Into brown waters: Navy riverine force to report for Iraq duty in 2007.

The Navy expects to deploy three riverine squadrons in 2007. The units will relieve Marines who currently are conducting maritime security operations in the ports and inland waterways of Iraq.

According to preliminary plans presented at a conference in Panama City, Fla., the force would have a fleet of 36 armed and armored combatant craft, with 12 boats per squadron, and would be able to transport the equivalent of one Marine Corps rifle company. Two crews would be assigned to each craft for round-the-clock operations.

Though the force would be deployed to Iraq initially, the idea is that these river commandos could be employed around the world, in hotspots where terrorists have developed niches along inland waterways--places such as the Niger delta, Colombia, Indonesia and the Philippines, said Rear Adm. Donald K. Bullard, commander of the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command.

The organization and training of these units will fall under the purview of the NECC.

The riverine crews' missions will include interdiction of arms or terrorist smugglers, barricade operations to stop inflow to a certain area, training other countries' law enforcement and visual and electronic surveillance of particular enemy activities, said Bullard.

"It's not any different if you take a look at what we do in the littoral," said Bullard. "We're just extending those normal, long-time naval capabilities out from the littoral and into the inland waterway."

The three units will be manned by 700 sailors drawn from across the entire Navy.

"We understand boats," he said. "Currently, we don't have a riverine force, but we operate, in the Navy, 38 different types of boats." For example, special operations forces operate high-speed craft and sailors also operate port security boats.

These riverine forces will train alongside the Marines using the Corps' current equipment, which includes the 38-foot small unit riverine craft and the 38-foot riverine assault craft.

"Right now, the equipment that the Marines have, as we relieve them, is sufficient for the Iraq mission," said Bullard.

The Navy will study options for possibly buying new boats in the future.

"It may be not a single boat," he said. Riverine missions may require a variety of boats. A high-speed craft, for instance, would be needed for security and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance interdiction functions. Another type of boat may be needed to move a rifle company.

The procurement of new hardware is tied to high-level budget deliberations currently underway at the Pentagon. Because the command is still evaluating requirements, Bullard declined to name any specific boats under consideration.

Military leaders, at home and abroad, have voiced the need for a riverine force.

"Two things happened last year," Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Gordon Nash, director of the Navy's expeditionary warfare division, told conference attendees. The chief of operations from the Peruvian Navy visited Adm. Vernon Clark, then U.S. Navy chief, and informed him he had found 14,000 miles of navigable river mostly between Peru and Colombia. That area, Nash noted, is providing refuge to Colombian terrorists, and the Peruvian Navy was seeking help from the United States in monitoring that long stretch of water.

Then in November, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Army Gen. John Abizaid, insisted he needed a riverine capability, Nash said. The Marines had decided to stand down their units, and Abizaid feared he would not have enough help patrolling the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Speaking at the same conference, Lt. Gen. James M. Mattis, commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, said the enemy in Iraq has exploited the lack of U.S. dominance in inland-waterway warfare.

"The enemy is definitely going to frown when they hear the U.S. Navy is going into the brown and green water. They are not going to like that," he said.

The Navy already has a riverine capability embedded in its special operations forces.

"But they're at capacity. So we're trying to increase capacity" with the new riverine force, said Bullard.

In a written response to questions from National Defense, a Naval Special Warfare Command spokesman said that the riverine force will cover more conventional types of operations, but that the riverine and special operations forces will train and fight together.

Likewise, the two commands will coordinate tactics, techniques and procedures, identify gaps and seams, work material solutions--such as boats, weapons, gear and ammunition--and coordinate the use of training ranges.

Going up the rivers is not a new concept for the Navy. As Bullard pointed out, the service has been conducting inland waterway operations for 230 years. But a fully equipped and trained riverine command squadron has not existed since the Vietnam War, when the enemy employed rivers to communicate and to transport people and arms.

"The Navy had to go into that battle space to interdict the enemy. And if you take a look, our riverine forces in Vietnam did very brave and very good things, just like this one will," said Bullard.

RELATED ARTICLE: Navy reshuffle will move thousands of sailors to brown-water duties.

NORFOLK, VA -- The Navy plans to tackle terrorism and other unconventional threats via a massive reorganization that will shift thousands of sailors from traditional duties. This new approach will permit the sea service to conduct operations on land and close up in shallow water.

Between 40,000 and 50,000 sailors will transition during the next two years, "from the blue water, all the way into the brown water," said Rear Adm. Donald K. Bullard, head of the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command.

The NECC only has been in existence since October, but is viewed as a linchpin in the Navy's strategy to become more relevant in so-called "irregular" warfare, such as counterinsurgency operations in Iraq. The command will oversee units ranging from the naval coastal warfare groups and the master-at-arms forces, to the Seabees, bomb-disposal crews and expeditionary logistics specialists. It also will manage the Navy's new riverine squadrons.

"They didn't have an overarching command to bring them together to provide the continuity and man, train, equip, resource. That was the spark," said Bullard in an interview at Fleet Forces Command headquarters.

In the U.S. Central Command area of operations in the Middle East, Bullard said, about 5,000 to 7,000 sailors are supporting the Army and Marine Corps. The NECC will have to ensure they get the proper training for these non-traditional jobs, he explained.

The command will have the ability to stand up and train new capabilities that may be required to handle emerging threats. A case in point is a three-squadron riverine force that will replace the Marines' disestablished small-boat companies in Iraq.

But Bullard cautioned that his command is not about to organize a naval infantry or duplicate what the Marine Corps does.

Beginning this month, Bullard said the command will begin to bring in forces in a phased approach so it doesn't disrupt current operations.

"I think it'll take a couple of years, possibly longer, till we get to full maturity," said Bullard. "This is an evolutionary process. But I think by the end of '06, we should be able to have an organization that is the focus point for this battle space. And we'll be able to identify the seams we need to close with the Marines, with the SEALs, with air forces, with surface forces."

New "concepts of operations" and specific equipment requirements for NECC are still being defined, said Bullard. "We'll be looking for better effective training, more efficient training, capitalizing on our synergies in our different training programs."

The importance of preparing sailors for "civil-military operations" has been underscored not only by the ongoing operations in Iraq, but also by last year's tsunami and hurricane relief efforts, Bullard said.

The NECC also brings the Navy one step closer to being able to execute its ambitious "sea basing" concept, in which a joint military operation could be launched and supported from ships 25 miles from the coast.

The command expects to have equal status as other commands in the service, such as the air forces, the surface forces, the submarine forces and network warfare.

But there is a distinction, said Bullard. "This is a combat service and a combat service support organization ... We're not an offensive arms maneuver force." Yet because of the environment the force likely will encounter, combat training will continue.

Forces under NECC also will be trained to help non-U.S. coalition partners in areas such as port security, harbor operations, logistics flow and customs.

"That's pretty powerful," Bullard said. Tighter security in foreign ports, he noted, could help stem the movement of terrorists and illegal weapons.