The USMC in Helmand (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

A little late David, but Helmand produced something on the order of 25% of illicit drugs coming out of AFG.

Jon,

Poppy growing was not cited as a reason for the 2006 decision to send UK troops to Helmand, which was intensely political. The UK IIRC was in fact given the 'lead' responsibility for drugs in the whole country when tasks were shared out years before. I may have added posts on this on the UK in Afghanistan thread.

On another thread there are posts on open source reporting of poppy production, which went up in Helmand - although I cannot recall when this increase happened.

Understandably the UK in Helmand did not seriously pursue poppy production, which would have added to the insurgency and as events in 2006 proved it was quite easy to mobilise against an intruder - even if with a GIRoA label.
Not every UK element agreed with this "hands off" stance and some destroyed the poppy product (name lost).

[davidbfpo]

Maybe the final operational post on this episode in USMC history. I cite a WaPo article on the logistics of exiting. Here is one thing left behind (as did the UK):

The Marines decided to leave 420,000 bottles of water, which if lined up end to end would stretch for more than 50 miles.

Link:http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...d5_story.html?

I do wonder if anything was moved overland to Karachi (which is subject of a thread on OEF logistics).