Afghanistan

Bob Ainsworth Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Liam Fox)]

Mr Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to update the House on our operations in Afghanistan. As the Prime Minister has said, we intend to make regular updates to the House.

As this is a complex subject, I have made maps available to assist hon. Members. I am grateful to you for your support, Mr Speaker. These are now available in the Vote Office, and the Whips on both sides of the House are distributing them. In addition, I will obviously be happy to arrange further briefings at the Ministry of Defence, should Members find them useful.

The Prime Minister reminded us today of the ongoing sacrifices made by our armed forces in Afghanistan. In the face of such losses, we should be in no doubt about the importance of the mission—particularly today, the fifth anniversary of the London bombings in 2005. It is vital to our national security that we have a stable Afghanistan that is able to maintain its own security and prevent al-Qaeda from returning.

As I made clear in Washington last week, we are a committed member of the international coalition of 46 countries in Afghanistan. We have a clear political strategy, and a clear military counter-insurgency plan to support it. The focus now is on delivering, and we can be confident that General Petraeus will build on the considerable success of General McChrystal.

We face many challenges. Progress has been slower in some areas than others, particularly on the political side. We can expect success in counter-insurgency to be gradual, cumulative and hard won, but there has, nevertheless, been considerable progress. Through a UK lens, it would be easy to assume that all of Afghanistan is like Helmand. In fact, many parts of the country are largely secure, with low levels of violence. In Kabul, the Afghans themselves have assumed responsibility for security, and have proved themselves capable of dealing with the localised threats that have emerged.

We are also making good progress on building up the Afghan security forces, so that this pattern can be repeated elsewhere. The Afghan army has been growing steadily over the years—and by 20% in recent months—to about 130,000 troops now. We are playing our part, and the Government have recently approved the expenditure of up to £189 million on new surveillance, communications and logistics equipment for our bases, as part of Britain’s ongoing commitment to support the effective partnering of the Afghan security forces.

In southern Afghanistan, the story of this year has been one of the Afghans themselves increasingly coming to the fore in the fight against the insurgency. In Kandahar, and under the direct oversight of President Karzai, Afghan security forces are leading operations as part of a rising tide of security in order to set the conditions for improved Afghan governance. In Helmand, Afghan and international security assistance force units have together succeeded in expanding the authority of the Afghan Government to 11 out of the 14 districts, by driving insurgent fighters out of the population centres of Babaji and Nad-e-Ali, while consolidating previous gains in Lashkar Gah, Now Zad, Nawa and Gereshk. The situation in Marjah remains challenging, but counter-insurgencies are about progressively winning the confidence of the local people, and the US Marines are well placed to succeed.

Elsewhere in central Helmand, where our presence is more established, we have seen considerable success. In Nad-e-Ali, British troops have been operating alongside the Afghans to secure the district centre and allow unfettered access to local roads Improved security is allowing effective governance to flourish and trade to grow. In May, for example, around 3,000 Nad-e-Ali residents elected a more representative district community council. ISAF now intends to reinforce this success. For that reason, I have accepted an ISAF request for a temporary deployment of elements of our theatre reserve battalion, the 2nd Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. The theatre reserve battalion is a standing force based in Cyprus, which I have instructed should be used only for time-limited deployments to fulfil specific tasks. This deployment will meet those criteria. The additional forces will be used to give commanders additional flexibility to reinforce progress in central Helmand this summer.

In a counter-insurgency campaign, the people are the prize. It is hugely important that we strike the right balance between the numbers of the civilian population and the size of the security forces available to protect them. The Prime Minister and I regularly argued in opposition that British troops in Helmand were too thinly spread and that we had insufficient force densities for effective counter-insurgency. That is why we welcome the arrival of more than 18,000 US Marines, whose presence is allowing us to deliver a better and more realistic distribution of tasks within the international coalition.

As the House is aware, ISAF has already transferred security responsibility for Musa Qala and Kajaki to US forces, who are building on our achievements there. Lieutenant General Rodriguez, ISAF’s operational commander, will today announce the next phase of this process—I understand that he will do so within the next hour. ISAF intends to restructure its forces in the Farah and Nimroz provinces so that it can consolidate a US marine brigade in northern Helmand, which will assume responsibility for security in Sangin later this year. This will simplify current command arrangements and enable UK troops to be redeployed to reinforce progress in the key districts of central Helmand. The theatre reserve battalion will then withdraw. The result will be a coherent and equitable division of the main populated areas of Helmand between three brigade-sized forces, with the US in the north and south, and the UK-led Task Force Helmand, alongside our Danish and Estonian allies, in the central population belt.

We have been closely consulted by ISAF, and fully support this plan. In Sangin, UK forces have made huge progress in the face of great adversity. The district centre has been transformed. Helmand, as a whole, is a safer place as a result of our endeavours and sacrifices there. I am sure that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to those who have lost their lives in Sangin, and those who continue to serve there.

The operations in Afghanistan, though geographically distant, are of vital importance to our national security. On the ground, we continue to make progress. There will be hard days ahead, but the further changes that I have announced will mean more manpower and greater focus for the key terrain of central Helmand. We have the right strategy, and we are determined to succeed. I commend this statement to the House.

[Mr Bob Ainsworth (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

I thank the Defence Secretary for his statement, for early sight of it and for the indications that he gave me yesterday about the broad outline of what he was going to say today. That is good news for our ability to continue to support, from all parts of the House, our forces’ operations in Helmand province.

I welcome what the Defence Secretary said about his commitment to regular updates to the House, and his offer of briefings in the Ministry of Defence, but will he consider continuing the direct military briefings that started last year for Members here at the House of Commons? They were appreciated by Members on both sides, and I know that the all-party Army group has written to him and asked him to continue them. If he could, that would be appreciated. I know that it is onerous in terms of his time, but I ask him to consider doing so.

I totally agree about the purpose of the mission. Our forces are in Afghanistan to protect our national security and to keep us safe. The right hon. Gentleman says that we have a clear counter-insurgency plan and the military tactics to support that plan, but he knows that there is some concern and confusion over whether there are deadlines. Will the Government do their level best to clear up that confusion, so that people know the exact commitments? Is our combat mission in Afghanistan to continue on a conditions-based footing until the Afghan forces can take over, as was the situation, or is there a very clear deadline from the new Government stating that our combat mission will end on a particular date, irrespective of the conditions in Afghanistan? It is enormously important to clear up that point.

The right hon. Gentleman felt the need to say that, in opposition, he and the current Prime Minister repeatedly said that there were issues of force density, but I ask him to accept that it was not only he in opposition who felt the need to concentrate on and deal with force densities, because we in government had exactly the same priorities. Before force densities could be addressed, however, we needed to have someone to hand those districts on to, so, before the arrival of the American uplift, we could not hand on Musa Qala, Kajaki or Sangin to anyone other than the Taliban. Thankfully, the American uplift now gives us an opportunity to rebalance our forces in Afghanistan, and we have been doing that for some time. I understand that his announcement today is simply a continuation of an ongoing process. Does that effectively end the need for force rebalancing? In the British area of operations, do we now have the same ratio of forces to population as the Americans have on their side of the line?

The right hon. Gentleman said that Marjah is very challenging. Does he intend to deploy elements, as he said, of the theatre reserve battalion to the American—Marjah—area of operations? If so, for how long, and in what numbers? He says “elements”. Does that mean the whole theatre reserve battalion? Do we now, effectively, have no reserve for the rest of the deployment, or are some elements of the theatre reserve battalion still available to cover other contingencies that might arise?

We had already agreed in principle to hand command in Sangin over to the American brigade. I understand that the Secretary of State is now saying that it is not only in terms of command—the Americans themselves will take over in Sangin. When will that happen? Has he any idea what forces will be deployed, and in what numbers, into the Sangin area?

Does the Secretary of State accept that there will be mixed emotions, and pretty deep emotions, among many elements of our armed forces who have served in Helmand—not only those who have experienced injury, but those who have lost loved ones, which includes families back here, and everybody who has served in the most dangerous part of our theatre of operations? Our forces went out there on a daily basis to patrol, fully knowing the risks that they faced, and the whole House must pay tribute to the immense bravery, courage and resilience that they have shown over a period of time. They have achieved some considerable improvements in Sangin, but I think that the Defence Secretary will accept that we are still handing on a challenge. We have not got as far as we ideally would have hoped to get in Helmand before this hand-on.

[Dr Fox]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his support for the specific proposals that I have set out today and for his general support on the mission in Afghanistan. He was very generous with the briefings that he made available to the Opposition when he was in government, and we will continue the same courtesy. I also fully intend to continue the briefings for Members of Parliament begun under the previous Government; they are very valuable. In addition, as I said, if we are able to provide more detailed briefings in the Ministry of Defence, we are happy to do so. We should not, in any way, shape or form, be shy about providing any Member of this House with the information they require to make better sense of what is happening in this most important national security mission.

The shadow Secretary of State is entirely correct that it took until the American surge was fully under way for us to be better able to have sensible force densities. He asked me directly about comparisons between the British and Americans. Combat Team North has a population of 441,000, which is 37% of the population; Task Force Helmand has 388,000, or 32%; and Combat Team South has 370,000, or 31%. These are much better matches in terms of force density. He asks if this will effectively be it. Well, not necessarily, as there will be changes in the mission, but we will want to continue this pattern, or shape, in terms of force density. As he says, we have reached the end point, at least for now, of a process that began some time ago.

On the size of the theatre reserve, we will have some 300 personnel, and they will stay there until October. The size of the current UK force is about 1,000—I think that the exact number is 1,008. The exact number that the Americans put in will of course be for their commanders to determine in terms of the security situation that they find.

As regards 2015, I can only repeat what the Prime Minister has said—that British troops will not be there in a combat role, or in significant numbers, in five years’ time, but we can expect them to still be there in a training role. There will be a continued need for us to ensure that the quality of the Afghan national security forces is adequate. I echo the point that he made by saying that we are very fortunate in this country to have a volunteer Army—people who are willing to put their life and limb at risk on a voluntary basis for the security of this country, its people and its interests. We are deeply honoured and privileged to have such people in our armed forces.