Marine expeditionary unit possible in Australia - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Marine expeditionary unit possible in Australia

ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP WASP — The Navy’s top officer raised the possibility Saturday of a Marine expeditionary unit deploying to Australia on a rotational basis as part of a new agreement reached between the Pacific nation and the U.S.

Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, told reporters gathered here on the Atlantic Ocean that he and Marine Commandant Gen. Jim Amos must determine how Marines will work from Australia. President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced late last year that Marines will deploy to the northern port city of Darwin on a rotational basis beginning later this year.

The deployment is expected to include only a couple hundred Marines and sailors based at Darwin’s Robertson Barracks in 2012, but could expand to include at least 2,000 Marines later in the decade. Greenert said top officers in both services must work together to determine what ships will be needed — and whether the Marine air ground task force involved will be a MEU, a crisis response force based at sea.

“We need to shake out the lift,” the admiral said. “The question we need to ask ourselves, I think, is ‘Are we going to go with a traditional amphibious ready group of lift and a traditional MEU, or are we going to tailor the MAGTF to something maybe different?’ ”

It is too early to say what form the Marine task force in Australia will take, Greenert said. A MEU typically deploys with about 2,200 Marines commanded by a colonel, and is spread across three amphibious ships. The admiral left open other possibilities as well, including delivering Australia-based Marines to assignments by joint high-speed vessel.

The CNO visited Wasp during Bold Alligator 2012, a joint amphibious exercise off the coast of North Carolina and Virginia involving at least 14,000 personnel from the U.S., Canada, Australia, France and other countries. At least 25 ships are involved. The exercise was launched to train Navy and Marine officers to execute amphibious operations on a large scale involving a full Marine expeditionary brigade comprising thousands of Marines. Wasp is the command ship for the exercise.

Greenert also addressed U.S. plans to decommission the amphibious transport dock Ponce and turn it into a forward staging base in the Middle East from which special operations and other missions can be launched. While U.S. spec ops forces will operate from the ship, it also will conduct mine countermeasures and operations involving smaller ships, he said.

“To call it a commando ship … you’re leaning too far towards a SOF platform,” Greenert said. “It’s more than that. When we get it out there and operate it, they will find innovative ways to use it and they will adapt from there, and it will help inform future choices.”

Ponce was selected for the mission as it neared the end of its service life to fill a request by Marine Gen. James Mattis, head of U.S. Central Command, for a floating staging base in the region, the admiral said.

“It doesn’t meet all of the requirements capacity-wise,” Greenert said, “but capability-wise, we think it does.”

Several members of Congress also visited Wasp on Saturday, including Rep. Buck McKeon, R.-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Marine Assistant Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford and Lt. Gens. Dennis Hejlik and John Paxton also were aboard.