UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

David Winnick Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) for introducing a motion that is so important to our nation. I assure the House that the armed forces will be watching our debate extremely carefully. Some of what is said will be very important, and, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), some of it may have an effect on morale.

Last week I had the sad duty and honour of attending the funeral of Lieutenant John Sanderson, a young officer in the battalion that I had the privilege to command. Twelve members of my old battalion have died on the tour that it is currently undertaking, and there is approximately a month to go. Seventy more have been injured.

Roughly 300 people in a battalion go out and seek to engage the enemy. Members can imagine the percentage of casualties that is expected in my old battalion—the 1st Battalion, The Mercian Regiment, once known as The Cheshire Regiment—and how awful that is for their families. There have been 334 deaths in Afghanistan, and probably six times as many people have been injured.

After John’s funeral I spoke to many officers, not only officers from my regiment but, for example, six Royal Marines. When I asked them what they really felt about the war, the first thing that they said to me was, “Make our sacrifice worth it. Do not let us suffer as we have, and then walk away and leave it”—rather, in a way, as we left Basra.

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

I, like every other Member of the House, pay tribute both to the British soldiers who have died in Afghanistan and those who have been seriously injured, to whom we wish the very best. However, turning to a point the hon. Gentleman made a few moments ago, will he recognise that in debates in the House it is the duty and obligation of every Member to speak their mind, and that therefore in this debate it should not be felt that if we are critical, which some of us may well be—I certainly will be, if I am called to speak—that is in any way a betrayal of our British troops? We must speak frankly in this House.

[Bob Stewart]

Forgive me, I did not mean to imply the contrary. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says; it is quite right.

The officers and soldiers to whom I talked were firm that they do not want us not to support them; I shall return to that point. They also do not like the idea of a timeline; they are not very happy about that. Also, of course, they want to be given the resources to be able to do the job we have set them.

Interestingly, the troops also questioned some of the strategic and tactical decisions that their superiors had passed on to them. I wondered what they meant, and I looked back into that. When we went in in 2002, we went in “light”, as we call it: we went in with air power and special forces. We then thought we had done the job and left it to President Karzai. In 2003, we realised that things had gone wrong and we started going back in, and by 2006 John Reid was making hopeful statements in the House. He was acting on military advice in saying that he hoped that the 4,000-odd people being put into Helmand would not have to fire a shot in anger.

--- Later in debate ---

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

In view of what I am about to say, let me repeat what I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart): I pay tribute to the British soldiers who have served, to those who have died and, unfortunately, to the many who will die in the course of the next 12 months and longer. It is to be hoped that the spending cuts will involve no reduction whatever when it comes to looking after and giving every possible medical help to those who are seriously injured, when they return to Britain.

For some time, I have taken the view, which I have expressed on the Floor of the House, that our military role in Afghanistan should be coming to a close. Let us look at the period of time involved. British troops went into Afghanistan before the main NATO force, in November 2001. Our military intervention there has lasted nearly nine years, one third longer than the second world war and twice as long as the first.

Of course, no Member on either side of the House disputes the sheer brutality of the Taliban rule. No one disputes the Taliban’s contempt for those who do not share their views, their contempt for women, and their denial of education to people simply because they are female. All that is horrifying. We also know, only too well, about the public executions—the hangings that took place. We should, however, bear in mind what has been said by the Secretary of State for Defence, to some extent today but in particular when he took over the job last May. He said then that Britain was

“not in Afghanistan for the sake of the education policy”

in what he described as

“a broken 13th-century country”.

It was, he said, “our global interests” that must not be “threatened”.

It should be made clear to those who say that to leave Afghanistan would be to leave it to the mercy of the Taliban that we are not there to provide an alternative Government, to the extent of pursuing different policies. I concede with no hesitation that the presence of British forces and, of course, our allies in Afghanistan has made a difference that has been welcome in many ways. More women go to school, and other clearly desirable policies are being pursued. We must understand, however, that—as the Defence Secretary has made abundantly clear—we are not in the country for that reason.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that if we walk out of Afghanistan now, we will leave it to those very people, the Taliban? Does he want a bloodbath for the people we would leave there?

[Mr Winnick]

Obviously no one in the House wants a bloodbath. As for whether Afghanistan would be left to the Taliban if we went, we just do not know, but it should be borne in mind that at no stage did the Taliban have unanimous support as such. Before our military intervention, there was already constant military engagement against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Winnick]

Not for the moment. I want to make some progress.

Members on both sides of the House have said that there is no question of an outright military victory. Those, such as the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who have more or less suggested that we should stay in Afghanistan indefinitely, must ask themselves, “How long?”

It has already been admitted that a military victory is not going to happen. General David Richards, chief of the British Army and, as we all know, soon to be Chief of the Defence Staff, said only three months ago that it was his personal belief that talking to the Taliban should happen pretty soon. That has happened in other counter-insurgency campaigns, he said. There is no doubt about it: the chief of the British Army has conceded that military victory, in the sense of the victories in the first and second world wars, is not going to happen. It is not on the agenda. At some stage, talks will take place; the question for the House is when.

[Rehman Chishti]

rose—

[Mr Winnick]

I know that the hon. Gentleman is very eager to intervene, but I am limited by time.

Those who take a different point of view from those of us who are very critical should accept that General Richards knows what he is talking about. No Minister, and indeed none of my Front-Bench colleagues, has challenged what General Richards said. No Front Bencher on either side has said that he was talking nonsense.

[Mrs Moon]

It should be recognised that our troops are not there to impose education and new human rights standards on Afghanistan. Afghanistan has a constitution, which it put in place, guaranteeing women access to education and personal rights. Our troops are there to support the Afghanistan constitution and the legitimate Government of Afghanistan.

[Mr Winnick]

My hon. Friend does not answer the point I was making, however: how long will we be there for, bearing in mind that we have already been there for almost nine years?

In order for us to wage such a war, it is necessary to have strong public support in the United Kingdom. Everyone rightly pays tribute to the troops—as I have done—but every expression of public opinion clearly shows that support in Britain for the military engagement in Afghanistan is slipping, and slipping fast. I want to make it clear, as I have on previous occasions, that my views are not influenced by opinion polls. If I felt strongly that we should continue in Afghanistan for a long period but that was a minority opinion, I would not change my view. No Member of Parliament should debate or vote on issues on the basis of opinion polls, but we should recognise that among the British public at large there is decreasing support for our engagement in Afghanistan, and I believe it will decrease still more. That is because the question arises—constituents have asked me this on numerous occasions—of how much longer we are going to be there for, for what purpose and how many more people will die there in what many people, including me, believe is an unwinnable war.

I do not accept the argument that has often been put that we either fight in Afghanistan or we fight on the streets of Britain. That argument was put by my party colleagues when we were in government and they no doubt still hold to it, and it is certainly the Conservative Front-Bench view as well, supported by many Back-Bench Tory colleagues. If we were to win in Afghanistan—if the Taliban were to be defeated—does anyone really believe that our security in our country would be so improved that we would not find it necessary to continue to take the measures we currently take to protect our country and people? The international terrorist network does not necessarily need Afghanistan. It was welcomed in the country in the past, and that was very much to its advantage, but I do not accept for one moment that if it did not have Afghanistan, the terrorist threat to Britain would be that much less.

I also want to refer to a report published this week by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. It is not a controversial body, and as far as I know it is not a particularly left-wing body. It argues, however, that the basis of NATO military policy in Afghanistan is simply wrong. Apart from other factors, it believes that our involvement—NATO’s involvement—fuels the insurgency rather than undermines it.

I do not accept that we can have victory in Afghanistan. When have foreign forces ever succeeded in that country? I take the view that. however desirable some of the policies carried out in Afghanistan arising from military intervention have been seen in that country bearing in mind what the Taliban did, NATO forces are looked upon by many people in Afghanistan who are far removed from the Taliban as foreign forces—as infidel forces, and certainly not Islamic in any way whatever. I find it difficult to believe that they look upon NATO forces as firm allies, rather than as intruders in their country.

I conclude simply by expressing the hope that, regardless of whether there is a vote today, we come to the view that we have been in Afghanistan long enough. The time has surely come for us to agree that our military engagement in that country should soon come to an end.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Lewis]

The answer to that is yes and no: yes in the sense that all counter-insurgencies end, eventually, with a negotiated political outcome, which is what the hon. Gentleman is saying; and no in the sense that now is not the time to negotiate. There has been a lack of strategic consistency in the advice given to Governments. The hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) referred approvingly to General Richards’ recent statement that we ought to negotiate with the Taliban. What he did not state was the Taliban’s response to that, as relayed through the BBC, which has some quite good contacts with the Taliban in a purely professional way. It was that they saw no reason to negotiate because they were winning anyway and deadlines had been set for withdrawal.

The strange thing is that this is the same general—he is a talented and charming man and I have had a number of conversations with him over the years—who said a few months ago when appointed head of the Army that we would need to be in Afghanistan for 30 to 40 years and that there was no question of our withdrawing. Now, because we are getting political messages from the White House and from Downing street that the Governments—or at least the leaders of the Governments—of the United States and the United Kingdom are not prepared to go on indefinitely, we are being told, “Oh yes, well perhaps we could get out in four years after all,” and, “Oh yes, let’s talk to the Taliban.”

[Mr Winnick]

If the general has changed his view in such a substantial way, I welcome it. In my view, he has seen the light. If he was wrong on the subject of talking, as the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, why was he not contradicted by Defence Ministers at the time or by those who are now Ministers?

[Dr Lewis]

That is, of course, the reason for my amendment. I am saying that all the Governments are signed up to an unrealistic strategy which ought to be changed. The reality is that General Richards was not really wrong in what he said previously and he is not really wrong when he says that we ought to be talking to the enemy. It is a question of timing. The truth of the matter is that General Petraeus is absolutely right to pursue such a counter-insurgency strategy, provided that we have all the time in the world and that we are prepared to take the casualties that are being inflicted on us by irregular forces. If we are not prepared to take those casualties, we will have to adopt a more realistic strategy, because otherwise we will withdraw arbitrarily and, on our withdrawal, the likelihood of the Afghan Government’s being able to sustain themselves is open to doubt.

What should we be thinking about in terms of our policy? There are those who believe that it should be possible to fight using special forces alone, and they have a particular point, which is as follows. I have been concerned at the artificial distinction drawn between counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism, as if insurgents and terrorists were two different things. Terrorism is not an ideology but a tactic. Sometimes insurgents use it and sometimes they use other methods.

In Afghanistan at first, the insurgents were using much more open methods—mass attacks and ones that enabled us effectively to take their armed forces on and to defeat them in fairly open conflict. Gradually, they learned the lesson from Iraq and adopted a different strategy. They started to use terrorism tactics that enabled them to pick off our servicemen and women one by one in an attritional method of campaigning which uniformed armed forces are unable to counter effectively. That is why the answer to such fighting is the deployment of special forces who can meet it appropriately; but that in itself is not enough. If we put pressure on one side by saying, “We are going to withdraw in a few years’ time, President Karzai, so you had better get your act together”, but we want to negotiate with the other side and to get a settlement, we have to put pressure on them too.

That is why I say that we ought to be doing something that I have mentioned in the House before: we ought to be using the time that has been bought by the surge to build up a strategic or sovereign base and bridgehead area, so that when the time comes at which we say, “We are going to withdraw from being thinly spread over the entire country”, rather than quitting completely we withdraw into an impregnable base.

Time does not permit me to take this issue further, but I say simply to hon. Members on both sides of the House that there is nothing dishonourable in fighting for a better strategy for our troops—it is not sending a signal that we are not supporting the troops. To support the troops when they are being led by a faulty strategy is not to support the troops at all. I will be pressing my amendment and I urge Members to vote for it to show that we support the cause and the campaign but we know that the strategy needs to be modified.