Camp Bastion, Revisited
Last September, the Taliban staged an attack on USMC aviation assets at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan. Fifteen Taliban insurgents infiltrated the perimeter, then attacked with RPGs and small arms. Two Marines – Lt. Col. Christopher Raible and Sgt. Bradley Atwell – were killed during that attack; 9 other coalition personnel were wounded. Six aircraft were destroyed. Heroic action on the part of the first defenders on the scene prevented both greater loss of life and materiel.
However, now questions have been raised about just how well prepared Camp Bastion was to counter ground infiltration immediately prior to the attack. And it also appears that the answers to those questions are, well, troubling.
Some background: Camp Bastion is a British-run installation in Helmand province. It is adjacent to Camp Leatherneck – the main USMC installation in the area.
Camp Leatherneck does not have an airfield suitable for Harrier operations; Camp Bastion does. Therefore, USMC Harrier assets – as well as a number of Marines – are stationed on Camp Bastion.
As a British-run installation, perimeter security at Camp Bastion was the responsibility of British forces. Taliban forces penetrated the base perimeter to conduct the attack.
There were apparently some significant . . . known issues regarding perimeter security at Camp Bastion prior the night of the attack. Specifically,
- in the month prior to the attack, the number of USMC personnel conducting ground patrols in the local area had been reduced by nearly 70% (from 325 personnel to 100) due to in-country personnel reductions.
- the guard tower nearest the point of infiltration was unmanned the night of the attack; other nearby guard posts could not observe all of the perimeter visible from the unmanned guard tower.
- the guard towers were manned by non-Afghan allied personnel who apparently had a reputation of falling asleep while on guard duty.
These issues were known (or in the case of the “blind areas” due to the unmanned guard post, certainly should have been known) to both US and British personnel. The resulting risks were accepted.
In retrospect, those risks obviously should not have been taken. The cutback in patrolling allowed the Taliban to conduct substantial pre-attack reconnaissance. This in-turn allowed them to determine tower manning, blind spots, and prepare detailed maps to support the attack – one of which they posted publicly afterwards. And tolerating guard personnel sleeping while on duty is a “NO GO” – allied sensibilities notwithstanding.
The USMC reportedly did not initially conduct a formal investigation of the attack, because it occurred on Camp Bastion vice a USMC installation. They have since conducted a review, but apparently do not plan to release the results to the public. The British likewise do not plan to release the results of their investigation the public, either.
I’m well aware that accepting risk is a part of war, and that the enemy “gets a vote” in how things turn out. Sometimes the enemy is good, or just gets lucky. However, in this case it appears maybe we took some risks we really shouldn’t have.
And it also looks like we’re going to try and bury the truth for a while, to avoid embarrassing an ally.
I think that’s the wrong answer here. If we don’t learn from our mistakes, we’ll likely just repeat them. And mistakes that aren’t made public have a way of getting forgotten or ignored.
Sorry – but IMO the casualties that day deserve a bit better than that.
One article giving more details concerning the above may be found here; a second, even more detailed article may be found here. Both IMO are worth reading.
Category: Marine Corps, Military issues
These events, and the utter lack of deserving reporting around them, demonstrate a simple truth.
If A Few Good Men were going to be filmed today, Colonel Jessup’s famous line would have to be changed to “You don’t want to hear the truth!” Instead of airing failures in an attempt to avoid similar circumstances, we bury them. That’s an incredible disservice to all involved.
Improvement is born of failure, both our own and that of others. Hiding away failures like this only encourage a repetition in the future. That’s not the way our allies should be treated. That’s not the way our Marines should be treated. And that’s not the way our country should be treated.
So, just why was any guard tower NOT manned?
I find it very hard to believe that the US and British forces are not sitting down to resolve this once and for all even if it means both sides sharing in security.
Sorry, but from the little I have seen here, it ios a clear case of irresponsibility on both parts. We don’t need to bury the truth, we need to work with the ally. That’s why we are allies.
J
ust the humble opinion of a happily retired Master….
One of my all-time favorite lines from a movie:
“Good judgement comes from experience. A lot of that comes from bad judgement.”
Let’s hope what happened leads to future good judgement.
It seems like yet another example of politics forcing our military to perform missions without the necessary resources.
Anyone who pulls out assets, ceases aggressive patrolling, doesn’t coordinate with Allies and accepts unprofessionalism ans apathy from them is going to get their asses kicked time after time, especially when they refuse to acknowledge their faults. That the Taliban had their shit totally wired and are only getting better needs to cause them grave concern.
Regardless of the consequences to personal reputations, policy, politics, whatever, it is always in the best interests of those involved, and especially of the civilians back home, to put forth the lessons learned from both failures, and successes. The ONLY exception to that should be a clear cut case of national security, where revealing the entire truth would undermine some asset or program that needs to remain classified.
Otherwise, publish it all. Only bad things will come from keeping secrets, burying ledes, etc. That sort of thing breeds rumours, and you end up feeding the twoofers and trolls.
I see this sort of behavior in my professional life. We have a person here that cannot and will not admit to mistakes. It’s never their fault. They didn’t say it. Someone else mislead them.
What they may not realize is they’re doing more harm than if they’d have just manned up and accepted responsibility for things.
Unfortunately, they’re highly placed in the food chain, so few will call them out on it. Those of us who do have our lives made much more difficult for it.
Complacency does indeed kill. This is another example of there being no accountability at the senior leader level in our military. Over $200 million worth of aircraft destroyed, two dead, dozens wounded and no senior leader pays the price with the loss of his job.
SMaj,
I have to disagree, nothing will stop the enemy, they always get a vote. If you can tell me that you never ever did something complacent or made a mistake in country well you are the first. I thank god everyday that the mistakes i made in country were not fatal to any of my men but i can’t honestly tell you i never overlooked something, everyone overlooks things, there is just to much not to. Risk is inherent in war and mistakes inevitable, and sometimes the enemy exploits those mistakes and soldiers die, thats something everyone who puts a uniform on accepts. I have not seen anything that indicates negligence was involved. the on scene commander made a decision balancing risks and he lost his gamble. but if we fired every officer or SNCO who made a mistake well we would not have a good military, i seem to recall Nimitz grounded a ship, Eisenhower and Montgomery approved market garden, Patton slapped a soldier etc. besides who should get fired? the base CO? he is british and probably is not involved in base defense to a huge degree, the CPT in charge of base defense overall who had limited manpower? the LT in charge of the contracted guards? the Sargent of the guard who decided not to man the particular post that day?
on the AAR i completely agree it should be accessible but is it possible it is FOUO, that seems likely, the public does not need to see our TTPs etc. and FOUO is perfectly assessable for those of us in the military. Besides as long as the sustains and improves get out the report is not vital. in training for afghanistan i read a lot of CALL stuff, consolidated AARs and TTPs but i didn’t have time to read the whole reports, thats why call makes consolidated reports.
Empty guard towers, sleeping guards?!?! This isn’t just “overlooking a few details.” This is gross incompetence, and directly related to politics driving strategy driving tactics.
In 04-05, risk averse officers kept Troops inside the wire, giving the enemy the area on the roads and around the bases, which directly allowed the enemy to launch indirect fire at the bases, plant IED’s and kill Troops, leading to Iraq becoming a problem.
To abandon the walls due to force drawdowns is NOT an acceptable risk. Securing the objective, i.e. putting out guards is a top priority of work not only in establishing a base of operations of any size, but also in maintaining that base, and until the last convoy rolls out. EVERY member of the Chain of Command that did or should have known about the problem, or that caused the problem (politician in chief) should receive be “disciplined.”
“Empty guard towers, sleeping guards?!?” If just the sketchy reporting I’ve read is true they are damn lucky it wasn’t much much worse.
I hate to say it, but those were also the norm when i served in Bagram on base security. To be fair, in the case of the LNs, they would be paired off with someone, in our sector an airman from my flight, in other sectors it’d often be a PMC. The official lien was that they were an extra set of eyes, I’m pretty sure it was a PR move. Some of them were all right, during the May 19th attacks, which were several months before I got there, there was a LN who reportedly stood side by side with the airman in his tower and passed him 40mm rounds out of the ammo can, (They aren’t allowed to carry weapons). For the most part, however, they would mostly sleep through the night, with the exception of “Chop Chop”, or midnight chow. We didn’t have any empty towers in our sector, but other sectors did, with the idea that they would create the illusion of security.