Foreign Policy

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate our former Foreign Secretary on his timing today and our present Foreign Secretary on his new approach and wider outlook.

My concern today, again, is Afghanistan. Apart from the timetable of withdrawal, I read or heard nothing this morning to confirm that we still support the United States’ strategy following the dismissal of General McChrystal in somewhat discouraging circumstances. It may well be that the US strategy is in disarray and it could be the moment for us to exert influence in Washington. I hope the Minister will give some more clues on this today because the situation for the Afghan people seems more desperate than ever.

The British public are losing interest in the Afghan project and I offer one possible explanation: they were deceived. They broadly supported the initial campaign to send troops, not because they were defending this country—which was never a realistic proposition—but because they wanted to protect the Afghan people from tyranny. Events in 2001 provided the trigger but at the time, as in Iraq, it seemed that the Afghans wanted to be liberated and would naturally accept the temporary presence of foreign forces and aid workers.

One mistake was to attempt to reconstruct the country according to a model that was too rigidly western, but I do not blame only the Americans for that. Far too much inappropriate aid was wasted in the first few years and much of it went to satisfy the appetites of warlords as well as foreign consultants and companies bringing money back home. When President Karzai criticises foreign Governments for encouraging corruption through large aid transfers, he is absolutely right. That is what happens with large contracts. Stories of large transfers of funds to the Gulf have now even led Congress to suspend the US aid programme.

There was an even more important mistake, which was to identify foreign aid too closely with the military campaign. Today not just USAID but DfID has a vast aid programme in Helmand, not primarily because of the extent of poverty there but because it has been seduced into a hearts and minds campaign that runs in tandem with a war against insurgents. In Marjah, US marines with back pockets full of dollars are offering to build mosques, clinics and schools in the hope that the insurgents will somehow be persuaded to come down from the mountains and rejoin a peaceful community, but that is not going to happen.

The principal UK aid agencies have warned against this “reconciliation” policy for some time. Indeed, the British Overseas Aid Group called on the Ministry of Defence in January, as the Minister may know, to complain about the confusion caused principally by the provincial reconstruction teams. The PRTs were intended to protect and work alongside civilians, but in effect they are military operations rooted in military discipline. I have regularly mentioned this in debates here. If the Foreign Secretary and his colleagues genuinely want to involve civil society more in forward planning in foreign policy, I suggest that he contacts our own aid agencies at the earliest opportunity.

Soldiers can be very efficient in short-term reconstruction, and indeed have successfully built refugee camps, bridges and buildings such as schools and health centres elsewhere. However, when it comes to earning trust among the local population, the involvement of local people in decision-making and the longer-term planning of health and education policy, aid is better left to the specialised aid agencies. There are a lot of NGOs working in Afghanistan with many years’ experience but, instead of building up their resources, the war and investment in security firms has made their work more vulnerable. Private security firms are the very antithesis of peaceful reconstruction and have caused a lot of resentment.

Some of the best development work going on is far from the battle front. I was involved in a project secretly training women teachers during the time of the Taliban, and similar clandestine projects continue today in many parts of Afghanistan, run or funded by UK aid agencies. But surprisingly, Afghanistan, although nearly bottom on the list of poorest countries, is not getting the same support per head from the UK as other countries. Much of our aid is concentrated in so-called “secure areas” covered in troops and barbed wire. One may well ask the Minister, “What is our real objective in remaining in Afghanistan? Do the Afghan people have any evidence that we are there for international development, or is aid becoming an arm of our security strategy?”.

Now that the aid budget is ring-fenced, there is a temptation for other departments to give it different names and label their own work as international development. The noble Lords, Lord Hannay and Lord Anderson, have both mentioned the obvious overlaps between aid and diplomacy. I congratulate DfID on the innovative work that it does in countries such as Kenya, Sudan and Nepal. I admit that the arrival of the coalition has given departments the opportunity to review their programmes after many years, and this must be welcomed. A good example is Sudan, where the FCO and DfID are developing a common programme. This is what should happen.

I am not part of a “troops out of Afghanistan” campaign. We have a commitment to NATO for another four or five years. But while our casualties have increased, the priorities have surely changed. It is my sincere belief that the public are expecting us to remain as channels of development assistance, not as a fighting force. The Army may well have successes but it cannot guarantee that the local population will receive our assistance or proper protection.