Examination for Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
RT HON
DES BROWNE
MP, LIEUTENANT GENERAL
PETER WALL
CBE AND MR
JON DAY
CBE
23 OCTOBER 2007
Q60 Chairman: Secretary of State,
let us move on to NATO. The Combined Joint Statement Of Requirement
has still not been fulfilled. What are the prospects of NATO actually
addressing the deficit in the number of troops that it has provided,
and do you expect to see any improvement in this? Are the NATO
defence ministers meeting this week?
Des Browne: In answer to the last
question, yes, I do expect to see some progress in relation to
it. Frankly, I doubt whether that progress will get us to the
point where SACEUR can say that the CJSOR is fulfilled, but I
think that we will see some progress. I think we have seen progress.
It is not of a scale or nature that is necessary to fill the gaps
in the force structure which exist and need to be filled, but
we need to keep working on that not just for the good of the operation
itself, for the ISAF force in Afghanistan, but in my view it is
in the interests of NATO itself that all the countries live up
to the commitments that they joined up to collectively.
Q61 Chairman: So when General McNeill
says that the troop levels are not adequate for the task in hand,
do you agree with him?
Des Browne: I have to accept the
advice of General McNeill. I am not in a position to, and I would
not seek to, gainsay the advice of any of those whom I look to
for military advice never mind someone who is in charge of the
ISAF troops. We need to recognise that a number of our allies
deserve some recognition for their commitment and in some cases
for the sacrifices that they have endured in support of what we
are seeking to achieve and for the people of Afghanistan. I think
sometimes there is a danger that this part of the discussion makes
it appear as if it is only us and the Americans that are involved
in this but I know the Committee knows otherwise, that the Canadians,
Australians, Czechs, Estonians, Danes and others have made a significant
contribution and are present with us in the south where the danger
is greatest, sometimes in small numbers, but in relation to their
own forces those numbers are quite significant.
Q62 Chairman: Indeed, and we have
to recognise that other countries making contributions in the
north but not in the south are also doing things that very much
need to be done.
Des Browne: Absolutely.
Q63 Chairman: What is the risk that
we will have to retake ground that we have taken from the Taliban
this summer? I asked you this question slightly yesterday, but
do you mind repeating the answer?
Des Browne: I should have mentioned
in that litany of countries the Netherlands who are doing great
work in Oruzgan along with the Australians. I had better add them
just in case they think I deliberately left them out, if somebody
reads the transcript of this evidence!
Q64 Chairman: Will we have to retake
ground that we have already taken?
Des Browne: This is the issue
that General McNeill brought to our attention in the interview
that he gave. There is a significant danger that we will find
ourselves in a position where we are unable to hold. I think the
point that the General was making was that the Afghan forces themselves
are not capable of holding what we have achieved and that we will
be required to go back and retake that ground. We have to be alert
to that. As I said yesterday in answer to this question when you
asked it in the House, our ability to be able to prevent that
from occurring is a function of our ability to be able to train
and mentor the Afghan security forces to be able to fill in behind
us and to be able to take and sustain what we have achieved. That
was part of the reason why the Musa Qala agreement was unsustainable
in the longer term, it was that the Afghan security forces were
then put into a situation that they were not ready for and were
incapable of sustaining.
Lieutenant General Wall: The role
of the ANA, as we have seen in Iraq, the role of the indigenous
security forces, is crucial here and I think they are gradually
growing. We know that the aspiration is for them to be bigger
over time than we had expected, which will mean more Afghan military,
Kandaks in particular, down in the south and particularly in Helmand.
In response to the idea of having to retake ground that we have
been over before, I think we need to recognise that we are not
only going into areas in order for that activity to flow through
to stabilisation, there will occasionally be situations where
the Taliban need to be kept off balance and we will go into places
not necessarily with the intention of remaining there in perpetuity.
Q65 Chairman: General McNeill said
the trouble is that when we take ground it would be nice to have
the troops to hold it. Unfortunately we do not. Has NATO stopped
believing in the concept of overwhelming force?
Lieutenant General Wall: I do
not think we can claim that we have had overwhelming force across
the piece in this operation.
Q66 Chairman: Is that not the problem?
Lieutenant General Wall: I think
the fact is that there is a finite rate at which we can make progress.
Although if there were more forces that progress might be faster
in military terms, actually the real challenge here is to sequence
all of the lines of development in this operation. You will have
witnessed the extent to which the so-called comprehensive approach
is being applied very effectively in Helmand. There is sometimes
a risk that if the security that is created by military forces,
whether it is sustained by the Afghans or not, hopefully it is,
when they take the lead in particular areas is not backed up as
fast as we would like it to be by the progress of stabilisation
and that is not least because the stabilisation activity is very
difficult to implement. So perhaps there is a more complex synchronisation
challenge here than we are taking account of.
Q67 Mr Borrow: Pakistan is going
through significant political change at the moment. What implication
does that have for Afghanistan both now and in the future?
Des Browne: Never mind what we
have witnessed immediately, there is no question that the challenges
that the Pakistan Government faces in dealing with instability
in its tribal areas and its border regions are important to the
long-term stability of Afghanistan. Whatever parts of their administration
might say about that, the Pakistan Government itself has consistently
been acting to tackle these problems and I think we should recognise
that those security forces have paid a very high price for seeking
to tackle these problems. Our concern is that there are Taliban
centres of operation located in Pakistan and the terrorists are
able to organise acts of violence in Afghanistan from Pakistan.
That is our view. Solving this is not just about border controls.
In an earlier evidence session we had a discussion about the ambition
to try and close this border between Afghanistan and Pakistan
and whether that was ever likely to be able to be achieved given
our own experience with a much smaller land border in Northern
Ireland and quite significant numbers of forces never mind the
terrain that that represents. The solution in both countries lies
in tackling the causes of the insurgency. That is why the most
important part of dealing with it has to lie in some constructive
dialogue between the respective countries. We have seen some indication
of that dialogue taking place. It has been reluctant at times,
but it was engaged and very successful in a substantial meeting
across the borders which both Presidents attended and we need
to see how that work goes forward.
Q68 Mr Borrow: What progress has
been made over the Summer in Pakistan in the sense of denying
the Taliban bases or reducing their footprint within that part
of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan?
Des Browne: I am not really in
a position to give the Committee an assessment of what progress
has been made there. I have not yet visited that area. Although
the next time I go to the region I have plans to go to Pakistan
and make some sort of assessment for myself, I would much rather
comment on that from a basis of experience. I have seen reported
some degree of success but, equally well, I have seen reports
of other incidents which suggest that the Pakistanis are having
considerable difficulties in containing insurgency and terrorist
activity within these tribal areas.
Q69 Mr Jenkin: A recent Chatham House
report, rather depressingly, confirms that in terms of winning
the insurgency we have got a great difficulty in Afghanistan because
there seems to be an unlimited supply of material and recruits
for the insurgency in Pakistan. Can you give some indication of
how our global counter-insurgency campaign joins up all these
different theatres, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere
into some kind of comprehensive plan? It seems to me that we tend
to talk about different theatres and different countries when
in fact the insurgency we are working against is thinking much
more comprehensively than we are.
Des Browne: We are very conscious
of that. In our international alliances we ensure that we share
information and that we consistently take a view across the region
and across the world because we know to our cost here in this
city that the training of terrorists in that regional area, in
Pakistan in particular, can deliver risks to the streets of our
cities. So we are conscious of that and we work indeed with regional
governments to build capacity in the region and share information
across from one theatre to the other that is necessary. You will
have noticed that both the Foreign Secretary and Malloch Brown
have been to Pakistan recently and they have been raising just
the sort of issues that we have been discussing about the nature
of what is happening in Pakistan and the effect that it has on
our objectives in Afghanistan. So you can rest assured that all
of this goes on all of the time.
Q70 Mr Jenkin: Would the General
like to give a military assessment?
Lieutenant General Wall: I think
one needs to segregate this into at least two different levels
or aspects. Clearly we have got insecurities in southern Iraq
and southern Afghanistan being provided by people whose aspirations
are local or, at worst, regional and we have discussed those two
sub-campaigns if you like. Then we have got those whose aspirations
are to export their motivations from those sectors into Europe
and perhaps in some cases into mainland UK. You will be aware
of the contact strategy that seeks on a number of lines of operation
to deal over time with that latter and more ominous phenomenon.
The military role in that, the pursue and the external prevent
piece, is something that is factored into our plans in those theatres.
Q71 Mr Jenkin: We have spectacular
tactical victories due to the prowess and expertise of our Armed
Forces but we still seem to be strategically very challenged.
Lieutenant General Wall: We are
strategically challenged because there is not a purely military
solution to the situation Afghanistan finds itself in vis-a"-vis
the Taliban and other extremist groups. Hence all the discussions
we have had about finding solutions through bringing people to
the political table and so on and so forth apply. The scope for
an assessment of progress here has to be gauged against expectations
of the time-frame. The nature of this in its scoping complexity
is that this is something where progress will at best be gradual
and we are making gradual progress.
Q72 Mr Hancock: Does your intelligence
tell you there is a possibility that you can actually defeat the
insurgency that emanates from Pakistan through political means
because it would appear that cannot be done, can it? If there
is an unbroken chain of supply both of material and personnel
coming from Pakistan there seems to be a difficulty on the part
of the Pakistani authorities to do that. Do we fully understand
in intelligence terms if that is an achievable goal or not?
Lieutenant General Wall: Did you
say is achievable in military terms?
Q73 Mr Hancock: In military and political
terms.
Lieutenant General Wall: No, I
do not think it is achievable in pure military terms. The military
effect is to create a situation where other influences can be
brought to bear to change people's thinking and encourage them
to take up a political approach and, in the case of those people
who are actually almost soldiers of convenience for the Taliban
because they do not have many economic opportunities, to provide
them with some other outlets for their activity.
Des Browne: Significant progress
has been made in Afghanistan. There are a number of metrics of
that progress in relation to health and education and governance
and the one that I most prefer which is the return of refugees
into Afghanistan. We ought not to under-sell the progress that
has been made.
Q74 Mr Hancock: I was not.
Des Browne: The nature of the
challenge and the nature of the insurgency is also a function
of the progress that we have made and their determination to stop
that progress being spread. So we have some significant achievement
in Afghanistan to show that it can be done.
Mr Hancock: I was not decrying that.
I think you tend to misinterpret things I was saying. I was talking
about the scale and the scope of the insurgency and the supply
of both men and material from Pakistan. It makes whatever you
achieve in Afghanistan very difficult to sustain if we cannot
plug that movement in some way.
Chairman: We have gone into this to the
extent that we can.
Q75 John Smith: Secretary of State,
do you still believe that if ISAF were not occupying the space
it is in southern Afghanistan then people who would be a direct
threat to this country would do so?
Des Browne: I believe that if
we were not doing what we are doing in southern Afghanistan then
the situation for the people of Afghanistan would be much worse
than it presently is and I think that is the true comparison.
It is not, "What is the situation like in Helmand province
compared to 18 months ago?" The true comparison, if you can
make it, is, "What is the situation like in Helmand as opposed
to what it would have been like now if we had not provided the
degree of security and support for the people of Helmand province
that we were prepared to provide?" I genuinely believe that
if that got to the stage of restricted governance or Taliban dominated
governance that there would be or just a lack of governance altogether
then it could easily again become a training ground for terrorists
who would want to carry out acts on our soil.
Q76 Willie Rennie: One metric that
you did not mention earlier on was narcotics. Could you give us
an update on how that is progressing in terms of counter-narcotics?
It seems to me like Groundhog Day; it is like wading through treacle.
You get reports of things that seem to be happening on counter-narcotics
but overall the picture does not seem to be any rosier than it
was 18 months ago.
Des Browne: There are presently
in Afghanistan, on the official reporting, at least 13 provinces
now that are narcotics free. I dare say there are some, but against
whatever that metric is, that are declared to be drug free in
terms of drug production. A year ago when we got that report there
were six. I think that is important progress. I do not think there
is any question, however, that we have seen an increase in poppy
growth and in opium production and consequently in heroin production
in other provinces, including in Helmand province. I do not think
it is any accident that the Afghan Government, who have the principal
responsibility for counter-narcotics, are successful in an increasing
number of provinces, nor that there should be a concentration
in other provinces. I still believe that our strategic approach
to this, which we have accepted the lead partner nation responsibility
for, is the right one, that we need to build up the rule of law
and we need to build up the capacity of the local government,
we need to build up the opportunities of alternative livelihoods
and in that environment we can drive down poppy production. I
think that that strategy is right. I do not think we have got
that wrong. I think it is very difficult to deliver it. I think
we should recognise at all times the nature of the long-term commitment
that we have to try and deal with this issue.
Q77 Willie Rennie: We hear the same
rhetoric every time somebody comes before the Committee about
alternative livelihoods and the justice system. What are the peculiarities
of Helmand that makes it impossible to enact this rhetoric?
Des Browne: It is the nature and
scale of that challenge that is the particular problem in relation
to Helmand. It is a very, very small part of the arable land of
Afghanistan that is used for this production. It can be done in
a comparatively small area as opposed to the scale of the challenge
that we are facing in terms of the whole of Helmand. I think it
is the history of the place, it is the nature of the tribal structure,
it is the fact that before we came there were a significant collection
of warlords, criminals, Taliban and others who were all closely
inter-related with each other, that is what is special about Helmand
province.
Q78 Willie Rennie: Do you think we
should review the Afghan Government's primary responsibility in
this area?
Des Browne: No. Contrary to what
I understand is written today in one of the Afghan newspapers,
the lead responsibility for this lies with the Afghan Government
itself and we support them. It is only if we are successful in
helping them to build up the pillars of government that are necessary
for this that we will be able to see this being successful in
the long term, so we should concentrate on that. There is no sustainable
answer to this if we do not do this through the machinery of the
Afghan Government.
Q79 Mr Hamilton: The problem is there
does not seem to have been a decision that we are going to eradicate
the poppy crop if it is going to be left in the hands of the Afghan
Government. We cannot be in there for an indefinite period of
time; it is not an open-ended book. At some time or other there
has got to be an abstraction. At what point is that abstraction
going to take place? It does not seem to be going to take place
if we cannot deal with the poppy crop issue. I think that is the
problem that many of us have.
Des Browne: I do not think it
is right to say that the Afghan Government is not prepared to
eradicate poverty. There is a debate that goes on about aerial
eradication, about ground spraying and about manual eradication,
but that is not the area that you want to get into. My sense of
the times that I have previously given evidence about this before
to this Committee is that there is agreement between our view
of how we should do this and the efficacy of aerial eradication
with the Committee, there was no dispute between us about that.
It is the ability of the Afghan Government to be able to deliver
its policies on the ground which will be the measure of success.
We are facing very great challenges in Helmand province; there
is no doubt about that, because of capacity. We have made some
significant progress, as the General has already alluded to, not
just in immediate reconstruction but also in working with the
local provincial governor and others in building up capacity.
We have been quite successful in relation to that but we start
from a very low base. I think we have to accept that we will need
to be patient to see that capacity built to the point where it
starts to have an effect on the ground before we see significant
reductions in the measurements of poppy production and heroin
production that comes from it. This is a long-term engagement.
Other countries have done it. They have measured the success in
terms of time by what they have been able to achieve in a decade
rather than in one growing season.
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