Drawdown Drawing Near
Written by Peter A. Buxbaum
MLF 2009 Volume: 3 Issue: 8 (September)
The drawdown of U.S. military personnel from Iraq has begun to have its effects on the planning and operations of deployed logistics units. Some are already involved in moving personnel and materiel to Afghanistan; others are executing plans to reduce the U.S. footprint in Iraq, while still others are full speed ahead and are expecting to draw down only at some point in the future.
The U.S. Air Force’s 447th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron, based at Sather Air Base at Baghdad International Airport, has seen the effects of the military drawdown in Iraq primarily within its aerial port operations. “We have constant communication with our higher headquarters, who provide visibility of drawdown-specific movements as they arise,” said First Lieutenant Alan M. Reynolds, the 447th’s director of operations. “In the past few months, our airmen have worked closely with the Army to coordinate the movement of their units to the Afghanistan area of responsibility.”
For example, the 447th expedited the movement of the 4th Engineering Battalion and the Combined Joint Special Operations Airlift Command, Special Operations Task Force Central, totaling 300 personnel and 600 tons of cargo, to Afghanistan. “Throughout all air movements, the Air Force maintains visibility of all assets and personnel, ensuring completion of movement and accuracy of data,” said Reynolds.
The 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward), based in Al Asad, in Anbar province, has been preparing for the drawdown for some time, and “we are now executing our plan to responsibly reduce our footprint while minimizing any disruption to the local populace,” said First Lieutenant Michele Perez, the unit’s public affairs officer. “As Marines, we take pride in always operating with systematic and organized processes when conducting all of our missions and assignments.”
A responsible drawdown is possible, Perez noted, “because of the dramatic improvements we’ve seen in Al Anbar over the past several years. The increased professionalism and competency of the Iraqi Security Forces has allowed them to successfully reduce violence with little to no assistance from U.S. forces.”
That said, the drawdown of Marine Corps assets and equipment has not affected the unit’s mission of providing combat logistics support in Al Anbar province. “As the logistics component of the Marine Air Ground Task Force in Iraq,” said Perez, “our main priority has and will continue to be to support our fellow Marines and sailors as far forward as possible with maintenance, supply, health services, transportation, engineering support, post exchange and postal services.”
The 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward) still moves hundreds of loads of cargo throughout the province, but the logisticians need to plan travel during times that do not affect local traffic patterns. “We must also closely consider that the size of our convoys do not overwhelm civilians traveling on the roads,” said Perez. “We plan our convoys along the least congested roads, staying out of cities and enabling the Iraqi Security Forces to be the sole presence of defense the people of Iraq see on a daily basis.”
NOT A UNIFORM DRAWDOWN
The ongoing drawdown is not being applied uniformly across the board, leaving other logistics units planning for a future reduction in forces. “Right now we are involved pretty much in standard operations,” said Lieutenant Colonel Will Bailey, Support Operations Officer at the Army’s 10th Sustainment Brigade, based at Camp Taji, northwest of Baghdad. “The drawdown is being planned for as soon as we are finished what is being done in support of the elections. Then we’ll see some drawdown occur post elections.” Parliamentary elections in Iraq are expected to be held early in 2010.
“We are still moving significant volumes of cargo around the battlespace,” Bailey added. “Conditions in Iraq for the movement of commodities have actually become a little more permissive in recent days.”
Once the drawdown reaches the 10th SBDE, Bailey expects to see a spike in the volumes of cargo to be moved by the unit, but he is not daunted by that possibility. “That is probably going to cause some congestion on some of the routes, but that is something we can work through,” he said. “This brigade does a lot of the heavy lifting in the Iraq theater right now. Moving more cargo will be just another challenge for us to knock out when the drawdown goes into full swing.”
Bailey expects much of this cargo to be shipped to Afghanistan, some of it moving, where appropriate, directly by air, and the rest routed by sea to Kuwait. There, shipments will be loaded for Karachi, Pakistan, at which point they will proceed over land to Afghanistan. Logistics units are helped in their efforts with asset visibility and tracking systems. “We have a very accurate asset visibility system that enables us to track all equipment transiting through Camp Al Taqaddum,” near Al Asad, said Perez. “It allows us to track cargo from the minute it leaves Taqaddum and is shipped to other locations, whether to another U.S. base in Iraq, back to the United States, or shipped in support of other Marine units serving in Afghanistan.”
The in-transit visibility technologies utilized by the Marine Corps provide a near real-time tracking capability to enable units to continuously monitor the location of their cargo, according to Perez. “It also allows the sending unit or distribution center to track all moving gear,” she said. “When all gear is loaded onto a particular pallet or Tri-Wall [a heavy-duty corrugated container], it receives a radio frequency identification tag. Once the tag number is uploaded to the in-transit visibility server, personnel can use the Warehouse to Warfighter program to track their cargo all the way through its destination.”
The Air Force has an effective in-transit visibility program in place that provides an accurate account of asset location and movement status. “We are utilizing a radio frequency identification tagging program that individually tracks each pallet of in-transit cargo throughout the area of responsibility,” said Reynolds. “Our cargo processing section currently maintains a 100 percent success rate in properly utilizing these tags.”
The Army’s asset visibility technology works “pretty well,” according to Bailey. The only glitch is that in some circumstances and some locations, manual entry of data is required, and human error then comes into play. “Bad data in, bad out,” said Bailey, but he added that these kinds of incidents are infrequent.
HIGH OPTEMPO CHALLENGES
The high operational tempo of a drawdown adds to the challenges experienced by deployed logistics units. “We see some of the requirements for maintenance drive a little higher based on the increased OPTEMO,” said Bailey. “The more you use something, the higher potential for that to break. We always run into that kind of issue when we have to push stuff out to theater quickly.”
“One foreseeable challenge with the increase in tempo is that the downsizing of our assets may also decrease the availability of on-hand parts needed to fix vehicles or equipment if they were to break,” said Perez. “With a lesser amount of parts on hand, our subordinate units may have to wait for requested parts to be delivered from other areas outside of Iraq or even back from the United States.”
The closing of bases will enable the 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward) to consolidate its limited maintenance capabilities to provide greater flexibility across its area of operations. “Units will be able to travel shorter distances to receive intermediate maintenance on their vehicles or other assets they need to conduct their day-to-day missions,” said Perez, “which will in large part be important in our support toward drawdown operations.”
The presence of the personnel and assets of industry contractors often helps in this kind of environment. “On a day-to-day basis we utilize the direct cooperation and support from civilian field service contractors with companies like Chameleon, Honeywell and LSI, who all supplement the work of our Marines and sailors within the 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward),” said Perez. “Additional partners include the Joint Program Office for the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle, and L-3 Communications, which are major players in keeping our assets operational and assisting in prepping equipment for drawdown. Whether it is in electronic control measures or the mass movement of gear, the civilian contractors are experts in their respective fields and are true value added to our everyday missions.”
The Air Force’s 447th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron often calls upon industry partners to help with thorny technical problems. “We have a very well-maintained fleet of materiel- handling equipment,” said Reynolds. “The vehicle managers are extremely knowledgeable in the maintenance and repair of the loaders and forklifts that are required to perform our duties. They also have a close relationship with industry representatives that are always willing to lend a helping hand when highly technical repairs are required.”
Recently, two representatives of one of the loader manufacturers came to Sather Air base to refurbish the loading decks and provide follow-on maintenance training regarding those assets, Reynolds added.
“Industry is a pretty big part of what we do,” said Bailey. “They often provide movement and repair capabilities. If contractors didn’t come to the fight, we would not have been as successful in this conflict as we have been.”
As U.S. forces turn areas and bases to the government of Iraq, the U.S. footprint in these locations will continue to be reduced. “Over the course of the last year, units have been redeploying without replacement, which has lessened the amount of Marine units we provide support to,” said Perez. “This has allowed us to slightly shift our efforts to focus on methodically conducting the movement of gear out of Iraq.
“From the beginning of our deployment in January, we knew that drawing down and downsizing was on the horizon,” Perez added. “As our subordinate units transitioned in and out of their seven-month deployments, they were each given specific guidance to look at all of the gear they had on hand and determine what they can turn in without hindering their current operations. There has been a lot of gear and equipment that has accumulated in Iraq over the last six years. Now, we’re just working on right-sizing for our current force. There has been a significant amount of behind-the-scenes planning that will ensure there is a smooth departure of 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward) forces from Al Anbar province, Iraq.” ♦