# Another Hq For Afghanistan



## tomahawk6 (31 Jan 2009)

Some pretty funny quotes in here. Otherwise its business as usual for our military. Perhaps one day we will figure out how to get the job done with less overhead.

New Special Forces HQ coming to Afghanistan 
Buildup of forces means need for closer oversight, official says

 By Sean D. Naylor 
 snaylor@militarytimes.com 

  The U.S. is establishing a new headquarters in Afghanistan to better integrate U.S. special oper­ations missions into the larger coalition effort in that country.
  Official word of the new head­quarters came Jan. 8 in a routine Defense Department announce­ment of general officer assign­ments that stated Col. (P) Ed Reeder, a Special Forces officer, was being assigned as commander of the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Com­mand-Afghanistan, a position that had not previously existed.
  Exactly what authority Reeder will exercise over the piecemeal Afghanistan deployment of Spe­cial Forces remains unclear.

  One field grade Special Forces officer speculated that a new headquarters would mean noth­ing more than a “longer line at the chow hall.” But a Pentagon official said the prospect of an extensive buildup of conventional forces in the country means that the activi­ties of special operators will need to be more closely overseen and coordinated.
  CFSOCC-A (pronounced siff­sock-ay) will have an initial staff of about 50 and will be located in the Afghan capital of Kabul, Navy Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said in an e-mailed response to questions from Army Times. Reeder will take up his new position by late February, according to Hanzlik.
  Reeder ’s senior enlisted adviser will be Command Sgt. Maj. Kurt Lugo, a veteran Special Forces sol­dier who relinquished his position as command sergeant major at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School on Jan. 15.

  The decision to stand up the new headquarters was made jointly by Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of all U.S. and in­ternational coalition forces in Afghanistan, and Adm. Eric Olson, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, and approved by Gen. David Pe­traeus, the head of Central Com­mand, according to Hanzlik.
  “CFSOCC-A is a natural evolu­tion of [special operations forces] presence and in response to the increased emphasis being placed on the Afghanistan theater of op­erations,” Hanzlik wrote. The new headquarters will provide McKiernan “with a command and control headquarters that will fa­cilitate U.S. SOF unity of effort and enhance coordination and synchronization” with the Afghan government and its coalition part­ners, according to the e-mail.

  The International Security Assis­tance Force’s approximately 55,100 troops are split among five regional commands. They are named RC­East, West, North, South and Cen­tral and are commanded by one- or two-star generals, only one of whom, in RC-East, is American. But there are also three special op­erations task forces in Afghanistan: ■ Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force-Afghanistan: This is built around a U.S. Special Forces group, usually 3rd Group or 7th Group, and led by that group’s commander, a colonel. CJSOTF-A, although it includes elements from a handful of coalition mem­bers, has up to now reported di­rectly to the senior U.S. comman­der in Afghanistan. 

  ■ A NATO/ISAF special operations task force: This is usually led by a coali­tion one-star officer. This task force includes some U.S. Special Forces teams advising and working with their coalition counterparts. 

  ■ A Joint Special Operations Com­mand task force: This is usually com­manded by a JSOC deputy com­mander (usually a one-star flag of­ ficer) who reports up a purely American chain of command. This task force, comprising elements from the Navy Special Warfare De­velopment Group, sometimes known as SEAL Team 6, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regi­ment and the 75th Ranger Regi­ment, has the mission to conduct counterterrorist operations against al-Qaida and its affiliates.

  What control Reeder will exercise over these task forces is unclear. “The full scope of CFSOCC-A’s au­thority is still under discussion,” Hanzlik wrote. But a senior mili­tary official said Reeder would have no command over the JSOC task force, while a field grade Spe­cial Forces officer with extensive Afghanistan experience said the only tactical units under Reeder ’s control would be those in CJOSTF-A — in other words, those already commanded by the colonel who heads up CJSOTF-A.

  “I was thinking just the other day that the reason why we’re not winning is because we don’t have another headquarters ... and if we got that on the ground, I think we could pull this baby out,” the field grade Special Forces officer said in a sarcastic tone of voice.

  He said his view that the new command arrangement would offer little of value was shared by others in Special Forces: “Just a lot more bodies to feed, more build­ings to construct, more [portable toilets] to lay out, a longer line in the chow hall, and that’s pretty much it,” he said, before predicting that the size of the CFSOCC­A commander’s staff would grow in­exorably in the coming years.

  “I can empathize with that per­spective,” said a Pentagon official following the issue. “It’s probably one that we would expect from our special operators or we would have trained them incorrectly —  you know, leaner, meaner, more forward.” However, the Pentagon official said, the looming deployment of up to 30,000 additional conven­tional U.S. forces to Afghanistan makes Reeder ’s new headquarters necessary as a means of better in­tegrating the CJSOTF-A into con­ventional operations on an in­creasingly crowded battlefield.

  “Battle-space control and coordi­nation is going to matter, and that doesn’t just happen by leaner and meaner and better guys working at forward detachments in the field,” the Pentagon official said.

  Previously, the Pentagon official said, special operations forces had enjoyed free rein in large parts of Afghanistan that were mostly free of conventional forces, and thus required little coordination with other headquarters. This was par­ticularly true of the CJSOTF-A el­ements that were operating in RC-South’s area of operations, ac­cording to the Pentagon official.

  “They would keep the [CJSOTF-A] at Bagram informed and they would certainly coordi­nate efforts with coalition and NATO partners on the ground, but the rigor that would normally be associated with fully coordinat­ed and staffed actions wasn’t being demanded,” he said. “Now you would expect that it is going to be demanded. ... There is going to be little or no battle space that’s just going to be ‘draw a goose egg, spe­cial operators, that’s yours — tell us how you’re doing on occasion.’ It’s all going to be synchronized.” Raising the rank of the senior non-JSOC U.S. special operations representative in Afghanistan from colonel to one-star would also give that officer more clout in discus­sions with senior U.S. and NATO officers, several sources said.

  “You’ve got to have a star to get in the door,” said a retired Special Forces colonel with experience on joint commands. “Once you get in the door then it’s politics and per­sonality, but you can’t get in the door if you don’t have a star.” Reeder, a former 7th SF Group commander who served two seven­month tours in Afghanistan com­manding CJSOTF-A during 2006 and 2007, is bringing a unique ad­vantage with him, said the field grade Special Forces officer with extensive Afghanistan experience.

  “Oh, by the way, you’re Ed Reed­er, and guess what your last job was,” he said. “You were the [exec­utive officer] to [SOCOM com­mander] Adm. Olson, so you’ve also got the ear of a four-star ad­miral who is arguably ... the sec­ond- or third-most powerful mili­tary officer in the U.S.”


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