Afghan surge poses logistical headache for U.S. army

by Daphne Benoit

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama's order to surge 30,000 troops into Afghanistan presents the US military with a giant logistical challenge as it faces some of the most forbidding terrain in the world.

With few paved roads and a vast, rugged landscape, moving soldiers and equipment into Afghanistan "is a bigger challenge than certainly was the case in Iraq," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last month.

Fulfilling Obama's vow to send troops at the "fastest pace possible," the first units of the buildup are due to arrive within two to three weeks, and the military plans to have all the reinforcements in place by the end of next summer.

The Pentagon carried out a similar surge two years ago in Iraq, where it could take advantage of a port, an excellent road network and vast US base in neighboring Kuwait.

"We don't have that in Afghanistan, clearly, and we don't have the infrastructure in Afghanistan," Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, told reporters last month.

The Pentagon was able to deploy a brigade -- an army unit of up to 5,000 soldiers -- a month during the troop buildup in Iraq and Mullen said the pace will have to be slower in Afghanistan.

The NATO-led mission has to rely more on supplying troops by air in Afghanistan and in the east, steep mountains make soldiers heavily dependent on helicopters.

An estimated 80 percent of military supplies come in through Pakistan, much of it via a single, vulnerable road that threads through the Khyber Pass and has been attacked repeatedly by armed insurgents.

From tanks to armored vehicles to helicopters and warplanes, the Afghan operation consumes huge amounts of fuel, with the military guzzling up to 83 liters or 22 gallons of gasoline per soldier every day.

More troops will require more truck convoys to ferry fuel to remote bases, raising the prospect of more casualties as fuel trucks are coveted targets for Taliban insurgents planting roadside bombs.

To protect soldiers from the lethal homemade bombs, the Pentagon is rushing to deliver a new armored M-ATV vehicle to Afghanistan made to withstand explosions while allowing for off-road driving.

The all-terrain vehicles were commissioned after commanders found that mine-resistant M-RAPs designed for Iraq were too big and cumbersome for Afghanistan.

The Pentagon has delivered at least 41 of the vehicles to Afghanistan and plans to have 5,000 there by March next year, with Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Corporation on track to churn out a thousand a month. And Gates has said it was possible double that number could be ordered if needed.

With tens of thousands of troops on the way in the next several months, engineering teams are ramping up construction work to handle the new arrivals.

The soldiers will find conditions sparse and austere.

At the NATO base in Kandahar, soldiers in a US Army Stryker brigade were still constructing their quarters in October and waiting for some of their vehicles to arrive, three months after deploying.

Despite the difficulties, the head of the logistics operation was optimistic supplies would get to the troops on time.

"Looking across our full line of support, I?m confident that we?re on track to supply warfighters with everything they need, whether it?s fuel, spare parts for weapons systems or troop-support items," Vice Admiral Alan Thompson, director of the Defense Logistics Agency, said this week.