Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
RT HON
DES BROWNE
MP, MR MARTIN
HOWARD, LIEUTENANT
GENERAL NICK
HOUGHTON CBE AND
MR PETER
HOLLAND
20 MARCH 2007
Q60 Mr Holloway: Secretary of State,
I was in Lashkar Gah talking to Afghans the week before last for
four days; who are the aid agencies working in Helmand now, who
is planning to return and what are we doing to spend money further
exploiting this local capability that we seem to have just identified?
Des Browne: Can I say, Mr Holloway,
we have not just identified this local capability; I am sure that
when you were there last week if you spoke to our engineers they
would have been able to identify precisely to you who the construction
companies were. We have, for example, in Gereshk made a significant
difference to that town by the building of security checkpoints
around about the town; I was not there and did not see it but
what was reported to me was that this was carried out by local
labour, and I am told by military engineers that there is a local
engineering capability of some expertise in terms of design which
they discovered. I am not able to give you the names of those
particular companies, but I am sure we can provide that information
in detail.
Q61 Mr Holloway: Secretary of State,
you are talking about people helping us to build our bases or
helping to build security checkpoints that, incidentally, are
not often manned at night because the Afghan army is too afraid
to be in them. I am asking about reconstruction, about the thing
that is going to "unstick" the Afghan villager from
the Taliban. What aid agencies are there doing it apart from the
Italian hospital? Who is there? Who is coming back?
Mr Howard: The Secretary of State
has read out a number of details earlier and it would be easiest
if we give you a note of the things that we have done, but it
includes things like well-digging, it includes refurbishment of
schools and other civil projects in Lashkar Gah. The point that
is important to note is that when the engineers were first deployed
and went out and operated with the locals, it was actually the
locals that asked for the checkpoints to be built.
Q62 Chairman: Mr Howard, in view
of your offer to give us a note that would be extremely helpful.
I wonder though if, instead of giving us examples, you could give
us a complete list of what has been done please?[3]
Mr Howard: We might also offer,
in response to a question you raised earlier, to give you a clear
indication of what we know about what other nations have provided.
Q63 Chairman: That too would be extremely
helpful.
Mr Howard: In terms of cash and
development aid.
Des Browne: I apologise, Chairman,
if I thought I was going to be asked for the detail of every project—such
lists do exist and they can be provided.
Chairman: It would be helpful if we had
them, but it is a fair question. Bernard Jenkin, carry on.
Q64 Mr Jenkin: Let us be absolutely
frank about it, there is a structural problem, as you have identified,
Secretary of State, between the military and many of the non-governmental
agencies who would be very appropriate to help with reconstruction,
and we have to respect their views and their sensibilities for
that, but is this not really something very urgent to address
because when I have been in Iraq and when I have been in Afghanistan
before it has been a great source of frustration to the military.
Do we not need more military-based capability to deliver civilian
reconstruction rather than relying on non-governmental organisations
that do not wish to work with the military?
Des Browne: Let me answer that
directly. Right across the world, those who are involved in nation-building
or conflict resolution have come to very similar views about the
importance of reconstruction work, the importance of being able
to follow up improvements in security by early reconstruction
work and the risks that that generates for people who are sometimes
not well-placed to take those risks. For example, the Committee
will know that there is a debate going on in the United States
of America, encouraged at the highest levels, as to whether or
not there should be some force that is able to do that, that would
be prepared to take those risks. Clearly we identified that problem
in Afghanistan and we were very open about it within weeks of
deploying, to such an extent that we deployed the engineers. I
can only report to the Committee what is reported back to me through
the military communications chains, and that is what they tell
me these engineers have identified, and I have spoken directly
to the engineers in Lashkar Gah. But they also say, you know,
that the increased contribution that the FCO and DFID are making
in terms of the PRT is creating a cross-government capability
in Lashkar Gah which is improving their ability to be able to
deliver the aspects of construction and improvements in governance.
I am not underplaying the difficulty of this, I recognise that
there is a difficulty, but rather than concentrating on what the
difficulties are and the failures—because there will be
failures. Of course there will be with an army which is perhaps
in some elements months old an ability to be able to carry out
the same functions as the British Army would be able to, but it
is mentoring them through these things that is important.
Q65 Mr Jenkin: The simple solution
would be that some of the money that goes to DFID and therefore
to these non-governmental organisations should actually come to
the Ministry of Defence so it can deliver the effects that these
non-governmental organisations cannot provide in that environment.
Des Browne: We have structures
for directing finance to do just that, and that is indeed what
we did do: we directed finance out of common pools of money and
from DFID in order to facilitate the work that the engineers were
setting out to do. That is what happened.
Q66 Mr Jenkin: Fine, I will move
on, Secretary of State, thank you. It seems to be an objective
of this mission to extend the authority of President Karzai's
government across the whole of the country; has there ever been
a government in Kabul that has had authority across the whole
of the country—or at least not for a very long time. Is
it really a realistic objective?
Des Browne: Probably the answer
to that question is no, there has not been a government that has
been able to exercise governance across the whole of Helmand Province,
certainly not that I can recollect. I do not know how far back
in history you would need to go before you could describe that
there would have been one, but is it a realistic objective? Yes,
it is. Will it take a long time to do? Yes, it will.
Q67 Mr Jenkin: General Richards—whom
I must say we are disappointed we have not been able to cross-examine
today, although you have given us some reasons and maybe we can
have him later—is saying we are in danger of attempting
to impose Western systems on an Islamic state; the fact is that
we do not want the warlords to be warlords, but these are powerful
people who generally wish to work with the grain of Afghan civil
society and are not trying to impose a completely different idea
of civil society on Afghanistan.
Des Browne: As you would expect,
General Richards and I discussed these issues at length on many
occasions; there is no difference between General Richards and
me, or indeed between General Richards and the Government, about
our approach to this. We are four-square of the view that if we
are to have sustainable governments in Helmand Province and indeed
across Afghanistan then it has to go with the grain of local culture.
There is no question about that and I do not think General Richards,
if he were able to come here and give evidence, would indicate
that there had been any contradiction between us in that; that
is absolutely right, that is what we need to do. Building local
government is about building local government, that is government
for the local people that serves their aspirations. The other
point I would make to you, and I say this often in public and
in private, we have to work with who is there and our objective
is to get people who are people of influence and people of power
into government and to be operating within the framework of the
law. That is exactly what our objective is to do because everybody
who has ever tried to do this anywhere in the world realises that
if you do not have an inclusive approach you just perpetuate the
clubs.
Q68 Mr Jenkin: But also that the
currency of Afghan politics is money, dollars. Basically, if we
want the writ of the Kabul government to have any meaning beyond
the boundaries of Kabul itself, it is about money, is it not?
Des Browne: This is distinct,
Mr Jenkin, to which government?
Q69 Mr Jenkin: The Karzai government.
Des Browne: I seem to think we
spend a lot of time over there talking about public spending too.
Government is about directing resources, of course it is about
directing resources and it is about directing resources in a way
that reflects the success that governments can have in people's
aspirations, and there is that, of course there is, about directing
resources.
Q70 Willie Rennie: You are talking
about local buy-in and the Musa Qaleh deal was an integral part
of that local buy-in; what exactly is the position in Musa Qaleh
now?
Des Browne: We need to first of
all recognise what the Musa Qaleh agreement was, and it is relevant
to the discussion I have just had with Mr Jenkin. It was an attempt
to reflect the wishes of the local community and put responsibility
into the hands of the local government of the village elders and
the tribal leaders, and in the long run I am firmly of the view
that it is this kind of approach which will sometimes fail and
sometimes falter which will bring long-term security. I am very
pleased that we were able to make that agreement and it was a
sign of improvement that we were able to make that agreement.
Candidly, the jury is still out on whether it has worked, there
is no doubt that the Taliban in that community sought to break
that agreement and they sought to break that agreement in a way
in which they thought they could overwhelm the local community.
There is no certainty of the evidence from that community at the
moment, but I am far from the view that they have succeeded in
doing that and, because of the way we responded to it in particular,
because we managed by air strikes to kill two of the local Taliban
commanders, we believe that we significantly undermined their
ability to be able to do that, but it is in a state of uncertainty,
that is all I can say, it is not clear exactly what the situation
is but it is not nearly as gloomy as people describe.
Q71 Willie Rennie: Are you looking
at other places to institute similar agreements? We have talked
previously about those kinds of measures we have introduced elsewhere.
Des Browne: Our ambition is for
the governor, presently Governor Wafa, to be able to deliver governments
to the local communities of his governature in the way in which
he considers to be most appropriate, in consultation with local
people. He has an approach to that which involves local agreements
and since he is constitutionally the appropriate person to be
doing that, we will support him in doing that across the communities
of this province. That is a matter for him, rather than us looking
to do it; we are looking to support but then he is in turn accountable
to President Karzai and that engages the central government in
his local decisions, which is exactly how the Musa Qaleh agreement
came about in the first place.
Q72 Willie Rennie: Have they approached
you about that kind of exact support for other areas?
Des Browne: We do that all the
time. Part of Brigadier Thomas' responsibility is to facilitate
and enable and support that sort of behaviour because we are trying
to extend the role of the fact of governance from the governor
across as much of Helmand Province as we can.
Q73 Willie Rennie: Do you think the
use of overwhelming force is undermining our approaches on reconstruction
and development?
Des Browne: I just think that
there are some situations—the Panjwai Valley which we have
spoken about and people know about the attacks in the district
centres in the north of Helmand when we were occupying them—where
we have to recognise that where the enemy can muster a level of
force that generates violence that attacks and potentially undermines
the governments or directly attacks our troops, then we must be
free to use the force that we need to in order to overcome that
violence which is being presented to us. We then need to recognise
that that has to be done in a way that does not undermine our
broad outlook on insurgency and reconstruction projects, and we
seek to do that.
Q74 Willie Rennie: But do you think
it does undermine it? Does it actually set back some quite good
measures introduced with reconstruction; that you have actually
had to act in that kind of way has set you back?
Des Browne: I am content that
our commanders make their decisions on the ground operationally
and tactically in a way that deploys force in the safest way possible
and in the most effective way. Sometimes actually the use of targeted
force in that way, whether it be overwhelming or not, is the most
effective thing to do. There is another aspect of the culture
of Afghanistan that I am constantly told about and that is that
the people will follow those whom they think will prevail.
Q75 Willie Rennie: The "Platoon
House" strategy from last year; do you think in retrospect
it was a mistake?
Des Browne: No.
Q76 Willie Rennie: Why?
Des Browne: Because the commander
on the ground was faced—as increasingly I am learning they
are—with a tactical dilemma. There was a challenge made
to the authority of the then governor, Governor Daud, in a number
of areas of the north. He made an entirely appropriate decision
to respond to that, to over-match that attack, and then to hold
those district centres through the use of platoon houses to ensure
the presence of the governor and of governors was kept in these
communities, which is what the communities wanted. They were of
course attacked and we had to deal with those attacks and we sustained
a level of casualty which we had not expected that we would sustain
and I accept that, but I do not think they could in any way be
described as mistaken. In the fullness of time they will turn
out to be quite a significant contribution to the strategic success
of our operation.
Q77 Chairman: We do not hear the
word "ink spots" nowadays; is there any reason for that?
Des Browne: I have no idea. I
do not think I have used the word once, even in anticipation,
but if you mean have we given up the plan to secure areas and
to spread construction out from them, we have not and that is
what we are seeking to do in Lashkar Gah. We will, if we seek
to deliver progress to the largest number of people, be forced
into that process in any event, call it what you like, ink spots
or Afghan development zones or whatever; I think these terms are
all interchangeable.
Q78 Willie Rennie: When Vice-President
Cheney visited Pakistan and Afghanistan earlier on this year he
seemed to pin the blame for the cross-border insecurity on Pakistan,
and we keep getting intelligence from both sides saying that the
other is to blame. Can you give any clarity as to exactly what
the problem is and what partly the solution would be?
Des Browne: The problem is that
there is movement across the border both ways, and there has been
for some time. One of the things that I have learned over the
last months is that in respect of lots of these borders around
the world, the people who live at or near them do not recognise
them apart from the fact that there are disputes and traditionally
tribes move back and forward across these borders. We have probably
discussed this about Maysan in Iraq, which is a very good example
of where the local people have scant if any regard at all for
the fact that there is a border between their country and another.
The problem is that people move back and forward across the border,
there are separate jurisdictions either side of that and it is
easy for one to blame the other for the failings on the border,
but that seems to me to point to the solution, which is to get
these two countries to work together. There are all sorts of projects
predicted for this border including, I have heard, fencing it
and mining it. I just remind people sometimes that we tried to
police the border in Northern Ireland for 30 years and things
still moved back and forward across it in a very much smaller
area with quite a significant number of troops. I do not think
that is a possibility, there needs to be a shared political solution
to this which identifies the difficulties, and we encourage Pakistan
and Afghanistan, despite their differences, to continually talk
to each other. There are some developments, for example the Jirga
Commission, which is designed to bring the peoples of the border
area together to discuss their problems, which are promising,
but it is difficult political work. Can I just make one other
point, and that is that we should never under-estimate the scale
of the challenge that Pakistan faces on their side of the border
nor should we play down the casualties that they themselves have
suffered in that border area trying to control some of the violence
and some of the bad people that move around there.
Q79 Willie Rennie: You have made
some important points in that and that was something that President
Musharraf was very keen to stress to us when we visited last year,
about the losses that his troops have faced. You mentioned earlier
on about the failure to deploy a battlegroup on the border; do
you think that has had an effect on how you actually deal with
security across the border, with the lack of that battlegroup?
Des Browne: The border extends
beyond just Helmand Province, as people know. The tactical approach
to that and the broader strategy is a matter of course for the
NATO commander; we have not as an alliance filled that part of
the CJSOR, but it is open to General McNeill and the other commanders
to decide to deploy their resource in a way that addresses the
issues that they wanted the battlegroup to address at the border
if they choose to do that. We are under that command and it is
not for me to decide how they should deploy those troops.
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