AfghanistanTwo generals fired for costly Afghanistan failure

Gen. James F. Amos, the commandant of the Marine Corps, yesterday fired two generals for failing properly to protect a U.S. base in southern Afghanistan, allowing Taliban fighters to storm it last year, killing two Marines and destroying a half a dozen U.S. fighter jets.

Amos’s move is highly unusual. Thomas Ricks, the military historian, notes that the last two-star general to be fired for combat incompetence was Army Maj. Gen. James Baldwin, who was relieved of command in 1971 under similar circumstances: the North Vietnamese attacked a poorly protected U.S. outpost, killing thirty soldiers.

Until Monday, no general has been fired for negligence since 1971.

The Washington Post reports that the Taliban assault for which the two generals were fired was also unprecedented: Fifteen insurgents managed to enter a NATO airfield and destroyed almost an entire squadron of Marine AV-8B Harrier jets, the largest single loss of allied materiel in the almost 12-year Afghan war.

Gen. Amos said the two generals — Maj. Gen. Charles M. Gurganus, the top Marine commander in southern Afghanistan at the time, and Maj. Gen. Gregg A. Sturdevant, the senior Marine aviation officer in the area — did not deploy a sufficient number of troops to guard the base, and did not take other measures to prepare for a ground attack by the Taliban.

The two “failed to exercise the level of judgment expected of commanders of their rank,” Amos said.

“It was unrealistic to think that a determined enemy would not be able to penetrate the perimeter fence.” Amos said.

The deadly attack took place at Camp Bastion, a British-run NATO air base in Helmand province which is located right next to Camp Leatherneck, a sprwling U.S. facility that serves as the NATO headquarters for southwestern Afghanistan.

The U.S.-British security plan on the night of the attack was “sub-optimal,” the investigation found, with no single officer in charge of security for both Bastion and Leatherneck. The security arrangement created command-and-control relationships “contrary to the war-fighting principles of simplicity,” Amos wrote in a memo accepting the investigation.

Gen. Gurganus took command in 2011, and the report notes that hat in summer 2012 he sought permission to add 160 troops to protect Bastion and Leatherneck, but that his request was rejected.

Still, Amos said Gurganus should have reallocated troops from elsewhere to protect the encampments. “The commander still has the inherent responsibility to provide protection for his forces,” Amos said. “Regardless of where you are in a [troop] drawdown, you’re required to balance force projection with force protection.”

The Post notes that in an interview with the paper earlier this year, Gurganus described the attack as “a lucky break” for the Taliban. “When you’re fighting a war, the enemy gets a vote,” he said.

Amos said the decision to fire the generals was the most agonizing choice he has had to make as Marine commandant. Gurganus and Sturdevant are friends of his, he said, and their collective time in uniform totals almost seven decades.