The Fayetteville Observer March 28, 2009
82nd has not received Afghanistan orders yet
By Drew Brooks
Fort Bragg’s 82nd Airborne Division, reportedly tapped by President Obama to provide another brigade for Afghanistan, has received no deployment order, officials said Friday.
Obama announced Friday that he plans to send 4,000 soldiers to Afghanistan to train security forces. The troop increase is in addition to a 17,000-soldier deployment already announced.
Citing unnamed Pentagon officials, the Associated Press and other media outlets have reported that the 4,000 military trainers will come from the 82nd. But Lt. Col. Clarence Counts, a spokesman for the division, said he could not confirm any plans to send a brigade of paratroopers to Afghanistan.
“As far as we know, the Department of Defense has not made a decision,” he said.
John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org, a Washington defense policy think tank, said the mission outlined by Obama is one that would normally be assigned to special operations soldiers. The plan calls for the brigade to be broken down into teams of 10 to 14 soldiers
“This is a Special Operations Command assignment,” Pike said. “Special Operations Command just doesn’t have enough people.”
He said there’s a possibility that paratroopers could be trained by their Special Forces neighbors on Fort Bragg.
Pike criticized the strategy, which he called “unfocused.”
Among other things, he said more attention needs to be paid to the country’s drug operations, which fuel corruption and insurgency.
“If they don’t do something about the drug money, I don’t think anything will help,” Pike said. “You can be doing all of the right things … and it won’t do any good.”
Obama said Friday that the U.S. could not turn a blind eye to “corruption that causes Afghans to lose faith in their own leaders.”
He said he would seek a new compact with the Afghan government that cracks down on corrupt behavior.
“It’s hard to get troops to die for a bunch of crooks,” Pike said. “This is the same problem we had in South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese soldiers were not inclined to go get themselves killed for a corrupt government.”
© Copyright 2009, The Fayetteville Observer
