down Foes

By RICHARD R. BURGESS
Managing Editor

The Marine Corps has released more details of the forthcoming deployment of large numbers of Marines to Iraq and Afghanistan to relieve Army units stretched thin by extended deployments.

A Marine Air-Ground Task Force centered on the I Marine Expeditionary Force will deploy to Iraq in March in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with approximately 21,000 Marines and sailors — including approximately 1,500 Marine Reservists — for seven months, primarily in the area currently patrolled by the 82nd Airborne Division. They will be relieved in September by another 21,000 Marines and sailors — including approximately 4,500 Marine Reservists — for seven months.

Among the reserve units being mobilized for the March deployment is Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 775, based at Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton, Calif.

An infantry battalion from the 2nd Marine Division will be deployed to Afghanistan for seven months in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, a move that will bring the number of Marines deployed there to approximately 1,000.

Movement of the Marines’ equipment to Iraq already is under way. The Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer departed San Diego in mid-January with a load of 16 CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters assigned to Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 466, as well as their equipment, crews, and maintenance personnel. The ship is transporting the squadron to Iraq and is scheduled to return to San Diego in March. Sealift ships of the Military Sealift Command are transporting other vehicles and equipment, which will be manned by the Marines when they are flown to Iraq in March.

As of Jan. 7, the number of sea-service reservists activated for Operations Iraqi freedom, Enduring Freedom, and Liberty Guard included 1,491 Navy, 6,515 Marine Corps, and 1,164 Coast Guard Reservists.

In the meantime, sealift ships of the Military Sealift Command (MSC) have transported vehicles and equipment of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Division from Hawaii to Iraq, and similar loads of the 1st Cavalry Division from the United States to Iraq. In October, two MSC sealift ships transported to Iraq the new Stryker combat vehicles of the Army’s 3rd Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division from Ft. Lewis, Wash.

Units of the U.S. Fifth Fleet are widely dispersed in the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Horn of Africa, participating in combat and surveillance operations in the region in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

The USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group (CSG) has flown missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. In late November 2003, Navy and Marine F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters flew the first carrier-based strikes in Iraq since the end of major combat operations last May, dropping Joint Direct-Attack Munitions on three occasions on enemy positions near Kirkuk and Baqubah.

The electronic combat squadron deployed with Carrier Air Wing One onboard the Enterprise, VAQ-137, sent a detachment of EA-6B Prowler electronic jamming aircraft to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in December to support intensified ground combat operations. The detachment is the first EA-6B unit ever deployed to a base in Afghanistan.

Two of the HH-60H helicopters assigned to the Enterprise’s helicopter antisubmarine squadron, HS-11, have been deployed off the Horn of Africa onboard the Austin-class amphibious transport dock ship USS Ogden. The units have been supporting anti-terrorist operations being conducted by Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, which is based in Djibouti, but coordinates operations in neighboring countries such as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, and, across the Gulf of Aden, Yemen. A detachment of four Marine Corps CH-53E Super Stallion heavy-lift helicopters also is deployed to Djibouti.

In the Persian Gulf, the coastal patrol ships USS Firebolt and USS Chinook, as well as Coast Guard patrol boats, and units from coalition navies, have been joined by ships of the Enterprise CSG and Expeditionary Strike Group 1 (ESG-1) in maritime interdiction operations in the northern Persian Gulf. The CSG includes the Argentine Navy destroyer Sarandi, the first non-NATO Navy ship to deploy with a U.S. Navy battle group.

The coalition ships and aircraft patrolling the northern Persian Gulf intercepted and seized, in three incidents in late December and early January, four dhows loaded with illegal drugs. The destroyer USS Decatur seized on Dec. 15 a 3,780-pound cache of hashish from a dhow and detained its 12 crew members. On Dec. 20, the cruiser USS Philippine Sea — aided by P-3 Orion patrol aircraft of the U.S. Navy, and Royal Australian and New Zealand air forces, and Nimrod patrol aircraft of the Royal Air Force — seized two dhows and 21 crew members, along with 95 pounds of heroin and 50-to-100 pounds of methamphetamines, according to a spokesman of Naval Forces Central Command.

On Jan. 1, an Australian P-3 assisted the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu, cruiser USS Port Royal, and dock landing ship USS Germantown in intercepting another dhow, on which boarding teams found 2,800 pounds of hashish and detained 15 crew members. The crew members are being investigated for ties to the al Qaeda terrorist organization, which has been known to use profits from drug sales to finance its operations.

In other developments, the Pathfinder-class oceanographic survey ship USNS Henson has deployed to Iraq for four months to conduct surveys of Iraq’s ports, harbors, and waterways.