Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
RT HON
DES BROWNE
MP, MR MARTIN
HOWARD, LIEUTENANT
GENERAL NICK
HOUGHTON CBE AND
MR PETER
HOLLAND
20 MARCH 2007
Q20 Mr Jenkin: I guess that is a,
"No". General Houghton, could you describe, please,
the aims of Operation Achilles?
Lieutenant General Houghton: Achilles
is not what you would call a short-term decisive operation, it
is very much what we would term a shaping operation. Its area
of deployment is in the upper Sangin Valley, the area of Kajaki
and its environment. People will be aware of a long-term US aid
programme around the Kajaki Dam, a project that is intended to
refurbish the hydro-electric power there and provide both water
and power to Northern Helmand and into Kandahar, and this is a
three-year project. Achilles is one of the early parts, as I say,
a shaping operation, to generate the right level of localised
security to allow that refurbishment programme at the Kajaki Dam
to go ahead. In its nature it is one that tends, as it were, to
isolate the amount of Taliban that are local to that area by interdicting
potential lines of communication and supply routes into the upper
Sangin Valley and, through enhanced intelligence gathering and
targeting, attempt to target operations against key local Taliban
leaders. In a broad sense, to summarise Achilles, it is a shaping
operation, one of the very early phases in creating the localised
circumstances which we hope will enable a successful refurbishment
programme of the Kajaki Dam.
Q21 Mr Jenkin: We are inflicting
quite large casualties. Is this conducive to winning hearts and
minds overall as part of a counter-insurgency operation?
Lieutenant General Houghton: Are
you saying localised casualties in respect of the Achilles operation?
Q22 Mr Jenkin: Generally?
Lieutenant General Houghton: Last
year there were significant casualties inflicted on the Taliban
because of the nature of the tactics that they employed, those
of mass attack against some of our fixed points. Increasingly,
this year, the switch has been towards the Taliban not using this
tactic of mass attack but switching to a more asymmetric response—the
utilisation of IEDs, suicide bombers and that sort of thing—and
what we are attempting to do is use a far more intelligence-focused
approach to the elimination of key Taliban leaders. In a way,
therefore, we recognise that the kinetic eradication of the Taliban
is not a sensible option and would act to alienate both the public
locally and internationally. Therefore, to attempt to dislocate
key Taliban leadership and attempt to drive a wedge between, as
it were, the irreconcilable tier one Taliban leadership and the
local potential Taliban fighters is the nature of the tactic we
are following.
Q23 Mr Jenkin: That is a very helpful
answer. Thank you very much indeed. Briefly, we are taking casualties
ourselves. Do we have enough force protection?
Lieutenant General Houghton: Force
protection is always an element of risk management, force protection
will never guarantee the elimination of that risk, but taking
in the aggregate of all our force protection measures, those that
counter threats against our rotary and fixed-wing, those against
our vehicles, those against our dismounted infantry, although
we are in the process of making further improvements, particularly
in the protective mobility area, in the round I am satisfied about
our overall force protection posture.
Q24 Robert Key: Secretary of State,
last month you announced that next month 3 Commando Brigade will
be replaced by a force led by 12 Mechanised Brigade, which will
include 39 Regiment Royal Artillery with their guided multiple
launch rocket systems. Could you explain the reason for what appears
to be quite a new approach?
Des Browne: Again, I may need
to defer to the CJO on some of the more technical aspects of this.
I look upon this as the reinforcement of an existing approach,
at least that is how it has been explained to me, and I have accepted,
as you point out in your description of the weapon, indeed, it
is quite a precision weapon, and it enables our commanders to
strike the enemy where they want to and need to and continues
the approach which has been developed under Brigadier Thomas over
the winter, of us choosing the time and place where we strike
the enemy, and the assessment of what capability we need in order
to do that has included a recommendation that we deploy this precision
weapon. So I see it as a reinforcement of our approach, not a
change of approach, and I may have been guilty of this before
the time I have spent in this job: people think of artillery not
as a precision weapon but as some kind of delivery of bombs or
things that explode over large areas. It does not necessarily
need to be that, and this is a very precise weapon. I think part
of the reason why we may have thought that is because it was misrepresented
at one stage in some of the publicity about it as being deployed
with different shells rather than the ones that we are deploying.
Q25 Robert Key: It does seem to be
quite a new initiative, though, to be depending more on artillery
than in the past. Could I have a military answer or a military
view on that?
Des Browne: Let me say something
before I hand over, if you would prefer a more detailed military
view on this. Part of the reason why we are able to do this now
is because the work that was done by the Apache helicopters and
now by the Royal Marine Commandos allows us to plan to extend
our reach and, as we need to extend our reach, we need to deploy
the capabilities in order to be able to do that.
Lieutenant General Houghton: I
am very much in support of what the Secretary of State said. A
lot of people have a sort of an idée fixe that artillery
is very much an area weapon where collateral damage is easily
caused. The GMLRS is very much a precision weapon, able to deliver
within meters of certainty, out to distances of 70 kms, precision
warheads. Given those distances, you can imagine, within the overall
ISAF concept of the Afghan development zones, the security is
pushed out from these areas. We can then utilise equipment such
as the GMLRS to bring effective and precise strike over significant
distances, as I say areas up to 70 kms, using just this particular
weapon.
Chairman: Moving on to the costs of this,
Brian Jenkins.
Q26 Mr Jenkins: Secretary of State,
we are talking about 2006. The cost for the three years was maybe
about a billion pounds, but since then the actual forecast has
gone from 2005-06 £199 million to a forecast in 2006-07 of
£770 million. It looks like we are heading towards a billion
pounds a year. Why exactly are these costs increasing at this
rate? Was this not forecast?
Des Browne: The costs are a function
of lots of things, some of which are indeterminate. For example,
the amount of ammunition that we use generates the costs, and
we obviously, over the time that you are talking about, used more
ammunition than we had planned to because we were in circumstances
that we had not anticipated and that is now well known and we
have discussed this. So there are a number of aspects of the cost
which you can estimate and plan for, but you can only really know
it retrospectively, and that is why, if we estimate the process,
the way in which we report to Parliament is so appropriate for
this sort of deployment.
Q27 Mr Jenkins: You are not concerned
about the fact that the costs are increasing at this rate then?
Des Browne: With respect, Mr Jenkins,
I do not know what you mean by "concerned". This is
not, in my view, a discretionary operation as far the United Kingdom
is concerned, this has very significant consequences for the security
of this nation. I just think from my perspective (and I am supported
in this by the rest of the Government and in particular by the
Treasury), we need to do what we need to do and have commanders
on the ground, and others, including CJO, to make recommendations
to us that we need to respond to the environment that we see on
the ground or that we need to make further investment in order
to take advantage or to reinforce or to maintain the success,
and we need to find the resources to do that.
Q28 Mr Jenkins: I have got no problem
myself with the fact that, if we are putting a lot more money
into developing the infrastructure and winning hearts and minds,
the cost of consumption of things like the stock—I presume
ammunition is part of the stock—nearly doubled in that period.
The costs for this one go from 200 to 770. That is four times
the increase. All I was indicating is that if we are going to
come back to Parliament and vote on extra funds, at least we should
know what we are voting for and whether we agree with it. Can
you give a definition of where the costs are going?
Des Browne: Although I have not
had a chance to read through all of the Committee's report on
the cost of military operations in the Spring Supplementary, which
was recently published, as the Committee will be aware, we sought
to be actively involved in that process, providing not only a
memorandum but also a supplementary memorandum to the Committee
in order to provide the information that we could to aid that
process, I think this process works very well. I think it has
a significant degree of transparency about it. I think people
do know where the money is spent. I also make the point that creating
security is an important part of the reconstruction of this country,
it is fundamental, and, in fact, there are security-related costs
which have quite significant leverage in terms of reconstruction
and they are money well spent, and I consider all of the money
that we are spending in Afghanistan to be to the objective of
the reconstruction of this country and to the development of a
secure and properly governed space.
Chairman: We will come on to that in
a bit more detail later on.
Q29 Mr Jenkins: I know I am opening
a can of worms, particularly with regard to NATO funding, where
costs fall, but I think I should mention and recognise the tremendous
cost the Americans have borne in this operation as opposed to
our European allies. That is one of the things we always underrate.
If this country is going to be reconstructed, it is going to be
reconstructed with the dollar. We are playing a part in trying
to bring that reconstruction around, and I do not want a debate
about the concept, but we should recognise the fact that whenever
you go anywhere it is the Americans that are paying a lot of the
costs of this operation.
Des Browne: We do need, I think,
to recognise the very substantial contribution that the Americans
have made, not just in terms of a military contribution. We were
talking, for example, about the Kajaki Dam earlier—that
is a USAID project—which is a multi-million pound project
that they have been committed to. Interestingly enough, if my
history is correct, the state that the dam is presently in is
as a consequence of American investment in the first place. The
Americans have consistently over a long period of time made substantial
contributions and plan, as I understand it, to make increased
contributions and they have quite an important budget. The other
side of the coin, of course, in the Afghan context, is that a
number of countries (I cannot remember exactly the number—Mr
Howard may remember) promised to make contributions to the reconstruction
of Afghanistan and, as far as I can see, to a large degree most
of them are living up to those promises, and we are ourselves.
Q30 Mr Holloway: Secretary of State,
earlier you said that we are spending more on reconstruction and
development than we are on security in Helmand. Can you clarify
and expand what you meant?
Des Browne: This is not my area
of responsibility, but I have a note here. It might be better
to give this note to you in writing, but I will just run through
it to give an example of what we have been able to do.
So far from the 2006-07 £102 million Afghanistan
budget DFID has allocated up to £20 million for Helmand,
and we have spent £15 million, which is not bad in nine months,
given that they only started spending in June. There is some unnecessary
red tape in relation to the spending and we need to cut through
that to achieve rapid results, but, moving on in shorter term
Quick Impact Projects, of the £4 million committed so far
(114 Quick Impact Projects) £2.7 million has actually been
spent. It may not seem a vast amount, but with the kind of projects
that we are conducting (Quick Impact Projects) a comparatively
small amount goes a long way. The longer term projects, £10
million for the Government of Afghanistan, just focusing on the
agricultural and rural development programme, 60 miles completed
so far with pumps installed, giving villagers access to safe drinking
water, four roads completed, 49 kms underway—it goes on.
Our engineers themselves have released quite a lot of local capacity
for people to carry out projects.
Q31 Chairman: But compared, Secretary
of State, with the billion pounds that is spent on security, that
is peanuts.
Des Browne: I was comparing, and
I may not have been clear, security projects to development projects
as opposed to the money that we are spending on military.
Q32 Chairman: But those are tiny
figures compared with the billion pounds that Brian Jenkins was
talking about?
Des Browne: I understand that.
That was not the point I was trying to make earlier. I may have
misled the Committee. I am sorry.
Q33 Chairman: Yes, I did gain the
impression that Adam Holloway was talking about.
Des Browne: I was making the distinction
between projects that were designed to improve the security and
projects that could be considered to be reconstruction projects.
Of course, the money that we spend on military deployment—I
need to look at the words that I actually used. If I gave the
impression that we were spending more on development than we were
on military deployment, then I did not intend to.
Chairman: I think you have corrected
that. Thank you, Secretary of State. Dai Havard.
Q34 Mr Havard: Can I ask you about
this business of the Taliban?
Des Browne: I am sorry, could
I just say, of course there is £150 million going to be spent
on the Kajaki Dam as well, which is quite a significant investment.
Q35 Chairman: It is.
Des Browne: I am sorry, Mr Havard.
Q36 Mr Havard: It is a straightforward
question in a sense, I suppose, at the start. How would you assess
the current threat posed by the Taliban/insurgency against UK
forces?
Des Browne: They certainly do
pose a threat to the governance of parts of Afghanistan directly,
but they pose a threat to individual Afghans and to NATO forces
mostly across the south and the east. They can deliver asymmetric
attacks, as we have heard, suicide bombs, and provide explosive
devices throughout the country, and in some areas they can, as
we have seen, muster local concentrations of force for short periods
of time, but mostly that has turned out to be at great risk to
themselves, as was shown in Helmand and then Kandahar, particularly
in the Panjwai Valley towards the end of the summer.
Q37 Mr Havard: So your assessment
is what it was before, which is that they pose no strategic threat,
but they obviously pose a tactical threat in particular places
at particular times. Destabilisation, is it, as opposed to any
strategic threat?
Des Browne: I have been criticised
in the past for saying that they pose no strategic threat to the
governance of Afghanistan, but I am still of that view, and the
reason for that is that I do not think that the people of Afghanistan
show any sign of wanting to return to a Taliban Government, but
that does not mean that these are not violent and dangerous people.
I think they lack the capability for that sort of strategic change
in Afghanistan, particularly against the will of their own people,
despite the propaganda, I have to say, which suggests otherwise.
Q38 Mr Havard: I was going to ask
you about numbers, but I will ask you in a different way. This
business about knowing your enemy and knowing who the enemy is,
as it were, this business about tier one and two Taliban that
you were discussing earlier on is particularly important, is it
not? As I understand it, the intelligence in Sangin was not very
good because, effectively, we had not had people on the ground.
You have got the manoeuvre outreach groups working. You say in
your memo to us that the intelligence is now that the Taliban
fighters, or the fighters who are badged up as Taliban anyway,
are becoming tired and less supportive of their commanders, and
you say that there is a sharp reduction in attacks against UK
forces, yet what we see in terms of the figures from the CSIS
and the US say direct fire attacks last year doubled, IED attacks
doubled, suicide attacks essentially went up exponentially. The
actual objective reality seems to be that there are more of these
things—shaped charges, a more sophisticated response. You
said they have moved back from old First World War trenches and
mass attacks now to asymmetrical warfare. How does that match
up with your intelligence assessment that it is going down and
that they are tired and in some way or another there is a dislocation
between the people who might support them and the Taliban?
Des Browne: I do not think those
things are mutually inconsistent, and I think that because of
the former it is likely that the hardcore of the Taliban are likely
to concentrate on the latter in order to give an impression of
activity because they cannot generate the sort of activity successfully
that they chose to generate last year and, as I say, suffered
quite severe casualties. We report to the Committee in the memorandum,
what we understand from the ground, that there is a dislocation
between those people whom they would expect to fight for them
and their leadership, there is a tiredness among the people who
perceive that they have borne the brunt of this fight for little
or no success, and I think it is entirely consistent with that
that the Taliban would seek to apply force to the community in
these other, what would be described as more asymmetric, ways.[2]
Q39 Mr Havard: Am I right in saying then
the force that has been projected so far in terms of this argument
about if you are shooting people do you win their hearts and minds,
at least what seems to be coming is the tier two Taliban, as it
were, the hired help, as opposed to the hard core, are becoming
disaffected with the process? Is that the intelligence or is that
the tactical win, as it were, that has come out of it all?
Des Browne: Among a lot of other
things that is what we are seeking to do, to separate the tier
one leadership from the people whom they would look to for support,
and I have to say I am not persuaded that they get that support
always because people are sympathetic to them; they get it for
a number of reasons, including a process of intimidation sometimes.
We then (and there would be no need to repeat this because General
Houghton has already described it) seek by intelligence to isolate
not only those people from that support but then to target them
very specifically and to send a very clear message to the people
who do the fighting in the numbers that their leadership is not
invulnerable and is capable of being taken out, arrested or killed
by us.
2 See Ev 84 Back
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