Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
MR ROBERT
FOX, MR
RORY STEWART
AND DR
MICHAEL WILLIAMS
27 MARCH 2007
Q180 Mr Borrow: Presumably the Dutch
were doing it as part of the NATO force?
Mr Stewart: One of the problems
with NATO is that every single one of these countries seems to
have a completely different view about what they are doing. They
have different rules of engagement, they do not like to listen
to the headquarters, they listen to their politicians at home,
and this was very clear in Iraq and it is very clear again in
Afghanistan. It must be very frustrating that the United States
has 90% of the troops, 90% of the money and wants to take 99%
of the decisions.
Dr Williams: The NATO model is
essentially faulty in that the PRTs are being asked to do too
much across the entire country. There is no standardised model
for a PRT which in some ways allows it flexibility to cater for
local needs but at the same time the locals do not know what to
expect so there is no standard output, no standard composition.
The military side of the PRT reports through the ISAF chain to
NATO, the civilian side of the PRT reports back to national governments
in their home capitals. The funding comes from home capitals,
which thus means that PRTs answer to politicians sitting in Berlin,
London and Washington and not to the commander on the ground,
not to the President of Afghanistan, not to the regional or local
leaders. I think it is important to remember that all politics
is inherently local. One of the things that has been more effective
in Afghanistan have been devolved efforts where there is a heightened
degree of autonomy with minimal reporting back to the overall
commanders. We tend to try and put—this goes to the Taliban
as well—things into Western models of conflict and Western
paradigms and this is simply not the case in Afghanistan. If you
talk about the Taliban or al-Qaeda as some enemy as you do the
Soviet Union you entirely miss the point. I do not fault the military
for doing this, it is a difficult situation to overcome, but it
is one that we must work on. Again, the approach to reconstruction
and conflict needs to adapt. We see a lack of accord between the
PRT approach in one area and, for instance, the German role in
the north when compared to even the Italians in Herat to the west.
That is something that needs to be addressed and also bringing
other actors to do the job where possible. I would say that you
do not need to have a severe military presence and a German PRT
in Mazar-e-Sharif when that could be done by NGOs, very much so.
Mr Fox: I would like to add two
footnotes to what I said. I am very worried about a one-size-fits-all
approach to counter-insurgency. We love doctrine and now orthodox
doctrine moves between British experiences in Malay and American
experiences in Vietnam with sacred texts like McMaster's Dereliction
of Duty and Eating Soup with a Knife by Nagl. These
are almost looked on as holy texts. I agree with my colleagues,
every situation that I have looked at, whether it is Kosovo and
the mafia activities there behind the KLA and what I am looking
at in Helmand, are absolutely sui generis. The second point
that I would like to make about the insurgency is to add a very
old expression into the debate but I know that the head of UNAMI
uses it a hell of a lot. This is just what historians would call
a pajakaran, a spontaneous explosion from below with very little
political sense of direction or programme. The people are just
really fed up, they are on their uppers, and if somebody says,
"I have got the gun, fight", it is almost motiveless
action at certain points. Certainly, for instance, the ground
between the Kajaki dam and Musa Qaleh is full of people like that
because, as one of the militia chiefs put it to me, "The
only people with guns here, and they have the final argument,
are the Taliban".
Q181 Mr Jenkin: I am very interested
to know more about the Dutch model referred to by Rory Stewart.
This is something without creating a one-size-fits-all approach
that seems to be about delegated command and letting commanders
on the ground use their discretion in view of the resources they
have got available to produce best effects rather than following
a more centrally directed agenda. Could you all comment on this,
particularly if NATO cannot agree a single strategy for Musa Qaleha.
Mr Fox: Can I just say it is not
exclusively Dutch. Having a Dutch wife and many colleagues and
friends in the Dutch media, one must explain the extreme reluctance
with which the Dutch went into Uruzgan and what they have done
about it. They have thought asymmetrically about it. It is not
exclusively Dutch because James Bucknall and General David Richards
were much impressed by the individual initiative of a single Italian
Alpini colonel who did much the same in a very difficult valley
quite close into Kabul where he organised the surers, made the
elders see that it was in their interests to have an Italian military
presence to slowly put back the bad guys, where they had schools
burnt down and so on. Yes, there is devolved command, there is
mission command, and various groups are trying to deal with the
facts as they see them on the ground. The Dutch exclusively concentrate
on a very, very light military footprint.
Mr Stewart: I agree that there
are other people attempting similar things but the real secret
of the Dutch, which is quite difficult to replicate, is that it
is very reliant on very good political and tribal affairs officers,
particularly a man called Matheus Toot who has been there for
over a decade. The British are surprisingly poor at this. This
is something we are supposed to be good at and really we are very,
very bad at having anybody—I do not know where they would
come from, whether they would come from DFID or the military or
the Foreign Office—who is prepared to spend years sitting
on the ground in Helmand mapping the political allegiances, mapping
the tribal allegiances and really beginning to understand how
power structures work at a local level. That then allows the Dutch
to do a great deal through covert operations and a great deal
through intelligence operations, intelligence agents, creating
very sophisticated links with surers which actually helps them
in their counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism because they can
get these people to tell them where the bad guys are. They also
require very flexible funding arrangements in order to pursue
these kinds of relationships. I am honestly extremely disappointed,
Britain ought to be good at doing this and I cannot quite understand
why none of the institutions of government are really getting
involved it. The final footnote would be that the Dutch would
ultimately say that this should not be a Dutch approach, their
aim is to make this an Afghan approach and really what Matheus
Toot is trying to do is to explore some of these connections,
discuss with the Afghan Government new approaches, new constitutional
approaches, and try to get Afghan political agents ultimately
taking over the weight of these kinds of negotiations. We are
never going to have the kind of knowledge, the kind of commitment
to do it ourselves, all we can do is nudge things in this direction.
Dr Williams: I completely agree.
The sad fact of the NATO deployments is that the rotations are
too quick. We do not have a basis of knowledge that we can deploy
now but, as it is, when someone gets on the ground, let us take
General Richards, for example, being a very high profile one,
he is there for a set number of months and then he leaves and
all of that expertise goes with him, all of the knowledge and
relationships he has built up. It is the same thing at the local
level. You cannot establish relationships with Afghans when a
principal fact of their culture is to have very strong, close
personal relationships. The same thing with other agencies, you
can ask about working relationships with DFID, the military, the
FCO or NGOs when everyone is changing over and NGOs are sources
that generally have a much deeper knowledge base in terms of knowing
the country because their people will have generally been in the
country for decades. It is something that we need to work on.
Q182 Robert Key: Could we look at
operational matters now. Michael Williams, you have been very
critical of the number of NATO forces in Afghanistan. A number
of people have commented that Operation Medusa last summer was
a tipping point, that we only just managed to make it happen,
that we could have gone the other way and lost out, that we lost
a lot of ground anyway and subsequently. Was that because there
was no Theatre Reserve?
Dr Williams: Certainly I think
that Theatre Reserve would have made a large difference in General
Richards' ability to combat the situation he found. Again, accepting
all the criticism that perhaps what we are doing in Helmand is
wrong, looking at this from the perspective of ongoing operations,
if he had a Reserve he would have been able to perhaps render
a much more decisive and tactical defeat of the Taliban. Talking
about strategic defeat is unrealistic, you need to think in terms
of accommodation at some point and ultimately this is something
that will be resolved in discussion and negotiations. I refer
to a situation such as Northern Ireland where you will resolve
it not through weapons and arms but through on the ground talking.
The fact of the matter is that if he had Reserve he would not
have been pressed in the way he was last year.
Q183 Robert Key: Robert Fox, what
additional military assets does ISAF need now?
Mr Fox: I would like to talk,
if I could, from the British perspective. I think the lack of
support helicopters is still alarming, particularly as in under
one year we have gone up from one manoeuvre battle group to three
manoeuvre battle groups. When you are trying to run that between
seven and eight Chinook heavy transport helicopters it makes you
extremely vulnerable. I know how difficult it is to train crews,
to provide the equipment because it has to have the full defensive
aid suite, but the lack of helicopter support is really risking
a major tactical failure, particularly when commanders will say
in confidence to journalists—whenever can you speak in confidence
to a journalist—"I used to wake up and think this was
the day that a Chinook would be shot down". When the Nimrod
crashed, and it crashed for mechanical failure, I know, 14 people
went down. I am very worried about sustainability. I am very worried,
which I look at through my defence academy lens, about the problem
of mental and physical sustainability of the piece of software
that we call the human flesh of our soldiers. David Richards has
highlighted this to you. When you have young soldiers, fit, highly
motivated from elite units, and they are all pretty good, 40 days
under sustained fire, which is longer in the line than most infantry
battalions had on the Western Front, you are asking for trouble.
You are grinding them down. We are looking at tremendous physical
and mental ageing of our soldier population. I am not saying we
are facing disaster with this but if this goes on at this rate
for another 18 months we will really have to have pause for thought.
The US forces in Iraq are facing exactly the same thing, by the
way.
Q184 Robert Key: Mr Fox, this Committee
has constantly been told by senior military commanders and ministers
that we do not need any more helicopters in Afghanistan. You have
seen the evidence we have been given, they say that the military
commanders on the ground are being provided with all the helicopters
they need. Who are we to believe?
Mr Fox: So have I been told that.
On my visit with General Jackson I said, "Surely you need
more support helicopters, you do not need such a heavy footprint
as the Chinook", which has been a problem on tactical occasions,
"Oh, no, it is just a question of helicopter hours".
That is economy with the truth if ever there was one. Yes, you
do need these helicopters. Why do I say it with such passion?
It does lead me to reflect back on what happened 25 years ago.
I fully recall telling H Jones on Sussex Mountain that the Atlantic
Conveyor had been sunk and a hell of a lot of our helicopters,
all but one of our heavy lift helicopters, went down and that
delayed the approach to Port Stanley, which was obviously to be
the culminating point, by 10 days to a fortnight. Expand that
several times. I think that the garrisons that we have at Kajaki
dam, for example, and in Sangin are utterly dependent on helicopter
support, particularly on ageing helicopters as they are now, a
hell of a lot of wear and tear, and they must be worrying. I am
sorry to their Lordships who dictate our policy, civil but particularly
military, I am afraid it has got to a point where I do not believe
them.
Dr Williams: I have never met
a military man who would deny having more access to equipment.
Close air support was key last year in effecting a NATO defeat
of the Taliban during Operation Medusa. Unless you have been to
the country I do not think you understand how difficult it is
to get from one area to another and these quick reaction forces
that do not have the air support but are called to assist and
by the time they get there the incident is long over and done
with. The fact of the matter is what you put into the operation
you will get in return and low levels of investment will equal
a low output at the end.
Mr Stewart: I, of course, am very
worried at the idea of investing more in this operation because
I think that had we tried to go in heavy with more troops and
more equipment at the beginning of 2002 we would have turned Afghanistan
into Iraq and provoked an insurgency. We are on exactly the wrong
path by continuing to ratchet up troop numbers and equipment.
That said, I am fully in support of a notion that if soldiers
are going to be on the ground and given a job they might as well
have the correct equipment to pursue it. I would much rather we
focused on what on earth we are trying to do and how credible
it is that we are ever going to win a strategic victory rather
than gradually inching up, as of course inevitably if General
Richards is given a mission, he is not going to say, "This
mission is impossible", he is going to say, "Give me
more troops, give me resources. Just another thousand, just another
couple of thousand, we will get there". I am very keen to
try to sound a note of caution to say it does not matter how many
troops you have or how many helicopters you have if you have got
no clear idea of what you are doing with them, and by bringing
in more you are causing more problems because the fundamental
issue on the ground is that many Afghans are beginning to perceive
this as an occupation by foreign non-Muslim troops and this is
causing anger and resentment in Afghanistan and throughout the
Muslim world.
Q185 Mr Havard: Specifically on the
helicopters, we have asked a lot of questions about this because
there is concern about it. What we were told by David Richards
was he did not need any more British helicopters, what there is
within NATO is a commitment to provide helicopters by the other
members of the NATO Coalition and they are not delivering the
helicopters. Do the Brits always substitute for other people not
complying with the things that they have agreed to? That is where
you get to, is it not?
Mr Fox: I follow absolutely the
direction of your question. I blush to say this to a three star/four
star general but the boys on the ground really want Brit helicopters
to turn up.
Q186 Mr Havard: They do.
Mr Fox: I am sorry. There are
enough problems between the Army and the Air Force as to whether
the Air Force will turn up on time; whether Italian Air Force—
Q187 Mr Havard: If you are speaking
French it might be a problem!
Mr Fox: Seriously, if it is the
Italian Air Force it really is a problem. For the "teeth"
units—this is where I disagree with my colleague there—as
much as we can we must mitigate the possibility of tactical reverse,
of a very serious tactical reverse, of which there is the potential
at Sangin and on the Kajaki dam in particular. It cannot just
be done by gunship and ageing heavy lift helicopters. That is
what has to be done. I do agree with Mr Stewart in that we have
to review our concept of operations and understand in this complex
insurgency, and it is an insurgency, protest or revolt, what exactly
we want to do and what we think we can achieve.
Q188 Robert Key: How important to
the future of NATO is the success of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan?
Dr Williams: I think if NATO fails
in Afghanistan then you have to question how relevant the Alliance
is to operations in future global security. If it fails it will
become a forum for discussion, which may be suitable, but I think
what the United States is looking for, and many allies, is a tool
to manage international security further into Asia in the first
half of the 21st century, so if we cannot provide a situation
in Afghanistan, whether it is just a pull back to contain the
north and support the government that way or whether it is a complete
victory throughout the south, some degree of success must be evident
in order for the Alliance to sustain itself otherwise you have
allies in the West who then feel in the west of Europe and North
America that the Alliance has failed in terms of their ability
to muster force and you will have allies in the east of the organisation
who then think the Alliance is not credible in deterring threats
such as Russia, which is still of great concern to those countries.
Mr Fox: I agree, I think it is
an open question and it is an exam question which they are failing
at the moment, which comes back from NATO and other international
gatherings that I have attended lately. I think it is the exam
question that was set with the new strategic concept at the fiftieth
anniversary summit in May 1999 in the middle of the Kosovo crisis:
can NATO operate outside the North Atlantic Security Area? The
answer is that if you take into consideration both at the operational
level and the strategic level the folders and folders of caveats,
and they are still there, that you get, the Germans say, "We
are there for reconstruction, we are not there to fight the Taliban
in the south", and it is going to be very, very difficult.
My sense is that it is floundering but it has not yet sunk because
there is no alternative in dealing with EU officials, dealing
with ESDP, and their view of security and the EU, although they
have mounted some dozen missions now, will find it very, very
difficult to step up to the plate in large and difficult operations
involving conflict. I include even the European nations' contribution
to Lebanon, for example, in that.
Q189 Chairman: Rory Stewart, you
were disagreeing?
Mr Stewart: I am by no means an
expert on this but my instinct is that we are investing too much
in these impossible objectives and saying the credibility of NATO
or the credibility of the United States and Britain is all bound
up in whether or not we are going to be able to achieve things
that we obviously cannot achieve. If we can lower expectations,
if we can set some realistic tasks, we should be able to get a
situation in which NATO can emerge with some credit out of this
and move on to do other things. So long as we continue trying
to pitch for this impossible Utopian picture then I imagine that
NATO will be damaged.
Q190 Robert Key: Do you between you
have some sort of feeling about how the United States perceives
the performance of ISAF?
Mr Fox: I think there is a problem
here which was indicated by some of the commanders I have already
mentioned, and I will not cite them because it would be invidious.
They get the feeling in dealing with the new US command of ISAF
in Kabul that the US sees itself as the US command and then NATO,
as if the US is not part of NATO, and operationally this is a
very, very big problem. You might have the European equivalent
of a US Marine Corps Light, known as the UK Armed Forces, and
it is coalitions of the willing. I do agree with you that from
everything I hear, not hearsay but what people are saying to me,
the Americans have a much more isolationist view of NATO. As one
of the speakers in the previous session said, it is almost as
if they have written it off as a tool of real utility when force
is involved. On your point about setting goals too high, I do
agree. Great contrast has been made with all sorts of commanders
in the way we have approached Afghanistan with the performance
particularly of General Sir Rupert Smith when he was the UNPROFOR
commander in very difficult circumstances. You may recall in Bosnia
in 1995 somebody said—actually it was General James Bucknall,
who was his MA in Northern Ireland—his great gift was to
promise low and deliver high. The feeling is that a bit too much
of the obverse has been happening over Afghanistan.
Q191 Chairman: Dr Williams, if you
could be very brief.
Dr Williams: I just want to say
that I think the Americans still see a utility to NATO. At the
political level I have met with colleagues who are on the NSC
who advocated against NATO's involvement in Afghanistan and on
a visit we did together were very impressed by what they saw in
Afghanistan in the north. They were amazed also at the resilience
of the troops, such as the Canadians, who had previously been
mainly peacekeepers at fighting there. I do not think the US would
back out at all. At the military level I think there is some reason
for concern. The new commanders purportedly launched Operation
Achilles without informing NATO Headquarters or any of the NATO
ambassadors in Brussels. That is a concern and General McNeill
does not speak very much of the comprehensive approach reportedly,
so there could be a disjuncture between the military thinking
and the political thinking, but at the political level I do believe
that there is strong support for NATO's presence there.
Chairman: I am glad I gave you the opportunity
to put that in, it was very interesting.
Q192 Mr Borrow: Just touching on
what would be perceived as failure, would I be right in assuming
that were NATO to alter the strategic goals to take on board some
of the issues that have been raised that would not necessarily
be seen as failure, but what would be perceived as failure would
be the failure of NATO members to deliver the troops and equipment
in the way which had been agreed in line with the strategy of
NATO? I am separating there is a perception now that if NATO allies
do not come up with the troops, with the kit, for the existing
mission that would be perceived as failure, but were the mission
itself to change that would not be perceived as failure.
Dr Williams: On the first point
in terms of coming up with kit, the mission is so ill-defined
it allows a large degree of flexibility, so the Germans, for instance,
say their troops have no caveats, they are providing the force
needed to do the mission and they are doing that mission there,
however we have other allies who say, "No, we need fighting
forces in the south", so there is a degree of separation
here. However, it is very difficult to quantify whether that has
an effect or not. NATO survived in Kosovo under similar circumstances.
I think that if NATO could take Rory's advice on board, and I
am commenting within the strategic objective now, and were to
redefine its mission, perhaps saying they are going to leave southern
Afghanistan in a certain manner and concentrate on other parts
of the country, it would not necessarily be a failure. The ultimate
failure would be if NATO left Afghanistan in a state worse off
than it found it in 2001, which is certainly a possibility, that
would be complete and utter abject failure.
Q193 Linda Gilroy: Rory, you were
describing the advantage of lowering the expectation of the mission.
Would you like to try and describe what a mission that had lower
expectations would look like?
Mr Stewart: I really see this
as a task for politicians, and it is a very exciting task because
we are at a tipping point. We are at a moment where the rhetoric
remains very high but, in fact, at the ground level the politicians
are beginning to panic because the population is disenchanted
and angry and I am very worried that we are about to flip suddenly
from total engagement to isolation, from troop increases to withdrawal.
We need to seize this point, freeze it and keep our involvement
by redefining what we are trying to do there in terms that people
can understand. The first key of those objectives should be counter-terrorism.
We should absolutely ensure that our policies there are going
to protect the interests of UK/US citizens on home soil. Secondly,
I think we should be focusing on trying to deliver projects which
Afghans demand. Thirdly, I believe we should be focusing on real
sustainable development projects. Those are multiform, there are
so many opportunities. For example, we need to look at Afghanistan
much less as a nation state and much more as part of a broader
region. We need to think about the potential for overland trade.
It is now stuck between a number of very rapidly growing economies,
some with very rich natural resources, and we need to invest in
the road infrastructure. We need to concentrate on Afghan products
for export. Afghans are unbelievably energetic and entrepreneurial;
they have an extraordinary number of goods which they could sell
internationally if we supported them in the correct way. All of
this means drawing back from a statement that says, "We are
going to turn Afghanistan overnight into a liberal democracy",
it probably means accepting that we are not in the next three
years going to eliminate illegal narcotics growth or radically
change the way that Afghan men treat their women. These are worthy
objectives but they are not objectives for three years, it requires
patience, humility, perhaps accepting that we are never going
to create a democratic state in southern Afghanistan. Nevertheless,
there is an enormous amount to be done. Elizabeth Winter, who
is in the room, who knows much more about Afghanistan than I do,
can confirm that there is so much opportunity and energy in Afghanistan
if we got off our high horses, stopped talking about these extraordinary
fantasies and actually worked at a grassroots level with Afghans.
There is so much that could be done. There is so much more flexibility
in Afghan society. We may not be as powerful as we pretend or
as knowledgeable as we pretend but we are certainly more powerful
and knowledgeable than we fear. There are many things that we
can do.
Q194 Mr Crausby: Last week when the
Secretary of State gave evidence to the Committee he was asked
to give up an update on the situation in Musa Qaleh and he described
the situation as unclear. How do you see the situation in Musa
Qaleh?
Mr Fox: It is very difficult.
When Musa Qaleh "fell" I was in Kandahar with two translators,
one the AP correspondent who had stringers in Musa Qaleh, and
the Marine Brigade Headquarters in the end were phoning us to
find out what was going on. I would like to endorse Rory Stewart's
point. We are frightened of going back to the era of Kipling and
reinventing the role of the political officer, the figure who
devotes his or her lifetime to the culture of this region, and
we are sadly lacking in it. This is the answer to your point about
Musa Qaleh, I do not think we really know, and this is the flaw
in a lot of our military concepts. This is where network-centric
cannot help you at all. It can see bits and pieces but it cannot
see into the minds of the village elders of Musa Qaleh, and that
is the problem. It goes backwards and forwards. Yes, you can knock
off the heads of a few metaphorical tall poppies, as they did
with the leadership, but talking to an Afghan militia commander
protecting the dam who was from Musa Qaleh it seemed that the
loyalties were utterly tradable there. Musa Qaleh is a focal point,
it is an entrepot for drugs, arms and also for local Afghan recruits,
so it comes and goes. It will be disputed ground, I suspect, for
much of the summer. Could I just answer Ms Gilroy's question.
In terms of public perception here I do think that too much is
being predicated on military failure and success. The world that
we are really reaching for is there has got to be a hell of a
lot of strategic patience because I would like to clarify to the
Committee that I am not advocating cutting and running, far from
it, but if the terms of reference can be shifted in public opinion
that would be beneficial to all.
Chairman: We have still got a lot of
ground to cover.
Q195 Linda Gilroy: I do not want
to do my last question, I just want one short question to Robert
on the point he raised which follows through from what Rory said.
When we were in Denmark discussing the future of NATO last week,
for the first time I came across the concept of managing security
as something that might be appropriate for NATO. Would you think
that was something which fits in with Rory Stewart's idea about
lowering or perhaps making more real the expectations, that is
more honest about what we are there to do and, rather than it
being a war against terrorism, it would be much more explicable
to people here as to why we are there as well as being more honest
as to why we are there?
Mr Fox: It has got to fit the
Afghan physical and human landscape because the battle of abstract
plans really does not work there. It is how to manage or grow
some sense of stability. It is a very long generational game and
it is at that level that the commitment will be difficult. Looking
for a kinetic solution, as David Petraeus has said very explicitly
in the Baghdad context, cannot deliver the answer you want, and
nor can it in Lashkar Gar or Sangin.
Q196 Mr Crausby: If I could take
you back to Musa Qaleh. I do not know whether anybody else has
any views on the situation there. There has been some disagreement
about how the Americans felt about it. What do you feel was the
American reaction to the Musa Qaleh agreement?
Mr Fox: I was around at the time
when it appeared to be coming apart. They were overtly two British
commanders very hostile but—I hope this is not an indiscretion—I
was at a briefing by General Richards about ten days ago in which
he made a very interesting point that the American command of
General McNeill has not reneged on the Musa Qaleh agreement. I
would like to refer to my conversation with General James Bucknall
when he said, "We are going to have to engage. We are going
to have to talk. We are going to have to put up with a certain
amount of failure, but to say that we will not talk, we will not
come to local arrangements, you cannot turn the Helmand river
valley into half a dozen little Alamos".
Q197 Mr Havard: I have got a couple
of questions down here which are largely redundant in a sense
because they were about whether or not if the Taliban forces had
concentrated themselves they would have had more effect in terms
of beating us and whether we could defend ourselves in those circumstances
and questions about whether we can get any decisive military victories,
as it were, in that area, dominate the ground that way, this summer.
I do not know what the assessment is of what the summer militarily
is going to bring because the tactics are changing around, specifically
in this northern Helmand area. We are not going to walk away this
summer.
Mr Fox: No.
Q198 Mr Havard: We are not going
to change this policy next week.
Mr Fox: I think it is very worrying
that we have concentrated areas of operation on several centres
of gravity, indeed there is the Lashkar Gar lozenge where progress
does seem to have been made with some reverse, as we have heard,
but now the concentration on Highway 611 from Sangin, Sangin itself,
which is the chokepoint, up to the dam, because the acid test
of success is whether we can get the road open enough, so we are
told, to get the new turbine and equipment up to the dam. I think
that invites the kind of operation and activity that we saw with
Op Medusa last year. It has to be noted that Op Medusa was a check,
a very bloody one, for the Taliban but it needed Operation Falcon
Summit for them to go into the area and drive a certain amount
of Taliban out for the civil population to even contemplate returning
to the area. Tens of thousands fled the area, as you know, of
the Panshway river system.
Q199 Mr Havard: Mr Stewart, you are
shaking your head in relation to that. You would say change the
direction totally, but one of the things we saw when we went there
last time was your point about that whole area being less known
to us than perhaps we would like when we send forces in and your
point about 100 or so US forces have been in the area but what
we did not have was intelligence from any of that. What we did
not know was about the tribal warring forces in that anyway, the
traditional fighting grounds and all the rest of it. Our intelligence
is not there. I want to be clear. You seem to be suggesting, Mr
Stewart, that militarily we ought to draw back the intensity of
the materiel and the people there and set up something that perhaps,
okay, may end up looking like Waziristan rather than anything
else but at least you would have forces there which would then
allow you to understand the people better and move forward in
that way. That is the change in direction you would transform
to, is it, so over time they would not pull back militarily?
Mr Stewart: If we look at this
dam project, the Helmand Valley Authority in the 1960s and 1970s
had an incredibly difficult time dealing with tribal elders and
by the mid-1980s that dam was generating enough for a single light
bulb and was surrounded by incredible warring mujaheddin groups
and opium growers. There is a good report which came out in 2001
which analysed that experience in the 1960s and 1970s. The lesson
from that would seem to be that if you want to go in there and
put hundreds of millions of dollars into repairing that dam and
bringing in US engineers you need to do it with a very subtle
and careful negotiator with the different village communities
all the way up the valley. That is not what we have done. What
we have done is largely ignore them, go straight in and we are
trying to bring in these civilian engineers, we put glass walls
around them and we will clear a field of fire around the dam and
just try to bomb anybody who opposes it. This is a very, very
peculiar approach to doing development. I cannot see any future
in it.
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