Editor's Note: This email was sent by one of our general officers in Afghanistan to Hack. His identity is being withheld. While the news from Operation Anaconda is slightly dated, this account provides some new details of the heroism of slain Navy SEAL Neil Roberts and the American soldiers who attempted to rescue him.
From Anaconda AO:
Ground war will be run by CINC's man on the spot, the Commander of 10th Mtn Division. (The CINC isn't trying to run the war via video from Tampa - he has a hell of a lot more to run besides Afghanistan, and that is his job and his place). As any other senior officer who has grown up in a branch culture, the 2-star 10th Mtn Division commander is most comfortable with Army and will primarily rely on them to be the lion's share of the offense on the ground. That's the way they are designed and supported. I think the performance during ANACONDA was a bit of an eye opener. Intel very hard to pin down - it's not a perfect world.Afghans often playing both sides of the fence, thus the senior leaders have to be cautious. Don't think they thought resistance would be as bad initially as they found. Al Qaeda were well-entrenched and prepared to fight. UK SAS had a significant cave fight on a small complex last fall, and it was a brutal close quarter battle.
That should have keyed us to always be thinking they will do the same anytime we find pockets of them, especially if you intend to surround them and provide no "back door" for escape (setting up ambushes to catch them just as they think they've gotten out.
ANACONDA AO almost impossible to close off (huge and rough terrain), and locals supported Al Qaeda in many ways. We nailed a lot of them, but a lot got away. We can expect more of the same in the future. Certainly not a failure, and we'll take them out 100 at a time or 2 at a time, it matters not. The end will be the same, just might take longer.
SF A Teams doing dynamite mixing in with locals and doing their thing. USAF CCT doing incredibly well calling in heavy fire and bombs from above with precision. USAF PJs have been on every hot mission supporting as combat medics.
Unfortunately, there's still some mistaken concept out there that SEALs are only comfortable in water...