Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
RT HON
DES BROWNE
MP, MR MARTIN
HOWARD, LIEUTENANT
GENERAL NICK
HOUGHTON CBE AND
MR PETER
HOLLAND
20 MARCH 2007
Q80 Willie Rennie: Do they have sufficient
troops in order to do that?
Des Browne: At the end of the
day the general and other commanders have to deal with what they
have. We have already had a discussion about that and they have
to prioritise and if what he planned that battlegroup would do
is one of General McNeill's priorities, then there are sufficient
resources for him to be able to do that. That will mean that other
things may not be able to be done, but they may not need to be
done at that time, they might not be priorities.
Q81 Willie Rennie: You talked earlier
on about a Jirga Commission as a possibility. Is there sufficient
dialogue between the two countries and what else do you think
could be done to improve that dialogue if it is not sufficient?
Des Browne: I just think there
needs to be greater collaboration between them. For example, they
need to begin to identify their differences with a view to resolving
them; they are very good at identifying their differences. If
we could move them on to resolving them then we would make some
progress, but we need to develop joint approaches because there
are some big issues such as, for example, the refugee camps. There
are plans to close the refugee camps and, in principle, I think
that would be a good idea, providing it is done in a managed way
and with the support of the international community so that we
do not get a substantial refugee problem, which will almost certainly
be delivered into Afghanistan. The whole issue of the Pushtun
identity needs to be discussed between them and resolved to the
degree that it can be, although these are big issues and I do
not think they will be resolved. They may be managed or accommodations
may be found, but then there are governments and developments
in the tribal areas themselves which are part of the problem.
There are a whole number of things that can be done and if the
Commission does meet there will be no shortage of issues on the
agenda for it to discuss.
Q82 Mr Havard: The question of the
border tends to centre on the border with Pakistan, but of course
Afghanistan is geographically significant because it has borders
elsewhere. The last time I was in the far west of the country,
there is the border with Iran and there is the problem of the
leakage or export of drug-related things north as well, up towards
the Stans and all the rest of it. What have you got to say about
the relationships with the other border countries as well as the
relationship with Pakistan?
Des Browne: I have to say that
I do not consider myself to have great expertise in relation to
those relationships, but to the extent that they do not come to
me as part of the problem as it were, the relationships with other
countries, I suspect that President Karzai has continuing relationships.
There are clearly issues there and the drug trail across into
Iran is a very serious issue which the Iranians themselves devote
quite a substantial amount of resource to trying to deal with;
indeed, at a humanitarian level, because of the way in which that
delivers into their community support work in Afghanistan, it
is designed to support alternative livelihoods and to move people
off the drugs business. It is a very mixed environment, therefore,
and sometimes things that happen are counterintuitive to our views
of individual countries.
Mr Havard: Absolutely.
Q83 Mr Hamilton: Could I ask about
armoured vehicles? I am still trying to work out your comment
"they follow those who will prevail"—that comment
is quite interesting and I think that applies to our part at the
present time, we follow those who prevail. It might be quite an
interesting diversion to follow. My questions are quite straightforward:
one is, how many Mastiff and Vector vehicles are now in theatre?
Des Browne: Can I just say to
you, Mr Hamilton, the CJO will give you the detail to the extent
that we are prepared to share that, but we tend not to give a
blow by blow account of the deployment of individual vehicles,
for the reason that that sort of information in the hands of the
enemy can aid their defeating our security. If they know the extent
to which we have something and can see it deployed to its fullest
extent, then they can work things out from that. I am prepared
to hand over to the CJO for him to give the detail to the extent
to which it would be safe to do so in the public domain.
Q84 Chairman: That is fair enough.
Do you want to answer?
Des Browne: Or do you want to
write to the Committee? That may be best.
Lieutenant General Houghton: We
could commit it to a note.[4]
It is very early on in the deployment of Mastiff and Vector, there
are only a couple of the Mastiffs there at the moment, but the
whole deployment is due to be finished by the end of the autumn,
by which time then all of the Snatch vehicles will have been removed
from theatre.
Q85 Mr Hamilton: You are quite happy
with where it is at the present time.
Lieutenant General Houghton: I
am, and industry and the procurement process could not have moved
quicker in respect of these particular vehicles.
Q86 Mr Hamilton: Could I ask a more
general question? When we were in Afghanistan last year service
personnel told us about the vulnerability of the soft-skin Snatch
Land Rovers. My question would then be, trying not to be too specific,
are we intending to replace this type of vehicle, because you
know the public concern has been in relation to this and what
are we intending to replace them with?
Des Browne: I will come back to
the CJO in a minute but this is my responsibility and I do not
shift from it, so it is appropriate that I actually answer this
question in general terms. I am very seized of this issue of protective
vehicles and have been since I came into this job. What we need
to do is to offer commanders a range of vehicles so that they
are able to deploy the appropriate vehicle for the particular
part of the operation. Our ambition, and we will achieve this
ambition shortly, is to have a range of vehicles in Afghanistan
that goes through from Land Rovers, Snatch and WMIK—which
are entirely appropriate vehicles to be used in certain circumstances,
but it is a matter for the operational commander to make the decision
about whether they ought to be used. Part of that—and this
is not a small part of counter-insurgency work—is to present
a particular image to communities in certain circumstances which
is less threatening and engaging, but it is also about mobility
and the weight of vehicles and the nature of the infrastructure.
However, they ought to have the opportunity to use those vehicles
and I know, having spoken to marine commandos who have used WMIK
vehicles, that they like those vehicles and, indeed, never mind
soft-skinned, they are entirely open when they drive them around
in the desert and that is what they want because it gives them
the degree of visibility that they can see people coming for literally
miles in certain environments. From there through the Viking tracked
vehicles, which were deployed with the marine commandos—they
are very good vehicles that are very successful with the marines
and are spoken of very highly by them—the Warrior tracked
armoured vehicles which we will deploy as part of the announcement
I made on 24 February in response to a request for a light armoured
capability, the Mastiff vehicles which we are at the beginning
of the deployment of, which are protected patrol vehicles with
very good mine protection, and of course Vector vehicles which
are the longer term plan to give us improved off-road and long-range
patrol performance—that mix of vehicles will then be available
to the operational commanders to choose the appropriate vehicle
for the appropriate job. I do not know if the CJO wants to add
to that.
Lieutenant General Houghton: Just
on the specific question, the deployment of the Vector, virtually
on a one for one basis, replaces the Snatch, so when they are
fully deployed all the Snatch will then be removed from theatre.
Chairman: That is very helpful; thank
you. Robert Key.
Q87 Robert Key: Secretary of State,
in the last year or so what improvements have there been to strategic
air transport to support our troops in theatre. Are you confident
that we have now got that problem licked?
Des Browne: On the issue of air
transport in the round can I defer to the CJO, but I do want to
say something and I know this is not specifically a response to
the question but these are strategically important and I want
to cover helicopters in particular because the Committee has expressed
some concerns. I will be candid, as I have tried to be on these
and other issues in this job. I believe that we do need more helicopters
in the Forces and I want the option to provide more to operations
to increase the flexibility that the commanders have, because
just as they need flexibility in ground vehicles, they need flexibility
in the air as well. I have looked at ways of bringing this about
since I arrived in the job last summer and we have deployed two
more Chinooks and improved our support arrangements to make more
flying hours available for both Chinooks and Apaches. We continue
to explore what can be done to increase the resources available,
but I am equally clear that now the commanders have what they
need to do every job they need to do—that is not to say
that if we could not give them more they could not do more, and
commanders would want me always to give that qualification because
every time I ask them about this they make that qualification
and I understand that. They have the Apache to support our forces
when they are engaged on the ground, they have the helicopters
that they need to pick up and carry our people, whether they be
injured or not. I have no doubt that if I can get them more they
will find good ways of using them; that is the position I actually
want to be in and I will probably have more to say about this
in the not too distant future. The CJO might talk more strategically
about air assets, including the air bridge.
Lieutenant General Houghton: Moving
to the air bridge and the strategic air transport fleet, I probably
just need to contextualise it in as much as we would accept the
fact that this is an aging fleet which needs quite a high degree
of maintenance to keep it going. What I would also put into context
is that the fleet is there to support what is a military operation,
we are not trying to imitate a chartered air service. In statistical
terms what the strategic air fleet has done in respect of both
of the major brigade relief in places for both theatres and the
R and R programme, in terms of outbound flights 84% have met their
anticipated timing within a three-hour tolerance and 75% in the
return leg. We only as it were get to hear the bad news of when
that goes wrong and the times when it does not meet its scheduled
timing. As I say, within what is a strategic air fleet which is
aging and does have reliability problems, those are not bad statistics
in the round, given what we are trying to provide. I would also
say of course that it is a finite fleet; we have to use it because
of the specific defensive aid suites that it has got and it is
therefore also subject to dynamic re-tasking, so in the circumstance
for example of a casualty evacuation situation that needs to be
done, that has got to be at detriment to some of the programmed
flying.
Chairman: General Houghton, because we
are doing an individual inquiry into strategic lift, probably
it would be best to go into this sort of issue in that inquiry
rather than in relation specifically to Afghanistan. There is
one other issue as well. We are just about, Secretary of State,
to send you a letter about the operation of the coroner service
to ask for a memorandum as to how that is changing and the changes
that need to be made. In the context of that, Robert Key, is there
any question you would like to ask?
Q88 Robert Key: The morale of British
Forces and their families is very sensitive when it comes to the
matter of the repatriation of bodies of those who have lost their
lives, and an unintended consequence of the closure of Brize Norton
for two years is that that changes the jurisdiction of Her Majesty's
coroners, who have to undertake not only the actual court process
but the support service for families who are receiving bodies
at Brize and will now receive them at Lyneham in Wiltshire. There
is what now appears to be a rather grubby little argument about
additional resources for the coroner in Wiltshire to be able to
support those families, and I wonder if you could just give me
your assurance that the Ministry of Defence will do whatever they
can to ensure that there is proper funding, either transferred
from Oxfordshire to Wiltshire but in any event that there is proper
funding to give appropriate support to the coroner service, not
only to ensure speedy and careful court processes but also the
proper care of the families of those receiving the bodies of their
loved ones.
Des Browne: Can I just say, Mr
Key, that I am sorry we do not have the time to go into this in
some detail because there is more to this than the story that
has been reported at the moment, and there is still water to pass
under this particular bridge because it is not just as clear-cut
as it would appear from the way in which it was reported. The
submission in relation to this came onto my desk this morning;
it is just unfortunate that sometimes things go onto the front
page of newspapers before they come onto my desk, and it is all
too common nowadays. This is a complicated organisation that I
am in charge of, however, and some people think it is in the best
interests of it to share information before decisions are necessarily
made. Can I just say to you that I am very seized of this issue
and I agree entirely with you that this ought to be a priority
focus, and not just for the immediate families of the loved one
who has given their life in operational theatres but the effect
it has on the extended family of the Forces and I understand that.
You will know that we diverted resource from the MoD to the DCA
in order to increase the number of coroners who were available
in Oxfordshire to be able to deal with the backlog that had built
up. I am absolutely determined that that backlog will be reduced
and eliminated and not replaced, but I do know from conversations
that others have had with families that have been reported to
me and that I have had with families, concentrating these inquests
in one geographical area has not always been to the best advantage
and that we have to maybe be a bit more flexible about that. Certainly
what I will not want to do—and I will ensure that it does
not happen—is repeat the problem that arose at Oxfordshire
somewhere else in the event that there are bodies repatriated
in a way that the jurisdiction of another coroner is brought into
play.
Q89 Chairman: I know that the Minister
of State is also pursuing this and has been doing so for some
months.
Des Browne: Yes.
Q90 Chairman: We will send you a
memorandum.
Des Browne: Just let me say, because
the Minister of State when she speaks about this is always very
careful to attribute the contribution that the MoD has made to
this, that she has made a substantial and splendid contribution
to this and, indeed, on a week by week basis ensures that there
is a report in relation to all of the outstanding inquests across
her desk. She is personally supervising the process to try and
deal with this issue and she deserves to have that recognised.
Chairman: Thank you. Moving on to counter-narcotics,
Mr Holland, you have been waiting here for a long time and we
are now onto you. Linda Gilroy.
Q91 Linda Gilroy: Can I welcome the
serious response the Secretary of State has just given to that
issue. As he will know, there are about 1,000 men and women in
support roles out in Afghanistan from Devon and Cornwall over
the past six months. Moving to the question of narcotics, there
is great admiration for their role in tackling the Taliban and
in reconstruction work; our newspaper has certainly covered the
very good work they have been doing in that arena which we were
discussing earlier. In relation to the anti-narcotics strategy,
which is an Afghan policy set in 2003 and we are four years through
that, General Richards in the article that has been much-quoted
in this session said that the resources and the planning put into
provision of alternative livelihoods or the economy really is
still inadequate and must be refocused for the international community
in 2007. Will we be seeing that focus or will we be finally admitting
that the policy so far has been a failure?
Des Browne: My view is that it
will take fundamental changes in the economic situation in Afghanistan
to break the stranglehold of the narcotics industry. I do not
get any sense from any members of this Committee—and I think
at one stage or another I have discussed this either in the House
or privately with almost all of them—that there is any difference
between us as to whether this is a long-term job or whether there
is a quick fix for it. Counter-narcotics is a long-term job and
everywhere anybody has tried to deal with it they have discovered,
even if they have gone in on the basis that they can eradicate
it—using that verb advisedly—in one growing season,
that they cannot. Perhaps what we have been seeking to do and
what the Afghan Government is seeking to do has suffered from
the constant focus on a number of metrics of success, none of
which I consider to be the appropriate metric of success at all.
The candid answer is that we need to build the infrastructure
that deals with all of the aspects of a very complex strategy,
and it is not by any stretch of the imagination a muddled strategy,
it is a very clear strategy but it is very difficult to deliver
it because it relies upon principally an Afghan component, it
is for the Afghans themselves to do this. We should facilitate
that, however, and we should help them to build the capacity to
be able to do it, so they need to be able to build their police,
they need to be able to build their special narcotics police,
they need to be able to improve their ability to arrest those
people who are the principal drivers of it, the middle-level drug
dealers, and they also need to have a justice system that brings
those people to book, puts them in prison and keeps them in prison
and also takes from them the proceeds of that dealing that they
do. We are making some progress in relation to all of those and
it is not until we get those in place and, as you identify, alternative
livelihoods or the opportunity for alternative livelihoods for
people, that we will be able to see the progress that we want
to see in this area. That all having been said, there are parts
of Afghanistan now that are drug-free or virtually drug-free that
were not five years ago. That is because we have been able to
create that sort of environment and that sort of success in those
communities. There is success in parts, there is apparent failure
in others against metrics which I think are the wrong ones and
there are still challenges, and in Helmand our ability to be able
to develop economic alternatives for farmers is a key to this.
Q92 Linda Gilroy: Can you say a bit
more about the respect in which you think the metrics are wrong?
We will be taking evidence next week from academics about this
and from the Senlis Council, so it would be useful to know whether
you accept that there is something that needs to be changed.
Des Browne: I understand why people
do this. Poppy cultivation figures and eradication figures are
the two joint obsessions, it would appear, of people who are trying
to measure success. I do not think either of them is the appropriate
metric to decide whether or not the strategy is right; the strategy
is much more long-term than one season's growing or one season's
eradication, although we can report them and of course people
do report them; I just think it focuses on entirely the wrong
area. It is their ability to be able to do all of the other things
that we have been discussing all morning that will create the
environment that will help us undermine and drive out the narcotics
economy and culture. Where it has been successful in Afghanistan
or in Pakistan, for example, where a long-term approach to this
was successful, it has been successful because people have been
able to build up those other parts. They are much more long-term,
they cannot just be produced out of a hat. People can go and eradicate
a field here and there but that does not create a sustainable
answer to this. It may be that Mr Holland wants to supplement
this.
Q93 Linda Gilroy: Perhaps directed
towards him, I understand that you need security, you need to
involve the Afghans in that and we need to see the development
of the legal economy in general, not just the alternative livelihoods.
Can you tell us more about the way in which that is developing
across Afghanistan; in particular are we seeing any development
in that sphere in the South at all?
Mr Holland: Yes, those are absolutely
the factors that we are talking about. Critically what you need
to see is a diversification of the economy to offer farmers more
opportunity to earn a livelihood, so that is about more choices
of what they grow and a mixture of cash crops and subsistence
crops. Critically it is going to be access to markets, so that
means a market being there so you have roads and that you do have
the rule of law and police forces to protect them. We have commissioned
some research year on year to look at what is happening on cultivation
and we are just analysing the results this year, and actually
there does seem to be some progress in Helmand, particularly around
the town centres, around Lashkar Gah. We are seeing that farmers
are actually choosing not to grow poppy this year, even though
across Helmand as a whole there will still be a very high poppy
cultivation, but actually in those areas where there is better
security, there is a bit more rule of law and there are markets—actually
even in Helmand you are seeing farmers move away.
Q94 Mr Holloway: Secretary of State,
what you were saying entirely reflects what the marines are saying
in Bastion and Lashkar Gah, but they are also saying that eradication
is fuelling the insurgency. From their point of view it is extremely
unhelpful, yet Britain remains very closely associated with this
corrupt process. Why are we continuing to do that in the face
of criticism from our own troops; secondly, is it because we are
really trying to rein in the Americans who would go a lot further
unless we involved ourselves in some way?
Des Browne: In relation to the
last part of the question there are different views across the
world as to the right approach to this; there are acres of newsprint
written about this and anybody who has even looked at the tip
of the iceberg can see that there are differing views. All of
those views are probably represented in and around Afghanistan
because all the countries that espouse different views are all
there. The fact of the matter is, however, at the end of the day
all of us concede that this is a matter for the Afghans themselves
and President Karzai made the decision, in consultation with his
allies but with his cabinet and his own ministers, as to how they
would approach this year's poppy cultivation. He himself has said
that there will be no aerial spraying and, indeed, although he
contemplated the possibility of ground-based spraying at one stage,
he came to the decision in consultation with us and others that
he would not do that in Helmand Province this season, but decisions
are only made year on year. At the end of the day there will be
this process of discussion and debate about what is the best way
to approach this, but we will all have to defer to the sovereign
government of Afghanistan as to how to deal with this because
we all say it is their issue. There has been some manual eradication
and there have effectively been two forms of it in Helmand Province:
there has been the Afghan eradication force deployed and that
has been some government-based eradication. I do not have the
advantage of recent discussions with marines on the ground that
you have, Mr Holloway, but I hope to be able to correct that deficiency
in the not too distant future and I will raise this issue with
them. The reason that we are associated with that is because that
activity is going on in Helmand Province where we have responsibility
and we have given some logistic help to the Afghan eradication
force to move tractors.
Q95 Mr Holloway: Eighty of them,
yes. Is this not deeply conflicting, Secretary of State? On the
one hand our troops are telling us that this is fuelling the insurgency
and to any observer with half a brain you would think that would
be the case, but on the other hand we are still helping to facilitate
this process, which is itself seen as completely corrupt by the
Afghan villager. Is it not another thing which does not help us
at all to unstick the villager from the Taliban?
Des Browne: I do not know that
the equation is just that simple. Again, I am in the unfortunate
position of having to defer to your conversations with people
and I am not saying that you are not reporting that correctly.
Q96 Mr Holloway: Let us ask the General,
does the General think it fuels the insurgency?
Lieutenant General Houghton: There
is no doubt about it, you make an exact correlation that an ill-informed
amount of eradication, when the other things, alternate livelihoods
and such are not in place, does present an ideal opportunity for
the Taliban to exploit and could alienate local people. That is
why it is very important that we properly co-ordinate the eradication
the that does go on it can be done locally without detriment to
local consent. Equally, there has to be an element of eradication
in support of the overall business of rule of law and upholding
that, so although I do recognise that incoherently carried out
eradication is bad for consent, I would not be an absolutist to
say no eradication at all should ever be carried out because that
encourages a lack of the imposition of the rule of law and that
is not what over the long term we want to achieve.
Mr Jenkins: I can see the need for a
symbolic act of taking out certain fields and when you say to
the farmer "Which field do you want to take out?" "We
will take that one out, it is not as good as this one" they
take out the poorer field. It s not just the farmer, however,
this is quite common sense. If you have a rural community, the
people who work on the fields in the harvest season are part of
the community so if the harvest is being taken away from you and
you can see the opportunity to feed your family is being taken
away from you, you would not be very pleased with the people who
are taking it away, so the alternative must be in place and that
is why I am very interested in the amount of money we are spending.
If I spend $20 a day—that is what they get, about $20 to
$25 a day for harvesting the poppy—and if I pay them for
100 days, that is $2,000 a year. Since we are paying £1 million
or about $2 billion, I can actually employ one million people
for 100 days not to harvest the poppy or not to fight on behalf
of the Taliban, but to build roads, dig ditches or maybe fight
on our behalf. I know we cannot do that, that is too simplistic,
but somewhere along that road we have to start taking some big
strides to get people off this crop and to give them an alternative.
I do not think it is just the poppies; to convert it into another
crop there has to be an involvement in all the community.
Q97 Chairman: Mr Holland, are you
going to comment on that or the Secretary of State?
Des Browne: To the extent that
Mr Jenkins describes a response of the poor farmer to his or his
family's livelihood being taken away, that is likely to be correct
and that is what Mr Holloway is describing as fuelling the insurgency.
The fact of the matter is, however, that if you have a strategy—and
I believe the strategy is right—when security reaches a
certain level and when alternative livelihoods are available,
there has to be a consequence for those who choose to continue
to be greedy and not needy in that environment. That does mean
risking the possibility that you will generate some reaction,
but at some point the rule of law has to be enforced. There is
evidence to suggest, as Mr Holland has said, that eradication
has been successful in areas of Lashkar Gah where that environment
exists but—and this is important as well—there is
some evidence, and it is growing but from a small base, that farmers
chose not to grow poppy this year in Helmand Province because
of the threat of eradication. If we went through a growing season
without some eradication to deliver that threat to reality, then
next year these people who have already turned without the need
for eradication will just go back. It is difficult, but evidence
across Afghanistan suggests that you reach a tipping point with
this and that you can move very quickly thereafter, and there
are provinces in Afghanistan who have, even on the metric that
I do not think is the best, moved to virtually poppy-free or poppy-free
zones.
Q98 Mr Havard: This question of alternative
livelihoods, can I just explore this a little more. I mean, what
are these alternative livelihoods? You could say people can go
and become policemen and judges and all the rest of it, but you
have not got education. Is the alternative to pay them to do nothing,
like we do British farmers as part of the EU, or is it something
else? Is it to buy the crop of them, or what are these alternatives?
Are they nuts and grapes, what are they?
Mr Holland: It is going to be
a mixture of things. In many areas you are talking about changing
the agricultural economy, and particularly in the North where
you are seeing that happening, that is exactly what is happening,
you are developing a cash economy. In some parts of the country
that is not going to work, it is being grown because it is too
poor and actually you are talking about ultimately creating employment
opportunities for people to move away from the land, and that
is going to take a lot longer. What you are not looking at at
this stage is buying the crop. At the moment it is grown on less
than 4% of agricultural land; if we go in and buy the crop all
we are going to do is create another market and encourage more
people to grow it. That is really not a solution, you are talking
about a long-term development process.
Q99 Linda Gilroy: Some commentators
in the beginning suggested that the profits of the drugs trade
might be recycled into the legal economy; is there any evidence
of that happening at all?
Mr Holland: The IMF has done some
work on this, and it does happen to a degree, certainly in terms
of property and things like that. They estimate actually significantly
less—the opium economy is worth about $3 billion roughly,
but much of that does not stay in Afghanistan, much of it leaves
and does not get reinvested back, and the IMF's assessment is
actually that the opium economy as a whole, because it creates
illegality, actually is a real drag on the legitimate economy.
Des Browne: Chairman, on that
subject may I suggest that the Committee, if it gets the opportunity,
speaks to the Governor of Kandahar on that very subject. He is
engaging in very interesting things on that subject.
Chairman: That is a helpful suggestion;
we will do our best to do so.
4 See Ev 117 Back
|
