Afghanistan

David Winnick Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

My right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that question, as the right hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) also did. As we draw down, force protection will be one of the key determinants of the shape of the force and the scale of draw-down that is possible. As my right hon. Friend suggests, there will be co-ordination across ISAF, including sharing force protection arrangements as the force gets smaller. I should also draw my right hon. Friend’s attention to what I said earlier about the reduction of the UK footprint in Helmand. That is significant and has significant implications for force protection. We are now servicing 32 UK locations in Helmand province, as opposed to more than 80 UK locations just nine months ago. That has led to a significant reduction in both the logistics challenge and the force protection challenge.

[Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)]

When military action was first taken in Afghanistan some 11 years ago, the purpose was rightly to remove, after 9/11, al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, and that was accomplished fairly quickly. I welcome the troop reduction, but does the Secretary of State accept that a military victory of any kind over the Taliban is totally out of the question—it has not come about so far, and it is not going to come about in the next two years—and that the future of Afghanistan will have to be decided by Afghans, even including some Taliban members, who are totally opposed to that obnoxious organisation?

[Mr Hammond]

To my surprise, I largely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is right that the initial challenge was to defeat al-Qaeda and deny it the space to organise in Afghanistan, and that has been achieved. He is also right that military means alone will not solve the problem in Afghanistan, and I do not think anyone in this Government or the previous Administration has suggested that. In the end there has to be compromise and dialogue, and a process that draws into civil society what we might call the soft part of the insurgency, which is willing to renounce insurgent activity and engage in political dialogue. Our experience in the United Kingdom and around the world clearly suggests that that is the way sustainably to end these kinds of enduring conflict. If we want an enduring peace in Afghanistan, it will need to involve all sections of Afghan society and all strands of political opinion.