We had a roundtable yesterday that I'm going to break out into two parts. Speaking was Major General Terry Wolff, currently commanding Multinational Division - Center. MND-C was "the Surge Division" when it was created in 2007, with its major responsibility being to control the southern Baghdad Belts and the rural regions that insurgents were using to move and store accelerants. It was first held by the 3rd Infantry Division under then-Major General Rick Lynch. 3ID was replaced by 10th Mountain, which has been replaced by Wolff's 1st Armored Division. All of this is interesting because, shortly after I went over to Iraq the last time, Greyhawk was asking me how much longer I expected MND-C, "the Surge Division," to last. I told him it already didn't exist in its original mission, because the Southern Belts had been handed over to a single brigade -- 2/1 AD -- which had been moved to MND-Baghdad. MND-C had been relocated south, to cover the redeployment of various coalition partners. Hawk and I expected MND-C to be stood down once that task was finished. Instead, MND-B was stood down. MND-C has moved back to Baghdad, which it took over from the 1st Cavalry Division; and out into Anbar, which it now controls in the wake of the end of the Marine Corps' mission in Iraq. These were the two hottest regions of conflict when I first went to Iraq in 2007, with a Marine Corps Expeditionary Force and two full Army Divison Commands holding down on them. Now it's only one division, which has dropped a brigade since the 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team (2/1 AD's replacement) left without being backfilled. The Southern Belts, which needed a whole division just three years ago, now doesn't even need a dedicated brigade. That's the work of the 17th Iraqi Army Division, which is commanded by the highly competent Major General Ali al-Frejee (you can read about him as a BG in this article), in partnership with a number of strong tribal leaders. The roundtable contains quite a bit of interest, so I recommend you read through it.
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Blackfive/~3/EOyYo-j2zZA/roundtable-mndc-commanding-general-terry-wolff.html
Posted
Mar 11 2010, 11:51 PM
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BLACKFIVE