“At this phase, Afghanistan is a logistics war as much as any other kind of war,” said Mr. Carter, whose formal title is under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, in a recent interview.
*****
Oh yeah, logistics, and not one mention of the contractors that will be responsible for getting those things into Afghanistan. Maybe August could write a story about that sometime, because I know we are going to be in the thick of it all. I will keep my eye out, but at least this story gave a few indicators of the concerns with logistics. –Matt
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For U.S. Troops in Afghanistan, Supplies Are Another Battle
December 14, 2009
By August Cole
The White House has settled on sending additional troops to Afghanistan, and now the Pentagon must grapple with another thorny problem: how to support them once they get there.
For Ashton Carter, the top Pentagon official in charge of weapons purchases, that has meant focusing on the concrete — literally. Basic materials for building bases are in short supply or nonexistent in Afghanistan, so U.S. officials must search for staples like concrete next door in Pakistan.
Another priority: Getting thousands of blast-resistant trucks from Oshkosh Corp.’s factory in Oshkosh, Wis., to U.S. forces in the Afghan hinterlands.
“At this phase, Afghanistan is a logistics war as much as any other kind of war,” said Mr. Carter, whose formal title is under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, in a recent interview.
Unlike Iraq, Afghanistan has no modern infrastructure. Critical supplies such as fuel must be imported. The country is landlocked and has just three major overland routes. Enormous distances separate bases and outposts. High mountains and valleys, as well as extreme weather, make air travel difficult.
U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on a trip to Afghanistan, met Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and said Britain would ship helicopters, equipment and roadside-bomb surveillance devices with the 500 reinforcements who are joining 9,500 British troops already deployed there, the Associated Press reported.
Separately, President Barack Obama said he will know if his Afghan strategy is working by the end of next year. In an interview for CBS’s “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, he pledged to change direction if the U.S. military isn’t on course “in terms of securing population centers” from Taliban militants.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has pushed the Pentagon to stay on a wartime footing rather than focus on preparing for future conflicts. Top officials have shifted their priorities.
“Everything is…more expensive, but that’s not really as much the issue as whether you can get it done at all,” Mr. Carter said.
Mr. Carter’s predecessor had a full plate dealing with defense-industry programs such as the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter and the sprawling $200 billion Army modernization effort known as Future Combat Systems. Mr. Carter, by contrast, is entrenched in the minutiae of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as big weapons programs.
“Secretary Gates has given Ash Carter a focus on logistics from the beginning of the Afghanistan buildup,” said David Berteau, director of the defense-industrial initiatives group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Mr. Carter says he stays in close contact with the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, about urgent issues such as finding ways to protect troops against improvised explosive devices.
That is partly a reflection of Pentagon officials’ top concerns: the risk that public support for the war is fading, and the rise of roadside bomb attacks on U.S. troops by Taliban and al Qaeda-affiliated forces. Any major hiccups bringing in troops and armored vehicles — let alone staples such as ammunition and fuel — could derail the escalation of a military mission that is becoming the defining wartime test of the Obama administration.
Another pressure: Senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers are chafing at the high cost of operations in Afghanistan.
“As you transition operations to Afghanistan, you find that the cost of doing business is two to three times as expensive as Iraq,” said Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. According to the think tank, the annual cost of a U.S. soldier is about $1 million in Afghanistan, with fuel costs associated with supporting that soldier accounting for between $200,000 to $350,000 of the total.
Mr. Gates’s latest push to protect U.S. forces from roadside bombs in Afghanistan has sent parts of the defense industry into overdrive and presented Mr. Carter with one of his biggest challenges.
Oshkosh is racing to churn out 1,000 blast-resistant trucks a month. The trucks will protect against low-tech but very powerful improvised explosive devices, one of the biggest killers of U.S. forces.
“What limits the rate at which they’ll get to the troops is not the factory in Oshkosh and how fast it can produce vehicles. It’s how quickly can we introduce them into this faraway place,” Mr. Carter said.
Story here.