Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
RT HON
ADAM INGRAM
MP, AIR MARSHAL
SIR GLENN
TORPY KCB CBE, DR
ROGER HUTTON
AND MR
PETER HOLLAND
7 MARCH 2006
Q180 Mr Hancock: Is it still, in your
opinion, the easiest way to transport large numbers of troops
around Afghanistan, by aircraft?
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: Given
the distances and the terrain, a combination of fixed wing air
transport and rotary wing is one of the most practical ways, given
that there is only one major road.
Q181 Mr Hancock: Is it the safest way?
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: It
is also probably the safest way as well.
Q182 Robert Key: I thought the Harrier
GR7 squadron in Kandahar was going to be replaced in June.
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: What
the Secretary of State said was that we kept the Harriers there
until June because that was when the runway at Kandahar was going
to be refurbished and the refurbishment of the runway would be
complete. At that stage, we would review the K30 to see if there
were sufficient NATO resources to provide an adequate level of
air support and we are just in the process of doing exactly that.
Q183 Robert Key: Are all the Hercules
deployed in Afghanistan fitted with full defensive aid suites?
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: They
are.
Q184 Robert Key: Can you define what
you mean by "full"?
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: They
have adequate defensive aids to match the threat that we are going
to face in Afghanistan, without going into the detail of the defensive
aids.
Q185 Robert Key: This is quite important
because yesterday in the House of Lords Lord Drayson said in column
524 that we use aircraft only when they have the appropriate defensive
aid suites. Later on, in answer to Lord Luke, he said that the
aircraft go into those areas having in all cases the defensive
aid suites that they require. Can you confirm that in 2004-05
the programme to equip the 15J Hercules with the latest generation
defensive aid suites was cancelled?
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: I
cannot confirm that.
Mr Ingram: We will write to you
on that.[4]
I do not have the detail. I used the word "vulnerability"
earlier. We are up against a very clever, intelligent enemy. The
more we want to examine in minutiae everything that we are doing,
the more we are telling those who are going to pose a threat.
I am not saying they are not legitimate or fair questions. I am
telling you why there is a reluctance to expose too much knowledge.
The knowledge may be interesting to you but it is much more interesting
to those who pose a threat.
Q186 Robert Key: It is not just of interest
to this Committee; it is of interest to all the military personnel
involved and their families as well as the taxpayer. I suggest
that there is a case for moving into closed session to explore
some of these in detail because of the evidence that has been
reaching the Defence Committee.
Mr Ingram: If it is evidence reaching
the Defence Committee, on the basis of cooperation and willingness
to give best information, we need the evidence. Let us make sure
it is evidence and not tittle tattle.
Robert Key: I do not think that is a
sensible thing for the Minister to have said.
Mr Hancock: Can I ask the Air Marshal
to clarify his answer to Mr Key? Mr Key asked a specific question.
He said, "Were the C130 Hercules deployed to Afghanistan
fitted with full defensive aid suites?" You said, "Yes."
You went on to say that there was a qualitative nature. They were
adequate for what they were expected to do. I want to know if
full is the same as adequate.
Q187 Robert Key: It is not, is it?
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: There
is a range of defensive aids that you can put on any aircraft.
There are radar warning receivers, missile warning receivers and
other defensive aids and I would not want to go into the details
of those. We will never put an aircraft into Afghanistan which
does not have a defensive aid suite that we think is capable of
taking on the threat which they may be faced with.
Q188 Chairman: It has been suggested
that we should move into closed session which we will consider
doing towards the end of this at about 10 to 12.
Mr Ingram: I am not sure that
we have the answers you are seeking.
Chairman: You may not have the answers
but in the questions which we will be able to put in closed session
you will be able to go away and think about those answers.
Q189 John Smith: Are we satisfied that
the forward support for fixed wing is adequate at Kandahar for
maintaining and repairing the Harrier?
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: Absolutely,
and we have been operating them there since September 2004.
Q190 Mr Havard: When I visited 16 Air
Assault Brigade, they were quite clear to me about their own particular
concept of air manoeuvre and what they wanted to try and do and
how they were going to do it. It is a different way of working
given that we are using the Apaches in the way that we are in
particular circumstances. The question is about tactical lift
and it partly relates to the question earlier on about armour.
It is a question of how you manoeuvre on the ground what are essentially
going to be infantry troops supported by air. There are a number
of assets that you have described, both rotary and fixed, that
are supposed to help to do that. How is that combination going
to work with the ground assets as well? Are you confident that
this process of getting the people to the right place, at the
right time, in the right way and evacuated from it is sufficient
to do the job?
Mr Ingram: This is not an experiment
or a test. I know you have spoken to those commanders who have
thought long and hard about the mix of the assets to have and
how best they can utilise them to achieve their objective. As
ever, they will learn on the ground. It is on the basis of what
is the threat; how has it been assessed? Does that change things
and how do they then reshape what our response would be to all
of that? There is nothing new, I would guess—I am not a
military person—in terms of air assets to other assets we
have.
Chairman: Because of the time, we need
to get on to the issue of narcotics.
Q191 Linda Gilroy: I wonder if Mr Holland
could give us a very quick overview and tell us about ADIDU, how
it is staffed, what its budget is and what its purpose is?
Mr Holland: ADIDU is a cross-departmental
unit. It was set up a year ago on 1 February with approval from
the Prime Minister. It is an interdepartmental unit. We have staff
in it from the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence, DFID,
HMRC soon to be SOCA and the Home Office. It was deliberately
put together as an interdepartmental unit because it recognised
that the counter narcotics issue and the approach we needed to
take needed to bring together all the resources across government.
We have a counterpart organisation, the British Embassy Drugs
Team, based in the embassy in Kabul, who are in a sense the implementing
agency on the ground. Our role is to set the strategy and coordinate
the UK approach to counter narcotics in Afghanistan and also to
coordinate and work with international partners on that because
we are the key G8 partner nation, as you will be aware, on counter
narcotics, in the key G8 partner nations. In terms of resources,
the government has committed £270 million over three years
starting this financial year to the counter narcotics issue in
Afghanistan. Of that, 130 million will be provided by DFID towards
primarily alternative livelihoods programmes. The remaining £140
million which we are responsible for overseeing is provided by
the other stakeholder departments.
Q192 Linda Gilroy: You have spoken about
the role, but the Committee will probably be interested to know
more about whether that is going to concentrate on breaking the
narcotics supply chain or on eradicating the supply.
Mr Holland: Our role and our policy
are very much in support of the government of Afghanistan's national
drug control strategy which was published at the London conference.
They identified four main priorities which are targeting the trafficker
and the trade, so disrupting the networks, building strong and
diversified legal livelihoods, building strong government institutions
and tackling the demand side, because there is an increasing demand
problem within Afghanistan. In terms of our own priorities, we
are particularly focusing on the first three of those. 70% of
the resources that ADIDU is overseeing are being targeted at the
trafficker and the trade, building effective police forces and
criminal justice institutions. DFID's programme, 130 million,
is primarily focused on alternative livelihoods and the rest of
what we are putting in is mainly focused on building government
institutions, both central and local government. We are putting
a small element into supporting the elimination campaign. That
is primarily led by the US. The areas that we are particularly
focusing on is providing targeting information to make sure that
any eradication is carried out in areas where alternative livelihoods
already exist, so it is targeting those we describe as the greedy,
not the needy, and supporting the UN Office for Drugs and Crime
and the government of Afghanistan to verify that eradication has
taken place.
Q193 Linda Gilroy: On the building of
institutions, what is your assessment of the capability and willingness
of the judicial system to prosecute those who are involved in
drug trafficking particularly?
Mr Holland: It is beginning to
develop. It is at a pretty early stage. We have particularly concentrated
on building a specific strand within the overall criminal justice
institutions to focus on counter narcotics. The elements of that
have included, first of all, a new counter narcotics law passed
in December which sets very clearly the legal framework for that
and the responsibilities. We have also, through the support of
the UN Office for Drugs and Crime, trained a criminal justice
task force. That is a task force of about 80 people, prosecutors,
investigators and judges. Within that there has been a separate
division of the central court set up to specifically prosecute
drugs cases. Since it was established in May, it has had about
90 convictions. It is currently pursuing about 240 cases so it
is really accelerating its effort. We have not yet seen the first
conviction of a really significant trafficker. There have been
some low to medium value traffickers but at the moment it is pursuing
its first case of a significant trafficker.
Q194 Linda Gilroy: Do the intelligence
and the experience of the court system suggest that the Taliban
is now involved in the narcotics trade?
Mr Holland: We have not seen direct
experience until very recently of those kinds of links. There
are some indications, particularly in the south, that the Taliban
have been encouraging farmers to grow poppy this year and offering
them protection against law enforcement forces, yes.
Q195 Linda Gilroy: On the alternative
livelihoods, there is big investment going into those. Have you
looked at the arguments to have licensed opium production as proposed
by the Senlis Council? Do they have any merit?
Mr Holland: Yes. We have looked
at this in some detail and I can give the Committee a paper that
analyses this. We did some analysis of this before the Senlis
Council's report. We share the view of the government of Afghanistan
that, at this time, it is not an appropriate solution for Afghanistan.
We would identify two main reasons. The one which the government
of Afghanistan is particularly concerned about is that, if you
have a licit license system, there are not sufficient control
mechanisms yet in place to prevent diversion from that. What you
would have is a risk of not reducing the illicit trade but potentially
increasing it. The other aspect is the economic side of it. At
the moment, farmers receive around $100 per kilo from traffickers
for their opium crop. The nearest comparable country that currently
has a licit system is India. For them the greatest price that
farmers receive is about $35 a kilo. An licit system would not
compete directly with an illicit system. On both the economic
side and on the control side, we do not think at this stage a
licensing system is appropriate.
Q196 Mr Havard: We know from descriptions
you have given us that the NATO rules of engagement allow people
to detain someone. The question about what happens to them subsequently
is a matter of debate and discussion country by country and for
the Afghan government to establish. You say that you were negotiating
a process with them to do that. Has that now been concluded? Can
you say something about what it would be?
Mr Ingram: It has not been concluded
but we are coming to the conclusions of it. These are detailed
matters. It relates to the applicability of domestic UK law, defined
as English law, our international obligations, what is permissible
or not under the Security Council resolutions. They are very detailed
issues to be addressed. If I was asked if I am confident we will
get there, I think we will get there but we are not there yet.
We know the importance of getting this in place as soon as possible
because we now have a considerable number of troops already there
who may find themselves in the position of having to deal with
this.
Q197 Mr Havard: This operates at a number
of levels. We are concerned obviously for the human rights of
the people who are interdicted as well as the situation of the
forces themselves and where they rest in terms of their legal
protection in these circumstances. That is the main driver for
us, to be sure that there is clarity both for the individual soldier
in this circumstance and through the Chain of Command as to exactly
where they sit in relation to their duties, what the processes
are and that they are properly carried out, monitored and so on.
Mr Ingram: Absolutely. I give
you that commitment. This is uppermost in our minds, to make sure
that our people are not put into a position of uncertainty as
to how to deal with it because there are too many critics out
there who will have a go at our people without even beginning
to understand the complexity of the environment which they are
in. Therefore, we owe it to them to give the best clarity. There
are two key players in this of course in terms of our own government
and the Afghan government and we are working our way to a conclusion
in all of this.
Q198 Chairman: We have suggested going
into private session. If the Committee is agreed we will do that.
Air Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy: Could
I clarify on defensive aid suites? Maybe I did not make myself
completely clear. Defensive aid suites mean exactly what they
say. There is a range of capabilities which are brigaded under
that. Some are for warning and some are for countering the threats
which are then picked up by those systems. All of our aircraft
will have an appropriate suite of those capabilities to match
the threat that our intelligence indicates is going to be faced
in Afghanistan.
Chairman: I think we still have some
questions we would like to ask.
Resolved, That the Committee should not
sit in private.
The witnesses gave further oral evidence.
Asterisks denote that part of the oral evidence
which, for security reasons, has not been reported at the request
of the Ministry of Defence and with the agreement of the Committee.
Q199 Chairman: Is the Committee content
that the specialist adviser should stay? (Agreed) Minister, can
you confirm that those in the room behind you are from the Ministry
of Defence?
Mr Ingram: Yes.
Chairman: We were asking questions about
defensive aid suites and we would like to ask some questions about
explosive suppressant foam.
4 Note: Awaiting response. Back
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