1. Consider the source. AFP is a French national outfit. This is the same outfit that had a journalist take a pic of a Paki standing in a crater beside an old Soviet 155mm artillery shell (still had the lift ring in the fuse well) as evidence that the US used cruise missiles to attack an innocent Paki village.
This organization makes Reuters and AP look like paragons of virtue.
2. This is old news. This has been discussed and the new Sec Def has nixed the idea.
3. The USMC put forward the concept as a final test to their newly developed Distributed Operations concept. The USMC is reworking the concept of organization in warfighting that is likely to do to today's 3CI (Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence) structures, what WW1 did to "infantry in line abreast" mass assault formats.
There's info available at the USMC warfighting lab to a limited degree.
http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/searchview1?SearchView&Query=Distributed%20Operation&SearchOrder=1&SearchMax=&SearchWV=TRUE&SearchThesaurus=FALSE
In case that link is fubar, I googled USMC Warfighting Lab and clicked on Publications.
Then clicked on Marine Corps Directives link in the text on the right side, first info entry area.
Then in the Publications Electronic Library area I entered Distributed Operations in the search box with MC News in the category box.
The USMC did ask for Afghanistan as a final proof of concept test bed sort of deal. Kind of like what Tarawa proved to be for the concept of forced amphib assault on a defended beach... which the Brits had supposedly proved was impossible to successfully conduct at Gallipoli in WW1.
Equivocation is the first step along the road to capitulation.