Lawmaker: Afghanistan FOBs lack protection

Lawmaker: Afghanistan FOBs lack protection
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 6, 2010 14:17:48 EDT

The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee charged Wednesday that the Obama administration is shortchanging force protection capabilities in Afghanistan.

In response, Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Paxton, the Joint Staff’s director for operations, acknowledged a lag in the deployment of critical “eyes and ears”-type assets to Afghanistan as the surge of 30,000 U.S. troops continues into early fall, but said more are on the way, both from Iraq and in the form of new equipment and additional personnel.

The concerns voiced by Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif., were underscored later in the day when the Government Accountability Office published Pentagon figures showing that enemy attacks in 2009 increased by 75 percent over the previous year, to a total of more than 21,000. Officials have maintained that more attacks are a natural outgrowth of rising U.S. and NATO troop strength and its new strategy aimed at retaking enemy strongholds.

“It’s my understanding that there continues to be a serious indirect fire threat to U.S. and coalition forward operating bases in Afghanistan,” McKeon said. “Yet the current force protection systems that protect FOBs in Iraq are not deployed to protect FOBs in Afghanistan. This is disconcerting, especially given the fact that we have evidence that such capabilities have saved hundreds of lives in Iraq.”

He also noted that most U.S. troops now operate outside Iraqi cities.