UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ainsworth]

Yes, and I congratulate the Government on that. However, I would say to the hon. Gentleman that the changes were introduced at the same time as a freeze in service pay.

I have a couple more questions to ask the Secretary of State about things that I hope the Government will do in a timely manner. I do not know whether he is going to respond to the debate, because I know he has to leave the Chamber.

Force densities are not the only thing that we will need to succeed. We need the right equipment, and I wish to ask two specific questions about that. Last December I made some changes to the defence budget, partly to address some of the pressures ahead of the strategic defence and security review and partly to prioritise equipment for Afghanistan. That included an order for 22 Chinook helicopters. Why have the new Government not gone ahead with that order? The Secretary of State, the very man who continually criticised our record on helicopters, seems now to be allowing delay in that order, and I should like to ask him why. Equally, in the summer of 2009 I made it my business to intervene to put maximum speed and effort behind the development of a light protected patrol vehicle. Why have the Government not yet placed that order?

As we have discussed, the Deputy Prime Minister has said definitively:

“By 2015 there will not be any British combat troops in Afghanistan”.

Yet in a debate that I attended earlier this week the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), the Defence Secretary’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, said that we should think of that announcement in the same terms as General Petraeus’s clarification of the US position. He said that there were a lot of conditions, and that there would still be special forces there. I absolutely agree with the Defence Secretary that we must be as clear as we can with all the sets of people involved in such an important matter as our intervention in Afghanistan, but the situation is currently not clear.

There appear to have been definitive statements from both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister that irrespective of what happens, the combat mission will end in 2015. The Secretary of State knows that that is causing angst both within and outwith our armed forces. He did his best today to finesse that argument, but too many intelligent people who follow the record carefully know that there is a problem. Unless there are conditions-based timelines rather than an arbitrary finish date, the success of the mission is not helped. He need only read this morning’s edition of The Daily Telegraph to see the confusion that can occur, with people believing that Sherard Cowper-Coles’s departure indicates that the Government no longer have comprehensive determination to pursue the mission in Afghanistan.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the shadow Secretary of State accept that the reason why both President Obama and our Prime Minister seem intent on setting deadlines is the high level of casualties being incurred? Does he accept that if they did not set a deadline and continued with the current strategy, we could end up having that high level of casualties for perhaps another 20 or 30 years? Will he consider the fact that given a choice between taking too many casualties for a very long period or, perhaps, very few casualties through precipitate withdrawal, we ought to go for an intermediate strategy that has no deadline but does not incur the same number of casualties? That is the basis of the amendment that I shall move later, which I hope the right hon. Gentleman might consider encouraging his party to support.

[Mr Ainsworth]

I know the hon. Gentleman’s views and that he has tabled an amendment to the motion. He has spoken on this issue previously, and he has given a lot of thought to it, but the reason he gave is not one of the reasons given publicly for the strategies that are being pursued. Perhaps we need a debate in this country on whether we are sufficiently steely or enduring to pursue prolonged counter-insurgency conflicts, but that is not the reason for the Government’s strategy. If it is, let the Government encourage such a debate and let us have it in the House. However, what he says is not what the Government are saying. He has added yet more complexity to the reasons for what the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister are saying.

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[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment (a), at end add—

‘provided that a more realistic military strategy is adopted designed to fulfil the United Kingdom’s long-term interests in the region at lesser cost in life, limb and financial resources.’.

It is a privilege to have the opportunity to move the first Back-Bench amendment to a motion selected for debate in this House by Back Benchers themselves. I have a friend who is engaged to a corporal in the Army. He is a medic who has been on two tours of Afghanistan, the second of which he volunteered for before he had to go. As a medic, he is one of a small number of people who go out on every patrol because something horrible may happen to one of their comrades. He understands the importance of that vital role and so decided to stay on for two weeks longer than necessary at the end of his second tour, to avoid there being no proper handover to the medics who would succeed him.

In the second of those two extra weeks that he voluntarily undertook, on the second tour for which he also volunteered, he was blown up. He was in a new Husky armoured vehicle, so he and his entire crew survived. It is typical of his spirit that the picture of him grinning in front of the absolutely devastated vehicle now adorns the laptop of his fiancée, my friend. Had he been blown up a week earlier, he would have been in a Vector armoured vehicle and he and all his comrades would be dead. So, in this case, it is one up for the former Government and for the armed forces, but it is not one up for the strategy that we have been pursuing.

Over past months, I have made various inquiries about where casualties are primarily incurred, because the question of deadlines is related to casualties more than to anything else. The previous and present Governments have made no secret of the fact that the overwhelming majority of casualties are incurred on predictable patrols by uniformed military targets, which is what our armed forces have become under the current strategy.

For the sake of clarity—it is important that people following this debate should understand this, given what we are told about the audiences who will listen to, see and read what we say today—may I spell out the difference between my amendment and the original motion? The motion is very simple and it states:

“That this House supports the continued deployment of UK armed forces in Afghanistan.”

Those who think that the mission should be open-ended should therefore vote for the motion. If they think that the troops should come home straight away and that the whole thing is a lost cause, misguided and counter-productive, as some have argued today, they should vote against the motion. However, if Members think, as I do, that the mission is justified and important, but that it is not being pursued in the right way, they should consider voting for my amendment.

The reason for that was made clear when my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Defence, so typically put his finger on the heart of the matter. As he said, it is true that if the public believe we have a strategy that will succeed, they will support the mission. Why is public support for the mission draining away? It is because the public are not satisfied with the strategy. That is why I propose adding the words of the amendment to the end of the motion.

[Sir Robert Smith]

Does the hon. Gentleman think that the coalition’s move to much more of a political engagement to try to move things forward is the right way to proceed in order to bring the troops home in the long run? Does he think that we need to find a political solution on the ground, and that it is not so much the military strategy that has had to be refocused but the political context of that strategy?

[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.

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[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

I am very pleased to be able to follow the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who speaks with considerable authority and knowledge on these matters. I believe that he has served out in Afghanistan and lived there for quite a while. Nevertheless, I am still not entirely sure that I follow the logic of what he said. Perhaps I shall return to that a little later.

Like many other Members, I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on selecting this debate. It is the first such all-day debate that we have had, and it is most important. When I say that unfortunately I cannot support the motion, I mean no disrespect to the Committee. I am not sure how the motion came to be drafted, but I cannot see how Members can support so open-ended and black-and-white a motion stating that the House

“supports the continued deployment of UK armed forces in Afghanistan.”

There is no mention of a limited period, even though the Prime Minister himself has said—quite rightly, in my opinion—that it is inconceivable that we shall still be in a combat role by 2015. The Foreign Secretary agreed with that at the last Foreign Office questions, having made it absolutely clear that counter-insurgencies invariably end in a political settlement, which means talks. I shall come back to that in a moment. The Defence Secretary also agreed today, although he gave a mixed message. On the one hand he said that he wanted the troops to return as victors—a singularly ill-chosen word, since that is clearly not what will happen—and, on the other, he said that he knew there had to be a political solution.

If Members do not find themselves able to support the motion, as I cannot, that leaves us with the amendments. I congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) on tabling his amendment and having it selected, but when he explained the nature of his alternative strategy I had doubts about whether an impregnable, sovereign strategic base with an enormous number of troops could be established and function in the role that he envisages. He has not had time to develop his argument today, nor have I had the occasion to talk to him further about it. However, his amendment is somewhat difficult to vote for, even though I would like to be able to do so given that it states what I believe is essential, which is that the current strategy is not working. While it is now said that we have learned to deal better with IEDs, the insurgents have switched their tactics and are now killing more and more successfully with sniper bullets.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

On a purely procedural matter, there is nothing in the wording of my amendment that commits hon. Members to backing any particular solution. I have given my own interpretation, but as long as the hon. Gentleman agrees with the wording of the amendment, there is no reason why he, and I hope other hon. Members, should not vote for it.

[Mr Robinson]

The hon. Gentleman is now at his most persuasive and irresistible best, and I will give the matter further thought during and after my speech.

As for the other amendments, while I agree with much in amendment (c), tabled by the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), it is inadequate in that it implies a cut-and-rush approach of getting out willy-nilly as soon as we can. I do not think that is on, or that the country would want to see us scuttle away. I believe that the only approach is the one that I outlined in an early-day motion that I circulated to most Members, which I hope will find support throughout the House. It arose from the message that came from the Taliban in August, which was the subject of a front-page article in The Guardian. It stated that the Taliban were open to negotiations and discussions about civilian deaths. That is a major problem for the allied forces and is central to the counter-insurgency strategy that was mentioned earlier, but it would not necessarily lead immediately to talks about how we could reach a political settlement involving the Taliban. I do not think that any other exit strategy makes sense. Unpleasant though it is to many, and although we may not get everything we need from talks with the Taliban, the sooner we begin them, the sooner we have a chance of achieving what the hon. Member for New Forest East and I want, which is a reduction in the unnecessary and awful killings that are taking place, including of civilians in front of their own troops. They are bound to continue if we pursue the current strategy under the terms under which our forces are operating.

We cannot simply cut and run, so I do not support the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, but I will do my very best to meet the request of the hon. Member for New Forest East. I certainly cannot vote for the motion, which is defective and unacceptable because it does not give a time scale. Much though we may dislike time scales, Ministers are always asked, “How long will it last?” and they cannot dodge that and leave things open-ended. Time goes very quickly. If we are not up against a deadline, in no time at all we could find that there is mission creep and that the conflict expands. Before we know what has happened, we have built the conflict up to being about the defence of the whole western way of life.

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[Mr Robinson]

The coalition Government are realistic on the matter—I have privately congratulated the Defence Secretary on his realism—but he was today conscious that, if they were listening, people will take comfort if they think they have the prospect of winning the war against ISAF in Afghanistan. He therefore painted a more rosy picture than the situation on the ground would properly allow him, and sent a more hard-line message to the Taliban than necessary.

I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham). It is now accepted throughout the House that there is no military victory to be won for either side in Afghanistan. The only prospect we have is of a few years—or many years, if we are not careful—of futile conflict that will get us nowhere. I am not saying that we should stop, which is where I disagree fundamentally with the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion in whose name amendment (c) stands. I cannot see the negotiations or discussions with the Taliban getting anywhere unless we remain in Afghanistan at our current strength and sustain our attack on them.

Indeed, from the early-day motion that I tabled, it was clear that the information, such as we have, is that we have a firm offer from the Taliban. The offer is not endorsed by the quetta shura—the central council in Pakistan—but comes from local commanders. Let us also bear in mind that 80% of the casualties occur within 10 miles. In other words, the fighting and deaths are very localised. We do not face an al-Qaeda insurgency campaign directed from outside; it is a local campaign.

The offer of talks, which appears to be serious, has emanated not from the top council leadership, which should encourage us to respond to it, yet as far as I can see, we are ignoring it. I entirely accept that the Government will say, “We can’t tell you what’s going on,” but the Americans say that they see no prospect of talks going anywhere. Panetta says that the time to talk is when the Americans have increased the pressure so that the Taliban believe that they are losing, but I take issue with the hon. Member for New Forest East on that, because that approach would mean that there will never be a right time for talks. Either we are winning, and therefore we do not need talks, or doing badly, when talks would mean weakness. If we were doing better, we might think that if we did a bit more, we might win. There is never a right time. What we have learned from previous insurgencies of this kind, and much larger ones, is that the earlier we get talks going and see what we can get, the better people understand why we are fighting, and the better the chance of a solution.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

The correct time is when there is a stalemate, not when one side or the other thinks it is winning.

[Mr Robinson]

I agree, but it is difficult to send troops to fight in a stalemate. Even Mr Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has said that he hates signing troop deployment orders when he is sending troops to fight in a stalemate. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but who knows what a stalemate is anyway.

The message that we have to send tonight is that although we would love to see an ISAF victory, we do not believe that that is possible, and that the only way forward is discussions with the Taliban, realistic, hard and unpleasant though those would be. The sooner we get into such discussions, the sooner the level of casualties will fall, and the sooner we would be able to bring the troops home. We clearly cannot bring them home before then.