Examination of Witnesses (Questions 128-139)
RT HON
ADAM INGRAM
MP, AIR MARSHAL
SIR GLENN
TORPY KCB CBE, DR
ROGER HUTTON
AND MR
PETER HOLLAND
7 MARCH 2006
Q128 Chairman: Minister, good morning
and welcome to this evidence session on Afghanistan. I wonder
whether it might be helpful first for us to say that we know you
have to leave at 12.00 and we will not be clinging on to everyone
else once you have left but we will bring the whole evidence session
to an end in time for you to leave then. Minister, I wonder whether
you could possibly introduce your team, who are all very welcome.
Mr Ingram: I am grateful for that
co-operation. As you appreciate, I have got an adjournment debate
on another subject and that is the reason for my departure. I
would be only too happy, of course, to stay here all day to get
to the conclusion of your inquiry. In fact, I would even be able
to assist you in writing a report if you wanted that! Obviously
we recognise the importance of this subject and that is why I
have what we would call a very heavyweight team with me today
because they are the subject experts. On my right is Air Marshal
Sir Glenn Torpy, who is CJO. On his right is Dr Roger Hutton,
who is Director Joint Commitments Policy, and on my left is Peter
Holland who heads up the Afghan Drugs Inter-Departmental Unit.
I understand that you may want to explore some of the subject
matter on the counter-narcotics side of it. We are now here to
assist as best we can.
Q129 Chairman: Thank you very much. When
the deployment was agreed a year ago things in Afghanistan looked
rather better than they do now. How would you describe the situation
in relation to the security situation in Afghanistan at the moment?
Mr Ingram: I will answer your
question specifically but you are right in saying when we looked
at this initially that there was a different climate than that
which exists now. It would seem to me that, no matter what the
climate was, the imperative of us as part of an international
force helping the Afghan Government to deal with that emerging
country and the way in which it is developing would have continued
nonetheless, but clearly circumstances which prevail on the ground
then have to be taken into account in terms of force generation
and in terms of other aspects. If anything, the climate overall
could be defined as being much better, but we will deal with the
threat level separately from that because now we have a better
and well-established government, a better-focused government,
one that has a large measure of very tangible buy-in from the
international community as substance rather than words—and
the London Conference was a very clear example of all of that—so
the overall governance of Afghanistan is unquestionably better
than it was a year ago, and all credit to President Karzai and
those who work closely with him to help to deliver all of that.
I think that is one parameter which in many ways makes our mission
and our objectives easier to obtain because it is not Iraq, let
us describe it that way. There are many more beneficial indicators
in there, ie they have a government, they have been through that
process, and probably in the overall commitment of the international
community it has a better view of what is happening in Afghanistan
than what is happening in Iraq. Some people try to compare them
and I make this point; they are not comparable; no two areas of
involvement are. In the Balkans, Bosnia is different from Kosovo.
On the specifics on the threat level happening on the ground,
I think it can be over-stated. There is no question at all that
there have been some pretty serious incidents and tragically lives
have been lost as a consequence of all of that. It would seem
to me that that was always going to be the case, that the closer
we got to focusing on the ground as we developed our presence
in co-operation with the Afghan Government from the north and
the west as we moved towards the south, that that was always going
to stimulate that type of reaction from those who are hostile
to us. While there are indicators of a Taliban presence on the
ground, it is not an overwhelming presence, and it is not what
it was. There is a threat level there. There are certainly risks
involved in what we are going to be doing there and there are
also indications that al-Qaeda will be looking at this as well,
remembering that al-Qaeda is very much the focus, indeed terrorism
is very much the focus of Operation Enduring Freedom. You will
have witnessed the discussions which have taken place between
President Karzai and President Musharraf and between President
Bush and President Musharraf to try and ensure that we have that
concerted pressure in the border regions, which we will not principally
be involved in. Much progress has been made but, as ever, those
who want to put pressure on us will continue to do the things
which they are capable of doing. What we cannot do is allow them
to succeed, and nor will we.
Q130 Chairman: Who is responsible for
the upsurge in violence? Would you say that it was al-Qaeda, the
Taliban, warlords, or would you equate all three or only two of
those?
Mr Ingram: As someone said to
me, sometimes it depends on when they get up in the morning they
will put on a particular uniform. It depends who is paying them
and so, as ever, our intelligence can never be 100% perfect in
all of this and it is a mixture of all of those. With increasing
focus on and increasing success in the counter-narcotics area,
we are taking the senior players out and there is the interdiction
activity that goes on. However, given the nature of those who
want to participate in such trade (which is very valuable to them
so they may well be paying people to do things) they are prepared
to do it themselves anyway, so it is a mixture, but the potency
of it and the scale of it should not be over-reacted to in the
sense that it can be managed and it will be managed in other ways,
ie that is what the PRTs are for, that is what the central government
approach is in terms of what President Karzai is trying to achieve,
and it is managing the wider community so that those who may be
purchasable, who may be committed to doing something can find
an alternative for them not to do so. It is taking away that ground
support, and that will not happen overnight.
Q131 Chairman: You are being very reassuring,
Minister, but perhaps overly so. Some of the violence that was
quelled recently was quelled by ISAF troops. What is the capacity
of the Afghanistan security forces?
Mr Ingram: I do not want to sound
reassuring or indeed complacent because the language we use—and
I will restate that—is that this is not a risk-free environment
and we do anticipate—and I made this point and I will make
it again—that there will be attacks on us. In terms of the
formation of that threat and where it comes from, we are still
best understanding it, and clearly in times past and in recent
times past they have been prepared to stand up in numbers, which
has resulted in sometimes OEF forces and sometimes ISAF forces
taking that on and also, importantly, Afghan forces taking them
on, usually in concert with each other. Where there is a sizable
presence, where they do stand up, then they now well understand
the potency of our reaction. If I have to guess anything it will
mean that they change their modus operandi. We have no
complacency in there and we have certainly no reassurance that
they have gone away. In fact they will be there. They are capable,
intelligent people and they will continue to pose a very real
threat to us. In terms of the Afghan capabilities, of course they
have been growing measurably. There are a very significant number
of Afghan trained and equipped personnel—I think the figure
is in the region of 34,000—and a significant number of trained
police officers as well. In terms of what will happen in the south,
already 1,000 Afghan troops have been committed, with more to
follow, and clearly in terms of the training of those troops the
intention is to get the capabilities up to make sure that they
turn up on the day. That always remains an issue that has to be
addressed. However, I have a lot of confidence in General Wardak
whom I have met on a number of occasions and who is the Afghan
Defence Minister. He is a very experienced military commander
in his own right. He will know where the quality is and what can
be done, and he will also know where improvements need to be made.
So he is a driver for change as well in all of this and that works
its way right through the Afghan senior administration.
Q132 Chairman: Colonel Worsley said to
The Guardian: "They are our exit strategy—a
well trained, well led Afghan Army", but we are nowhere close
to that yet, are we?
Mr Ingram: No, we are not and
in a sense the exit strategy in any area where there has been
conflict is building the capacity of the host nation. That applies
in the Balkans, that applies in Iraq, and it is clearly going
to apply in Afghanistan. As we have indicated before, and I think
it is the iron law of such situations, the civil police are usually
the last to get full competency and yet they become the key ingredient
because that is the key indicator of normalcy beginning to apply.
That does take time. So we are not there yet but it is not by
failure on the part of the international community to lift that
capacity—and I know that is not the point that you are making—nor
is it a lack of willingness on the part of the Afghan Government.
I mention General Wardak again. Increasingly amongst the Afghan
people they themselves are willing to engage. They want a different
society. There is not an off-the-shelf solution that says do all
these things and you will automatically get it the day after tomorrow.
It does not work that way. There will be many points along the
road where we have to deal with those issues and maybe because
of what is happening in the counter-narcotics sector it is creating
a reaction within the community, and that is why we have to grow
all of that capacity in terms of alternative livelihoods and,
to use the word again, to create a condition of normalcy that
people have confidence that if they go down our route and the
route preferred by their own Government and that which they have
voted for, then that will continue to grow, and the capacity of
the country to deliver for them will continue to grow. It will
not happen overnight, even with the massive resources being put
in both in people and in projects through alternative livelihoods
and so on.
Q133 Chairman: Mr Holland, I do not know
whether you wanted to come in there. We will be coming on to the
issue of narcotics towards the end. I do not know whether you
have anything you want to add immediately to that very briefly?
Mr Holland: I know that you will
be talking about it, as you say, in a bit more detail at the end,
but I think that is absolutely right that in terms of the counter-narcotics
programme it must fit as part of the whole wider reconstruction
and stabilisation effort. It is part of that whole effort to build
Afghan government capacity and Afghan institutions. As part of
that we are also trying to build specific counter-narcotics institutions,
so a specific counter-narcotics police force, a specific part
of the justice system to try narcotics criminals within so there
are specific activities on the counter-narcotics side as well
as that wider institutional development.
Q134 Mr Havard: Am I right in what you
are saying then, which is that essentially for none or one of
these groups, either in combination or singularly, the assessment
has not changed that they do not present a strategic threat, however
they do possess potency in certain places at certain times, so
the uncertainty is uneven as opposed to it being a strategic problem.
Is that essentially the same because that is what I understand
it to have been previously?
Mr Ingram: What I do not want
to do is to minimise the threat in all of this because the way
in which they can attack, they have shown, they can be very specific
in what they do and they can bring imported new technology into
it as well, and we have to monitor all of that. These are the
most difficult forms of attack to compete against in many ways,
but we recognise that is the sort of threat that is out there.
However, to use the Iraq analogy, there is not that measurable
level of insurgency, there is not a campaign at present but, who
knows, there are, again, no certainties and no-one has got the
wisdom to say with 100% certainty how things will develop, but
there is no evidence of subdivision or disaggregation of the communities
such as in the form of important forces in large numbers. The
ground conditions in terms of creating the right climate for that
to happen have been well examined and well looked at, and in a
sense has been significantly achieved both in the north and the
west with the PRTs that are there. Mazar-e-Sharif is a good example
of where we have contributed. In the early days of that there
were trouble points which we had to deal with and had to quell.
It never manifested itself into anything really substantial and
I would expect those very same spikes to happen. We have to plan
for all of those spikes to happen.
Q135 Mr Havard: Given this question about
what the Afghan capability is, we are talking about the Afghan
National Army and its capability, but the point was made just
now really about the police. There is the counter-narcotics police
force, there is a special narcotics force and so on. There is
a sort of carabinieri-type activity to them. The last time
I went there and saw the Afghan National Army they were very capable
as individuals, and trained up to be so, but the question about
how well they are equipped and how well they are able to manoeuvre
and co-ordinate between one another, however, is a different question.
I understand it is a question of development but is that developing
to such an extent that it is becoming more capable and how much
more capable?
Mr Ingram: I will ask the CJO
to come in in a moment but the answer to that is that they are
improving their capabilities all the time. They are not a modern
army, they are not a modern fighting force, they do not have all
the resources that we will have but they will have that in support
of them. Increasingly, General Wardak is looking at how best to
grow those capabilities. The debate obviously has to be within
the Afghan Government. They have got to decide their priorities
and what they are going to do, but there is a growing competency
there. It will increase over time. The more success we have, the
more we are able to measure that and to say here is what has effectively
been delivered, the confidence will grow and therefore the more
capable both the commanders and the troops on the ground will
become. This must be an iterative, developing process. This is
not something you can simply deliver in one big tranche no matter
what the activity is. The CJO may wish to comment on that.
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: I
think the Minister's comment that the environment in the south
is going to be less benign than the north is something which the
Committee accepts. That is no surprise. The security architectures
down in the south are less well developed than in the north. It
is the heartland of the Taliban and we obviously have porous borders.
So we accept that the environment is not going to be as easy as
in the north and we have configured our force robustly to be able
to cater for the threat that we see. In terms of the Afghan National
Army and the Afghan National Police, the aim is to train approximately
70,000 in the Afghan National Army. That is the US's responsibility
as the G8 lead and at the moment we have trained about 27,000
and in the country at the moment they amount to about 34,000.
Of course, that is one of the main tasks that the UK force will
be doing down in Helmand. It will be continuing the training that
the Americans have started with the ANA. We will continue that
by partnering and embedding our training teams with the ANA brigade
which is earmarked to arrive in Helmand Province progressively
over the course of the next 18 months. On the police side, the
police are meant to be some 64,000 strong and at the moment between
the Germans (who are the G8 lead for police training) and the
Americans, they have trained about 46,000. So there is a gradual
increase in capacity which we have accepted. This is exactly what
we are doing in Iraq with the Iraqi-security forces and whilst
we are building their capacity we are providing the secure environment
so that reconstruction and redevelopment can occur at the same
time and working very much along the same principles as we have
seen in Iraq.
Q136 Mr Jenkins: I do not want to go
over the same ground, Minister, but I am still lacking a feel
for it, to be honest. I do not want to put words into your mouth—I
never would—but since we are comparing it with a capable
army to take over and run Afghanistan, on a scale of naught to
ten, given all the considerations we have got (and I am not talking
about the total force number I am talking about its capability
its effectiveness) where would you put it? Would you put it at
three or above? If we have got an exit strategy, do we expect
to hand a province over to the Afghans to see if they can actually
contain it and run it as it rolls out as a protective national
force which should be effectively controlling this country?
Mr Ingram: I do not think we measure
forces in scales of nought to 10. I have nothing more to add.
I am sorry I cannot reassure you on this and nor can the CJO reassure
you on this. This is a very significant number of people who are
trained and equipped for the tasks they will be asked to do. I
have indicated there are problems with that. I have indicated
that will increase over time on the basis of success, and I think
there is too much talk about exit strategies because what does
that mean? Does that mean that there will be then no presence
at all in terms of the international presence? Does it mean there
will be some? Does it mean on a scale of nought to 10 something
else? I think people have got hung up on this exit strategy. The
strategy is to create the conditions where, effectively, we allow
for good governance to take place, which is what the Afghans want
and what the Afghan administration is seeking to achieve, and
the security environment is absolutely fundamental to all of that.
Who knows what the counter-terrorist activity may require in the
years ahead. Will we still be there? We have got to make sure
and well understand why we are there. We do not want—and
it is enlightened self-interest—that threat that came and
attacked New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, the terrible
events that occurred in September those years ago, and we do not
want the conditions to apply again. However, we are up against
a range of attitudes and people who are not going to go away.
They are determined to do what they are going to do so we have
got to stop the conditions to allow them to foster and to grow.
To give some definition of when that is going to happen timewise,
I think is just simply not possible. However, the scale and the
pace of change, if we get all of the things right that we are
seeking to do, will be very marked and very noticeable and the
buy-in will be very significant from the Afghan people themselves
who, ultimately, will be the key ingredient in all of this. Government
has a big part to play, the security presence on the ground can
have a big part to play, but if there is no buy-in from the people
themselves then it becomes much more difficult and therefore long-lasting.
That is why all we are seeking to do is to achieve that at the
ground level.
Dr Hutton: If I may just add something
on the issue about the Afghan National Army. Where they have shortcomings
at the moment is in terms of their logistics and self-sustainability,
and some of their technical ability, for example calling in close
air support, but what I would say is that the experience of British
soldiers who have operated in close proximity to them in the north
is that their tactics and procedures are progressing well. We
have been very pleasantly surprised with how capable they have
been. So the basic quality of the Afghan soldier is good. It is
filling in all those gaps to make them self-sustaining in due
course.
Q137 Mr Borrow: Minister, I want to pursue
the point you made about the reason we are there in the first
place. The Secretary of State has said that we have got a strong
national interest in being involved in Afghanistan. I sometimes
wonder what do I say to constituents as to why seven years after
the Taliban regime fell we have still got troops there who have
been put in harm's way. You seem to be saying that the reason
that we are still there, the reason we are still involved is the
feeling that if we were not the Taliban regime would come to power
again and provide a haven for al-Qaeda. Is that the strategic
reason that the UK has got involvement there rather than any other
reason? Is that the key national interest?
Mr Ingram: We have a national
and an international interest in all this because remembering
it was the US that was attacked, and if we removed ourselves and
it became a wholly ungovernable space again, it does not necessarily
mean that the Taliban come back into power, but if it is an ungovernable
space the bad elements can fill that vacuum and they can use it
for training grounds and they can use it for a whole lot of other
purposes. They can even use the narcotics trade and the large
volumes of money that come from all of that to assist them in
all of this. They are not going to do it for benign reasons. It
is not because they want self-government. It is not because they
want to be left alone. It is because they want to grow that capability
to attack us. So the international community well understands
this, as does President Karzai and his senior people, and increasingly
there is a significant buy-in from the Afghan people. They do
not want to be known as the pariahs of the international community.
The road to renewal is unquestionably going to be difficult but
we cannot allow it to go back to anything like it was or anything
approximating to it because the threat to us is very significant.
That does not even deal with the narcotics issue which is out
there as well and, as we know, 90% of what they produce there
ends up on the streets of our country. So we have another area
of interest in trying to deal with that as well because of the
death and desolation that can bring to so many families and indeed
micro communities within the UK.
Q138 Mr Borrow: You will be aware of
the argument that has been made by many people that if you looked
at the history of Afghanistan there has very rarely been a strong
central state, that it has never been a country with a strong
government apart from very short periods, usually periods that
we would welcome the return of. So there is an argument that the
task of trying to bring about a stable, democratic government
in Afghanistan may not be worth the effort and in that perspective
could I just bring you back—
Mr Ingram: Sorry, worth the effort
to whom?
Q139 Mr Borrow: Worth the effort to the
international community in that we have got troops and we have
got all of the effort that has been put in to reconstruct. Looking
specifically at the work of ISAF in Afghanistan, what would you
say was a realistic aim and objective over the next three years
for them to achieve in Afghanistan because obviously we ought
to be having some sort of target as to what our effort and expenditure
and everything else will achieve while they are there? What would
you say was realistic over the next three years to be achieved?
Mr Ingram: I think all the ingredients
we have set out to achieve, and perhaps are best articulated and
discussed in commitments arising from those discussions at the
London Conference, are about creating that freedom for the Afghan
people to determine their own future, to give them the security,
working alongside them, to achieve all of that, to create the
conditions where people have the buy-in to a normal type of society.
It is not our type of society but what they would expect and want,
and that would be the right to look after their families, to have
some economic future, hopefully to move large numbers of them
away from subsistence farming, and to give them the prospect of
economic growth in the future. Remembering there was a time when
Afghanistan was a major exporter, I am not an expert in this area
but it was at one time a fairly successful economy. That does
not mean to say there were not large areas of poverty—undoubtedly
there were—but all of that was knocked off course because
of the events of decades past. In terms of have they ever had
central government: in many ways the United Kingdom at one time
did not have strong central government but we grew it and now
over recent time it has improved, and is a capable central government
over even more recent times. The point is: do the people of Afghanistan
want that? That is a matter for them so to decide. We cannot impose
that. However, there are very clear indicators, and with the elections
that took place and the way in which people committed themselves
to those elections, they realise there is a better future; they
want to part of it but cannot deliver it on their own. That is
what the international community is seeking to achieve. If we
create those conditions and it does develop in that way it then
does not represent an area, a territory of one governable space,
into which those evil elements would be able to grow. I cannot
speak for the Afghan people, only they can speak for themselves
in this, but they do not want those people on their doorstep.
They do not want them doing what they are doing, and that is what
they have indicated in terms of what they are seeking to achieve.
Whether it means a completely, wholly united country—let
them develop that themselves. We have only in recent decades got
into devolution in this country. We have gone from one construct
and we are evolving still, both as an economy and as a governed
entity. I will not go into a debate on devolution right now.
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