US MARINE CORPS

FEBRUARY TO MARCH, 2010

1ST BATTALION

6TH MARINES

The operation by four thousand US Marines in southern Helmand had proved that a small area can be made relatively secure when flooded with troops. The numbers needed to apply the same tactics across the country were far beyond what was available.

Things continued to get worse; October 2009 was the deadliest month of the war yet. Even General McChrystal said that there would be complete failure unless the ‘serious and deteriorating’ conditions were not changed. He referred to the current policy as ‘Chaos-istan’, which would leave the country as a ‘Somalia-like haven of chaos that we simply manage from the outside’.

His solution was more troops. President Obama was lobbied hard to approve a ‘surge’, to replicate what had happened in Iraq. After a lengthy review, the President agreed on a new policy, and thirty-three thousand additional troops, for Afghanistan.

Talk of liberating the women of Afghanistan and creating a democracy had evaporated. The new policy had three, far more modest, objectives: deny Al-Qaeda a safe haven; reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government; and strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government, so that they could take the responsibility for the country’s future.

I learned that when the first of the new troops arrived, ‘the big one’ was going to happen. ‘The big one’ was a long-rumoured assault on Marjah, a farming district in Helmand that had become a Taliban stronghold. The assault would be led by the US Marines, the first of the additional troops to arrive. The world – and America’s enemies – were to be shown that the new policy could work; the Taliban could be removed, the population could be won over, the Afghans could secure their country themselves and we could leave.

Because I worked alone, was able to keep up, stuck around for longer than a day or two and carried everything I needed on my back, the Marines asked if I wanted to join them. This was the biggest military operation since the war had begun; one of the biggest stories of my career. I thought I’d be rewarded for my persistence and bombarded with offers. I contacted all the BBC executives I knew but was completely ignored. BBC America showed some interest but at the last minute, someone I’d never heard of went out of his way to prevent me from going. No one was willing to tell me why or even to talk to me. I simply heard a rumour that my trip had been ‘red-carded’ and that was that.

During my best friend’s stag weekend in Copenhagen, I got a phone call from the Marines: the invasion of Marjah had been brought forward. I needed to get there immediately. I had no chance of getting a commission at such short notice. I either had to pass up this chance, wasting months of work, or go out there on my own, without backing, insurance or funding.

I might have been making the biggest mistake of my life but I couldn’t say no. I said an awful goodbye to my friends, got the next plane back to London, borrowed or hired everything I needed and headed back to Afghanistan. There was every chance I could come back in debt, without a film, without legs, or worse. But I had to see America’s latest – and probably last – attempt to win the war in Afghanistan.