ISAF reorg = Brits to be Moved to K'Har, Uruzgan & Zabul?

[The Bread Guy]

British forces to withdraw from Helmand under new US plan for Afghanistan
Toby Harnden, The Telegraph, 28 Mar 10
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The proposal, which would have to be approved by a new British government, is facing stiff resistance. Whitehall officials fear that a pull-out from Helmand, where nearly 250 British troops have been killed since 2006, would be portrayed as an admission of defeat.

Under the plans, British forces would hand over their remaining bases in Helmand to the US Marines as early as this year.

Such a move could bring back unhappy memories of the 2007 withdrawal from Basra in southern Iraq, which provoked jibes about British forces being bailed out by the Americans.

The proposal is linked to a reorganisation of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces that will split the current Regional Command (South) in two after an American-led offensive against the Taliban in Kandahar this summer.

A senior American officer in ISAF said that "the Marines will be the primary force in Helmand and Nimruz" while "British forces will go to a combination of Kandahar and Uruzgan and Zabul" ....

`'At the end of the day, what really matters is success in Afghanistan'
If British forces are indeed asked to re-deploy from Helmand to Kandahar, Uruzgan and Zabul, it would pose a major dilemma for policymakers, writes former Chief of Defence Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt.
The Telegraph, 27 Mar 10
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Some will argue that we have fought, bled and died in Helmand, and should see the job through. They will also point to the waste of effort in terms of contacts made among tribal leaders and local officials. Others, more mischievously, will try to draw parallels with our withdrawal from southern Iraq.

That, however, would be cheap and wrong. The truth is that Gen Stanley McChrystal, the Nato commander, has a major problem. The Canadians and Dutch, who have made a significant contribution to the campaign since 2006, are pulling out: their military capacity is small, and they have shot their bolts. So, Gen McChrystal needs a replacement force in Kandahar. To whom does he turn?

He has three choices: the US Army, the US Marines or the British. There are no other major players capable of taking on the task. He also recognises, quite correctly, that this campaign is going to succeed or fail in Kandahar and Helmand, the Pashtun heartlands which the Taliban must secure in order to have any chance of controlling the country again ....

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[tomahawk6]

Oddly enough there is alot of opposition from the Brits to moving out of Helmand.

 

[SeanNewman]

I agree with the point about the corporate knowledge.  Not so much relationships with tribal elders because we rotate tours all the time, but inside an Army you get very familiar with the maps and names that you work with over the years.

If the situation were reversed, Canada would no longer hear words like Panjwayi or Kandahar that a lot of us are familiar with, and have to learn a new set of hard to spell names.