Afghanistan and Pakistan

John Hemming Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Thomas Docherty]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s point, and I shall respond briefly to it. It is not often that I say this, but the US has been more nuanced than we have. It is not something that the Americans do particularly well, and I am not sure that many of them can spell the word, but they have said that although that is their goal and they are beginning to pull out their surge troops, they are not absolutely committed to their end date.

There is a simple hypothetical question that the House may wish to consider: what if, as we get to the end of 2014, President Karzai says to President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron, who I expect will still be Prime Minister at that point, “We’re almost there but we need another six weeks, or another two months”? My understanding is that President Obama has made it clear that there would be an element of flexibility. Our Government have said that there is absolutely no flexibility. I think we need a plan B, and we need to have an element of flexibility built in, so that if it is a matter of extra weeks, or even a couple of months, a small number of combat troops may stay.

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I share some concerns about the current strategy. Given that the support for the Taliban is, to some extent, a reaction to the presence of occupying forces, what would the hon. Gentleman define as completion?

[Thomas Docherty]

As I said earlier, completion of the mission is training up the Afghan national security forces to the level of troops and police that can take forward their own security. It is not about defeating the Taliban. It is about leaving Afghanistan in a stable condition.