UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be
published as HC 1091-i
House of COMMONS
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE
TAKEN BEFORE
DEFENCE COMMITTEE
IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
Tuesday 23 October 2007
RT HON DES BROWNE MP,
LIEUTENANT GENERAL PETER WALL CBE
and MR JON
DAY CBE
Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 -
95
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Oral Evidence
Taken before the Defence Committee
on Tuesday 23 October 2007
Members present
Mr James Arbuthnot
Mr David S Borrow
Mr David Crausby
Linda Gilroy
Mr David Hamilton
Mr Mike Hancock
Mr Dai Havard
Mr Bernard Jenkin
Mr Kevan Jones
Robert Key
Willie Rennie
John Smith
________________
Witnesses: Rt Hon Des Browne MP, Secretary of
State for Defence, Lieutenant General
Peter Wall CBE, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Commitments), and Mr Jon Day CBE, Director General
Operational Policy, Ministry of Defence, gave evidence.
Q1 Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and,
Secretary of State, welcome to this evidence session on UK operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The last time you came
before this Committee was in, I think, May when you gave evidence on
Afghanistan, since when there have been a lot of significant changes in
Afghanistan and also in Iraq. In Iraq,
we have had the handover of Basra Palace to the Iraqis, we have had the Prime
Minister's statement on overwatch and we have had the report by General
Petraeus to the US Congress. In
Afghanistan, the command of UK forces has passed to the 52nd
Infantry Brigade, we have had fighting in northern Helmand, we have also had
General McNeill saying that current NATO forces are inadequate, and we have had
President Karzai saying that he would welcome talks with the Taliban, so there
is a lot of ground to cover. What I
propose to do is to follow the following rough timetable: to spend the first 50
minutes on Iraq; the next 50 minutes on Afghanistan; and the last 20 minutes on
joint issues. Secretary of State, could
I ask you please to be brief in your answers, do your best, and I am afraid we
will draw you up if you become too enthusiastic, and I will say to the
Committee, please will you be brief in your questions and I will draw you up if
you become too enthusiastic because we have got, as I say, a lot of ground to
cover. Secretary of State, would you
like to introduce your team please.
Des Browne: Thank you very much for that welcome,
Chairman, and I will try to curb my enthusiasm to give the Committee as much
information as possible. I have with me
Lieutenant General Peter Wall, who is the Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff
(Commitments), and Jon Day, who is our new Director General of Operational
Policy.
Q2 Chairman: Secretary of State, starting with Iraq, in
the light of developments over the summer, would you say there has been any
change in the objectives of UK forces in southern Iraq and, in particular, has
there been any change in how you would define the success?
Des Browne: Well, I remind the Committee that back in
2003 the then Prime Minister and President Bush summarised the objectives of
the coalition in Iraq when they wrote together that, "the coalition forces will
remain in Iraq as long as necessary to help the Iraqi people to build their own
political institutions and reconstruct their country, but no longer". Our objectives have not changed from that,
and I think that is a fairly clear, commonsense description of what we are
trying to achieve. I know there have
been other attempts at trying to set it out in more detail, but that is what we
are about. Our job is to set the
conditions whereby the Iraqis can take charge of their own destiny. This means creating a security environment
in which the capacity of the Government and its ability to promote economic
development can grow. There are, I
think, significant challenges to that and we may come on to discuss them
certainly in the context of the political issues that are about in Iraq, but
there are no international or coalition resolutions to those issues; they have
to be resolved by the Iraqis themselves.
From our point of view, what it means in the short term is building up
the Iraqi security forces so that increasingly they are able to take over
responsibility for the security of the people without our support. That, I think, singularly we have achieved
and we have seen progressive evidence of that, particularly over the last 18
months, as we have been able to hand over responsibility to them for large
parts of the south-east of Iraq. In
support of that and beyond, we plan that our forces will increasingly
concentrate on training and mentoring the Iraqi security forces in Basra as we,
for our part, enter the operational overwatch phase of that transition.
Q3 Chairman: In July, the Minister of State came before us
and said that we were "the ultimate guarantor" of progress in southern Iraq. Does that remain true?
Des Browne: In preparation for this evidence, I looked at
the evidence that the Minister for the Armed Forces gave and I recollect that
that passage of his evidence was in the context of questions about the number
of attacks that there were on British forces and he was seeking to describe, as
I recollect it, the motivation for those who sought to attack us, and one of
the motivations for those who sought to attack us was that their perception,
rightly, was that we were the ultimate guarantor of progress and if they were
going to undermine that for their own ends, then they ought to attack us. Ultimately, of course it is the Iraqis who
can guarantee progress. They are the
only people who can guarantee progress.
We continue, as I have explained, to support them in their efforts to do
this, but I agree with Bob Ainsworth's evidence that, in the context in which
he was answering this, we were seen as the ultimate guarantor, but of course
that also was evidence given in a situation where we clearly had ambition to
move to transition through provincial Iraqi control, but provincial Iraqi
control of course changes responsibilities and we move from a position where we
have the main responsibility for the provision of security to one where we have
transferred it back to the Iraqis.
Q4 Willie Rennie: This is a question I asked the Prime Minister
when he made his statement earlier on in the session. When we visited Iraq back in July, we were told that 90 per cent
of the attacks were on our forces and that if we withdrew our forces, then the
violence would decrease obviously against our forces, but the overall violence
would be self-limiting and would reduce over time. The Prime Minister said in his statement that, once our troops
had left, the situation in Basra Palace had become calmer around about Basra
and then, after I quizzed him, he said, "Well, it was calmer before as
well". Can you just outline, since
July, how has the number of attacks changed and what was the result of our
moving out of Basra Palace in terms of the number of attacks?
Des Browne: First of all, I make this point, and I think
it is important to make it, that in proportionate terms a very small proportion
of the attacks that happen in Iraq happen in the Basra area. It is comparatively much better than other
parts of Iraq, but then again over 80 per cent of the violence is concentrated
around a relatively small circumference of the city of Baghdad and Baghdad
itself. The security situation in
Basra, in our assessment and in the assessment of the Iraqis themselves who are
of course important assessors of this, is that it remains stable. As has been explained repeatedly, much of
the violence that was in Basra was directed at our forces, at the MNF forces,
and this has decreased since August. I
have the figures here. Attacks on
multinational forces decreased by 90 per cent in September and the overall
figure is 19 compared to August when it was 190. For the period that you are interested in, Mr Rennie, that is in
terms of fewer than half the number of attacks in July which was 401, so the
number from the time that you are interested in when you were there has gone
from 401 attacks to 19 in September.
The other aspect of course of violence is crime against Iraqis themselves. Our assessment was that that would broadly
remain the same, it would stabilise, and that over time it would reduce as the
Iraqis, their own security forces, army and improving police got to grips with
it and that has proved to be the case, that it has remained at similar levels
to those seen in August prior to the handover of Basra Palace.
Q5 Willie Rennie: So your view was that it was starting to come
down before they withdrew from Basra Palace and then it continued to decline
after they left? Is that roughly it?
Des Browne: Well, you will recollect of course that a lot
of commentators suggested that what would happen was that we would be holed up
in the COB and that we would be subject, once we concentrated our forces in one
place, to this reign of violence which would only increase, and our estimate
was that the opposite would happen and that has turned out to be the case. As far as the evidence before our withdrawal
from Basra Palace is concerned, it is nothing near as dramatic as these
decreases. It is capable of being
interpreted that there was a minor reduction and I do not have the graphs with
me, but my recollection of the graphs is that they saw changes, that broadly it
was the same level and there may well have been just immediately before a
reduction and that may have been what was reported to you when you got
there. I hear the General take in his
breath.
Lieutenant General Wall: I think there are a number of factors that
bear on the reduction in levels of attacks and indeed perhaps also criminality
in Basra. We need to recognise the
increasing effectiveness of the leadership in the Iraq security forces and
particularly the effect of General Mohan, the fact that he has, and had prior
to our extraction from Basra Palace, a new division, 14th Division, which you
will be aware of, forming up in Basra with a significant, non-Basrawi
complement, additional police battalions and, within the elements of 14th
Division, some more capable forces in terms of mechanised, better-protected
soldiers than he had hitherto. There
has also been the Muqtada al-Sadr announced freeze on activity, there has been
significant political engagement, and of course we have demonstrated our
longer-term intent by disengaging our forces from Basra Palace, so I think the
combined effect of all of those things has, as the Secretary of State has
outlined, been very significant, a ten-fold reduction of activity against MNF
which has not followed us to the Basra Air Station COB, and exactly how one
would apportion the contribution of each of those factors to the outcome is
probably too complex to discuss here.
Des Browne: You are right, there was a significant
reduction immediately before the handover and that has been repeated. That is the simple answer to your question.
Q6 Willie Rennie: Could you make the figures available month by
month of the number of attacks? Would
that be something you could provide?
Des Browne: I am very keen to make as much information
available to the Committee as possible.
It depends how far back you want it.
We may have to give it to the Committee on a confidential basis if we
take the view that too much of this information will be an encouragement to
people to try to beat the league table of the previous month or whatever, but I
have shared these statistics with you and I need to be consistent with that in
information-giving. Perhaps the Clerk
could tell us precisely what it is that the Committee needs other than these
figures I have given at the moment.
Q7 Chairman: I would hope that it would not be
confidential because this is a matter of considerable public interest and if
you could go back, say, six months, that would be helpful.
Des Browne: My immediate response to that is that I
cannot see any reason why not at the moment, but perhaps you would, Chairman,
just allow me to consult with the commanders on the ground to see how they
think information in the public domain will play out and how it will be
interpreted by some of the forces who are still about in southern Iraq.
Chairman: That is understood.
Q8 Mr Jones: Earlier this month, the Prime Minister
announced that UK forces would be cut to 2,500 from spring of next year. When the Committee was in Iraq in July, the
current officer, General Shaw, made it quite clear, and I checked my notes last
night just to check these facts, that going below 5,000 would be
problematic. Clearly, when the Armed
Forces Minister was before us in July, he said that by reducing troop numbers
below 5,000, it would be hard to sustain the task of overwatch, so what is the
minimum and what has changed since July?
Des Browne: I was not able to refresh myself by reference
to your notes, Mr Jones, but I was able to refresh myself by reference to the
Armed Forces Minister's evidence, as I have already said. What he said is quite often quoted from the
middle of the sentence that he gave where he used the 5,000 figure and if you
read the whole sentence, it includes the phrase, "but until we see what it is
in the actual overwatch situation, we cannot get much below 5,000", and then he
goes on to say what has been quoted to me.
I think what has changed is that we are now in a position to have a very
clear idea, in consultation with our allies and with the Iraqis themselves, as
to exactly what we will be doing and what tasks we will be carrying out and we
plan the number of troops in relation to the tasks, so the tasks have changed.
Q9 Mr Jones: I accept that, but General Shaw was quite
clear when we met him in July as a committee that the 5,000 was actually what
was needed, one, just to keep the COB going not only in enforced protection
terms, but also in terms of functioning in terms of having a hospital and
everything else there.
Des Browne: I am satisfied on the basis of the advice I
have received that this figure of troops to task is the right figure. You have to understand, Mr Jones, that it is
a consequence, it is a product of a close assessment of our future requirement
in consultation with our coalition partners and the Iraqi Government, but the
key to this figure has been the judgment of the military commanders. They have all had their say in relation to
this and I accept that advice. What I
am prepared to do in this situation, if it is helpful to the Committee, and
this will be on a confidential basis, is to share with the Committee a list of
those tasks and the numbers that are associated with them in the assessment so
that the Committee can come to a view.
Q10 Mr Jones: That will be very helpful. Are you clearly saying that the 2,500 is a
military conclusion rather than a political decision, pulling a figure out of
thin air?
Des Browne: It is not, by any stretch of the imagination,
a political decision. No figure was
given to the military.
Q11 Mr Jones: That is what I am asking.
Des Browne: We are in this process ----
Q12 Chairman: What did you say, that no figure was given to
the military?
Des Browne: No figure was given to the military by
politicians. We did not say to the
military, "Get to this figure"; the process does not work like that at all. As the Armed Forces Minister said to this
Committee, when we see what we have to do, we will be able to judge more
accurately, and we now plan to do certain things which I will share with the
Committee, and the military have assessed it on the troops-to-task basis.
Q13 Mr Jenkin: May I ask General Wall, your advice has been
prayed in defence of this figure no less than on the floor of the House of
Commons and you have to provide what is necessary to do those tasks, but you
also have to balance that with what is available. Things are very tight, are they not?
Lieutenant General Wall: Well, this has not been driven by what is
available and indeed were more forces needed at this stage in the campaign,
recognising that we are projecting forward on assumed conditions for next
spring, then it is quite clear that the Army could provide additional
forces. That is not to say it will not
benefit from a reduction for all the reasons that you understand.
Q14 Mr Jenkin: So would you describe the 2,500 as ideal for
the purpose?
Lieutenant General Wall: I describe it as perfectly workable in light
of the tasks that we envisage, and I would highlight that of course it is not
2,500, it is 500 or so more than that because of some logistic capabilities
that we are moving to elsewhere in the region, so if you are comparing the
figures, actually the 5,000 we have there now with four battle groups compares
with 3,000 we shall have there with two battle groups, and the difference in
the number of battle groups can be accounted for in terms of the change of
tasks, which the Secretary of State has alluded to, as we go increasingly
towards a mentoring and a supporting role rather than that which we are engaged
in at the moment.
Q15 Mr Jenkin: So we do not actually have a battle group we
can deploy in a combat role from this operating base as from the spring,
according to this?
Lieutenant General Wall: Yes, we do.
Q16 Mr Jenkin: We do?
Lieutenant General Wall: Yes.
Q17 Mr Jenkin: How has this affected our relations with the
United States? This is perhaps one for
you, Secretary of State. Obviously they
are reconciled to the fact that we are now providing a very small footprint in
what was very substantially a shared operation at the outset, but would it be
true to say that you have had to manage a certain amount of disquiet on the
other side of the Atlantic about this?
Des Browne: Without fear of contradiction from those with
whom I deal regularly in the United States of America, including the Secretary
of Defence and I have regular contact with General Petraeus and I have regular
contact with their ambassador in Iraq and with their commanders, this process
of open, transparent engagement with them in which we discuss with them and
agree with them the tasks that we need to carry out in the south to complement
what they are doing has enhanced our relationship with the United States of
America.
Q18 Mr Jenkin: But I would put it to you that the United
States wish we could provide more and they are also concerned that our very
small footprint left in Iraq is causing perhaps a weakening of resolve amongst
our other coalition partners who are looking at this and saying, "Well, if the
Brits are pulling out to such an extent, why shouldn't we?"
Des Browne: But, Mr Jenkin, we do not have discussions
with our allies, the United States or others, on the basis that we are pulling
out to any extent. We have discussions
with them about the process of transition which is going on in the south-east
and which understandably this Committee concentrates on, but it is going on
across Iraq. The Americans are doing
similar things in other provinces. The
whole American approach to Iraq, and I met with, as you know, Bob Gates to
discuss this and other things recently, is to do exactly what we are doing
province by province and in fact the Americans welcome this process because it
is evidence of progress and it is a template that they themselves will want to
follow, and have followed, in other provinces.
Whatever conversations people who are not involved in this process may
have among themselves of things that those of us who are having, what we
suggest is not going on. I could turn
to Jon Day who has just come back from the United States of America and I think
he will give you confirmation that our relationship with the Americans in
relation to this has never been stronger.
The process has enhanced our relationship with the Americans.
Mr Day: General Wall and I were in Washington last
week and we talked to a wide range of very senior and more junior officers and
officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and the NSC. First of all, they were universally agreed
that the process of consultation had been exemplary, but they were also
entirely content with, and indeed strongly supported, what we have done, so
there was no push-back at all.
Q19 Mr Jenkin: I think that is very reassuring and very
important to have on the record, but could it reach a point where we have no
troops in Iraq, yet the next American President will be still in charge of
100,000 troops in Iraq? Does this
remain a joint operation for as long as the Americans are involved in Iraq?
Des Browne: There is such an element of speculation in
that question that I will resist the temptation to become engaged in it. At the moment, we plan to reduce to about
2,500, depending on the conditions, in or about the spring of next year. We have given an undertaking to Parliament
and we will fulfil that undertaking that, as we move towards that, we will
assess what we can plan for beyond that.
Mr Jenkin: In Kosovo, the Americans gave the assurance,
"We all went in together, we will all leave together". Can we not give the Americans the same
assurance?
Chairman: I do not want to get on to Kosovo.
Q20 Mr Hamilton: You could take it the other way of course and
that is that the Americans are very envious of the British who have been able
to deal with things in the south slightly differently and indeed are able to be
in a position of being able to withdraw, so it could be that they are now
envious of our position. Could I ask
you, Secretary of State, can we provide effective overwatch cover outside of
Iraq, if we get to that point?
Des Browne: We are not proposing to provide overwatch
cover from outside of Iraq, but we are proposing to provide overwatch cover
from the COB because that is what we have agreed with the Iraqi Government and
with our allies that we will do. We
will of course position about 500 troops and some equipment outside of Iraq to
support that process inside. We are not
planning to do this from outside of Iraq.
Can I just say in relation to the point that we have just moved from,
what is important is to look at what General Petraeus said when he was asked
these very questions when he came over here recently. I know his responses were a significant disappointment to many people,
but he made it perfectly clear that he was four-square behind exactly what we
were doing and had been part of the planning process with us and then he went
back to Iraq and spent time with the Chief of Joint Operations in Iraq,
describing and delivering these plans which determine the figure of 2,500.
Q21 Mr Hamilton: If the security situation deteriorates and we
have to move back in at any stage in the future, will we be in a position to be
able to send troops back in again and where will they come from?
Lieutenant General Wall: Clearly we are trying to make predictions on
a sort of conditions-based trajectory and there is always a danger that the
situation could reverse, although we will try and gauge it so that we do not
get caught in that trap. If it is a
question of delivering reserves into the MNF south-east area in response to
requests from the Iraqi agencies and presumably at that stage through the Iraqi
MoD with the Iraqi Prime Minister's endorsement, then there are a number of
levels at which those reserves could be delivered, starting with the Iraqi
security forces themselves, we could redeploy into the area either from
elsewhere in the south or from nationwide, the MNF core-level reserves which
are factored in principle into the thinking that was discussed between General
Petraeus and General Houghton, or indeed, if required and in extremis,
additional UK forces from our own reserves.
Q22 Mr Hamilton: You feel confident that we will have enough
troops to be able to replenish?
Lieutenant General Wall: Yes, indeed.
Q23 Mr Hamilton: Irrespective of what happens in Afghanistan?
Lieutenant General Wall: Yes, indeed.
Q24 Chairman: Do you think it would be politically
acceptable to send more troops back to Iraq having withdrawn some?
Lieutenant General Wall: I do not know whether that is for me to
judge, Mr Arbuthnot. In terms of
military capability, it is feasible.
Q25 Chairman: Fair enough.
Secretary of State, politically is it feasible?
Des Browne: I think we need to remind ourselves of how we
have come to this position. This
process of making this assessment and being proved by events broadly to be
correct about the assessment about sustaining security, we have met
before. We have met this challenge
before successfully in three provinces.
On each occasion, I remember commentators and others, including those
who hold themselves out as experts, suggesting that immediately there would be
meltdown and we would not be able to go back and deal with what we had created
by, as it were, pulling out of these provinces.
Q26 Chairman: But this is a different issue.
Des Browne: Well, the point I make is that we are in the
process of making the assessment of sustainability of the conditions in Basra
and we will make an assessment of that before we remove the troops in the first
place, or reduce the troops, I should say, because this idea that people are
coming back home has caused some concern in the past.
Q27 Chairman: The implication of that answer is that,
politically speaking in terms of public opinion in this country, it would be
inconceivable to send British troops back to Iraq having withdrawn them. Do you agree with that?
Des Browne: I am content that if the situation were to
deteriorate at some time in the future, we are in a position where our own
force and the coalition as a whole and the Iraqi army will be in a position to
respond, but clearly the order ----
Q28 Chairman: That is not an entire answer to the question.
Des Browne: Clearly the order of response would need to
be the Iraqis themselves first, then supported, or otherwise. We would need to judge that in the
circumstances that we then face and, with respect, Chairman, there are so many
different possible sets of circumstances that could arise that I am not from here
going to judge what the political mood will be then, particularly against the
background that we will make very careful decisions about whether that is
likely to happen or not.
Q29 John Smith: On the question of the tasks set for the
remaining troops next spring, whatever number they are, as I understand it,
Secretary of State, a key role played by Basra Air Base was maintaining the
supply lines, not just to British troops, but to other coalition forces. Will that continue to remain a key task next
year?
Des Browne: Clearly, maintaining supply lines into the
Basra Palace, for example, or anywhere else in Basra is no longer now
necessary. Sustaining the forces that
we had in Basra from the COB was a significant part of what we needed to do. We will be moving to mainly, as has been
explained, training and mentoring and, as far as the details of other tasks
that we will be doing are concerned, I would much rather share them with the
Committee on a confidential basis, if you do not mind, Mr Smith.
Q30 Mr Jones: Can I first of all pick up something that
Bernard Jenkin said. Having reread my
notes last night from our visit in July, I also recall what General Petraeus
said to us when we asked him the same question about drawdown in the south, and
it was quite clear that, as long as it was conditions-based, he was quite happy
with it, which I think chimes with what the Secretary of State is saying. General, you used the term "perfectly
workable" as to the numbers that you have got now, but what is the viable
minimum number of troops that we could actually have at the COB in the future?
Lieutenant General Wall: I think it comes back to a number of factors:
first of all, the extent to which the Iraqi security force capacity, capability
and effectiveness continues to grow; the evolving political situation in the
south, particularly in the context of potential provincial elections and the
inevitable interest in Shia arrangements there; the extent of any external
influences; and, in summary, therefore, the nature of the task we need to
continue doing. I would not see the
scope for wholesale reductions from the numbers that we have described,
although perhaps more of that capability could be hosted outside southern Iraq.
if that were logistically advantageous.
Q31 Mr Hancock: Secretary of State, in the, I did not think,
helpful reply you gave to the Chairman's legitimate question of, "Would it be
possible to put troops back into Iraq if we had withdrawn all of them?", your
evasion of that leads me to believe that the plan is that we do not withdraw
troops certainly in the near or medium-term future because of the danger of
hostility to putting troops back in when we have withdrawn them. In an earlier answer, you suggested that the
template for withdrawal was task-based, but surely that template must also
indicate to you that, when those tasks are exhausted, there is a point in time
when there is no point in having British troops there, so surely you can answer
that question. If you have a template
based on tasks and those tasks must, by their very nature, be time-limited, you
must be able to give an indication of when you would expect British troops not
to be required to be based in Iraq.
Des Browne: Can I just say to you, first of all, Mr
Hancock, from my perspective, you are not entitled to draw the conclusion that
you seek to draw from what you have described as an evasive answer to the
Chairman. It was not evasive. What I was saying was that ----
Q32 Mr Hancock: I am entitled to draw the opinion I
like. If it does not agree with you ---
Des Browne: I am just saying it from my perspective and
maybe there are two perspectives on this.
I just do not want anybody to think, from this evidence session, that I
am acceding to the conclusion that you have drawn because, from my point of
view, the answer I gave does not support it.
What I said to the Chairman, and I stick by this, is that we make these
decisions prospectively and very carefully and I was asked, did I believe that,
having moved this far down the transition, it would be politically sustainable
for us to reverse any part of that, and my answer is that I will make that
decision at the time, if I need to, but up until now our judgments have allowed
us to continue in a trajectory that we have set and I have no reason to believe
that we will not be able to continue to do that because we do it with such
care, and that seems to me to be a reasonable and straightforward answer. As far as the second part of your question
is concerned which is a different question altogether, that is that you see the
tasks that we have set for the force that we will continue to have in Iraq from
the spring onwards when we share those tasks with you. Of necessity, they will be completed at some
stage or another, but they are not, in my view, capable of having fixed times
attached to them. Our ability to be
able to train and mentor Iraqi forces to a particular point that will allow us
to reduce our troops further is a function also of the ability of the Iraqi
forces to be able to be trained and mentored to that point. From this point, I could not tell you the
progress that we have made, the General can, but I am not prepared to set a
prospective time-limit on that going forward, that is all. However, that having been said, we have
consistently shown our plans in advance for months about what we are doing in
Iraq and we have, I think I can say without fear of contradiction, broadly
stuck to those plans. There may have
been a week or a month here or there or a couple of hundred troops here or there,
but broadly we have stuck to them and we have shown that progression. I cannot be any more open than that because
I do not think it is helpful to our troops, and we have explained this time and
time again, to set a point at some time in the future when we will withdraw
them because we will be in danger of recreating the set of circumstances that
we suffered from in the Basra Palace where people will want to take the credit
for having shot or bombed us out of Iraq, and that will put our troops in
danger.
Mr Jenkin: Of course we would not expect General
Petraeus or anyone else to complain publicly about the British drawdown.
Mr Jones: He did and you were there.
Q33 Mr Jenkin: I would not say that that was tantamount to
public. I wonder if General Wall would
just give us the assurance that I think he has given already, that we are in a
position militarily to reinforce our position in Iraq should the military
requirement be to do so.
Lieutenant General Wall: I will reiterate my comments on that. I have never had one of these sessions
before, Mr Arbuthnot, so please stop me if you think I am behaving
inappropriately, but the tone of this evidence session does not seem to me to
reflect what has been going on in southern Iraq in the context of the
achievements of our forces in the last six to nine months. This is an incredibly complex situation and
you have all seen it for yourselves. A
considerable amount of progress has been made on a number of fronts. The very nature of the transition strategy
is one that involves a balance of risk and some very careful judgments and,
thus far, our progress in the last six to nine months has been very
considerable and ----
Chairman: We are about to come on to this because we
particularly want to come on to the training and that will be our next
question.
Mr Hamilton: I do not accept the point he is making as to
the tone of this, the tone of certain members of this Committee making
political gestures, so qualify what you are saying. I take exception to the comment because the inference is that
this Committee would be unhelpful to the General or the troops and I really do
take exception to that.
Q34 Chairman: I want to move on, having asked one final
question of fact about the overwatch issue and that is a question about the
meaning of the word "from", that UK forces will be cut to 2,500 "from the
spring". That has been taken to mean in
the spring. Would you confirm,
Secretary of State, that it does not mean in the spring, but it means from the
spring, and could you explain what "from the spring" means in those circumstances?
Des Browne: If I had known that the words that I used
were going to be subject to this very careful forensic analysis ----
Q35 Chairman: These are the words of the Prime Minister, so
you have got to be very careful indeed about them.
Des Browne: We plan, and if I use a different active verb
in relation to this, it is invariably over-interpreted as well, but we plan to
reduce the numbers from the spring. If
we are able to do it in a month, which some people would describe as "in the
spring", then we will do it, but we plan to do it from about that time of the
year. We use seasons in relation to
this because, otherwise, we will put constraints on the people who are on the
ground to operate to a timetable which may turn out to be unrealistic, so we give
them a general direction. If it happens
in a month that somebody would argue is summer as opposed to spring, then I
will accept that criticism at some time in the future, but I think broadly that
the people in the country know what part of the year we are aiming to do this
and continue from there, and that is what we were seeking to communicate.
Q36 Chairman: So the purpose of the phrase "from the
spring" was to give an impression of being as likely as possible to be in the
spring whilst leaving yourselves some leeway?
Des Browne: I think the alternative is that we may be
constrained not to put this information about planning into the public domain
at all if we cannot give ourselves what we have needed in the past ----
Q37 Chairman: I am not complaining about it.
Des Browne: I am content to share this. In the past, we have, against our ambition,
maybe missed it by a week or a couple of weeks or discussions in some part of
what we have been seeking to do have been delayed. Our experience suggests to us that in this process of transition
we need a degree of flexibility, so we use general phrases and it is nothing
more sophisticated than that.
Q38 Willie Rennie: This is about the training for the police and
the Iraqi army, and the first section is about the Iraqi army. Could you give us an update about how the
training for the army is progressing, what challenges remain and how the Iraqi
army has been performing in the provinces in which you have handed over control
to the Iraqis?
Des Browne: I may refer to the General for some of the
detail of this appropriately, but perhaps I can give an overall picture. We consider that we are making good progress
across Iraq in building the capability and capacity of the security forces, and
that is both now the army and we are making progress in relation to the police,
but we will no doubt come to that in a moment.
Overall, the numbers stand at 360,000 across Iraq, so that is the total
figure. In southern Iraq, we now have
20,000 Iraqi army personnel and over 31,000 in the Iraqi police service,
including 15,000 in the police service in Basra. Overall, in the south of Iraq the Iraqi security forces have
shown themselves as capable of dealing with isolated incidents of violence in
the three provinces that have been handed over to Iraqi control and that is
what they have had to face. In Basra
city, they have assumed the primary role for security and they have proved able
to deal efficiently and effectively with incidents of violence, such as, for
example, the recent mosque bombing. The
responses of the Iraqi security forces to that incident and to the other
incident of the same nature were much better than we have seen in the past and
their ability to be able to contain that violence and not allow it to generate
a process of increased violence, as it was clearly intended to do, is to their
credit. As General Wall has already
said, General Mohan, who commands those forces, has brought strong Iraqi
leadership to the security situation in Basra and that is extremely welcome from
our perspective. He takes a very robust
approach to the development of the Iraqi security forces as a whole and he
works closely with General Jalil and the re-established governor in seeking to
do that. General Jalil, for his part,
remains focused and effective, continuing his drive to counter corruption in
the Iraqi police service, but we will come to that no doubt. The 10th Division continues to
show its growing capability. It is
taking the lead in many operations in the south with minimum support from the
coalition. Since February, in addition
about a third of its personnel have been deployed into Baghdad in Operation
Fardh al-Qanun, so it has been making a contribution there, and a new 14th
Division, which is taking over responsibility for Basra, is building up as it
forms up to be engaged and already they are under the authority of General
Mohan and, when fully formed, it will have between 10,000 and 15,000 personnel,
and the GOC for 14th Brigade has been appointed, so that is an
overview. General, do you want to deal
with the specifics?
Lieutenant General Wall: I have a couple of comments, if I may,
Secretary of State. What the Secretary
of State said really bears out the considerable progress that has been made
through our mentoring to date which has been quite a protracted effort, through
considerable materiel investment of course by the United States and some by
ourselves. It is witness to the fact
that actually there was a shift in emphasis from us training the Iraqi army to
us now mentoring the Iraqi army in how to train itself and, therefore, our role
is becoming increasingly specialised and niche and there are a number of areas
of more subtle activity where we shall continue to have a minor training role,
but, in the round, this is a very good story.
I would see the way it goes forward as being gradual further growth in
the size of the organisation as another brigade is provided for 14th
Division in Basra, so that is not yet at the average unit strength, and then,
as they get more experience in the evolving situation and of course there will
be new challenges because the situation is changing all the time, as we have
seen, they will become more adept at dealing with these things and
progressively we would see our role being very much as 'touching the tiller'
sort of mentoring rather than the detailed training at the working level.
Q39 Willie Rennie: So for how long do you expect training teams
to be there and, if the force levels reduce to quite a low level, what will be
required to protect those training teams?
Lieutenant General Wall: It is very difficult to envisage how fast
they will progress and I would say that we could keep them making a
contribution for quite a protracted period, although there will be a
diminishing requirement and probably in a sense diminishing returns. The amount of protection will be a function
of the security situation, but there is a number of ways in which this training
support can be given which does not necessarily involve our people always being
in the most exposed areas. That said,
the exposed areas are progressively becoming less exposed, as we have discussed
hitherto.
Q40 John Smith: As I recall it, Chairman, when we were in
Basra in July, there was an issue about members of the army being Basrawi
Shias, holding a loyalty to the local community rather than the army. Is that still an issue or has it been
addressed?
Lieutenant General Wall: It has been addressed principally by moving
people to operate away from the areas in which they live so that they are less
susceptible to threats to their families and that sort of thing, and that has
been one of the key elements of the progress in the evolution of 14th
Division in Basra, the majority of whom are not Basrawis.
Q41 Willie Rennie: If we are making so much progress with the
army, why are we having so many difficulties with the police? What is the difference? What is causing so many difficulties?
Des Browne: Because there is an endemic level of
corruption in the police. Corruption is
an issue in the police, there is no question about that. I have my own views about this and about why
we should see that difference. Part of
the reason is that the police operate at the point of corruption and stopping
the police from operating at the point of corruption depends on a number of
things, but it depends on them operating within a functioning legal system
where there are consequences, whereas, as far as the army is concerned, if one
develops an army to the international model that is now used, it brings with it
its own justice system, and discipline and justice are contained within the
army and I think that is important. It
is also the case that the army is seen traditionally as being a national
institution and people sign up to it and sign up to serving their country,
whereas I do not think there was that history in some parts of the police force
in Iraq. The important thing about the
south-east is that we now have a general in charge of the police who is
beginning to deal with this issue and is building, and there is very strong
evidence of this, an independent and loyal police force which is increasingly
capable of serving the people at Basra and patrolling the streets. It has been a very difficult thing for him
to do. We know that attacks have been
made on his life because he has been prepared enough to be brave enough to do
this, and on more than one occasion, he and his family have been put under
significant pressure, but he has maintained his brave approach to this and his
professionalism throughout that and he is increasingly taking them on. He is dismissing police officers for
corruption and investigating them in large numbers. In the most recent operation, he has investigated over 2,000
cases of misconduct and dismissed 1,000 police officers from the police force,
so he is beginning to drive the message down into the police force that
corruption will no longer be permitted and it is having an effect to the extent
that he has become a target for those who see the effect of what he is doing
and he has been attacked on more than one occasion himself.
Q42 Willie Rennie: Have we now accepted that the more benign, in
the loosest sense, militias play an important security role in the communities
in Basra in the south-east?
Des Browne: We have not accepted that at all. We believe that security for the people of
Basra and the south-east of Iraq should be delivered by their own security
forces who should be answerable to the constitution of the country, to its
Government and to the processes of law.
The transition to get there may involve, as we have seen in other parts
of Iraq, engagement with people who have carried arms for others and their
incorporation through the appropriate processes into the Iraqi security forces,
but we have not accepted that at all.
Q43 Mr Crausby: I have some questions on political
reconciliation. First of all, Secretary
of State, do you accept that the Government of Iraq has not made progress
towards reconciliation as laid out in the Bush Administration Congressional
plans and what are the prospects for further reconciliation at the national
level?
Des Browne: I think from speaking to the Americans,
particularly given the progress that has been made and has been reported upon,
at least some of them regret that they set these performance indicators for
themselves which they were not going to meet.
On the issue of reconciliation, there is a long way to go, there is no
question about that. It is key to the
stability, in my view, of Iraq and I do not think anybody would dispute
that. We have not seen as much progress
in that regard at the national political level as we would have liked to have
seen. We continue to encourage the
political leadership of Iraq to move in that direction. We understand that it is very difficult, and
I think you probably know the difficulties that the Government presently faces
with those who refuse to be engaged in it.
I think we can only continue to work with them to encourage them to go
down this road and to continue to explain to them how important it is for
sustained peace in their country that they do it.
Q44 Mr Crausby: Much has been said about local-level
reconciliation. Are there risks
involved in relying on local-level reconciliation at the expense of national
efforts?
Des Browne: I am sorry, I was slightly distracted. Could you just repeat that question please.
Q45 Mr Crausby: There has been much talk, in the absence of
national reconciliation, at concentrating on the local level and seeing if we
can achieve things in that way, but there are some who would argue that there
are risks in that in the sense that local-level reconciliation and efforts in
persuading some groups, for instance, in joining with coalition partners
against al-Qaeda will just effectively in the long run act against national
efforts in the prospect maybe of a future war?
Des Browne: I do not believe that it necessarily
would. I understand that people, for
example, look at Al Anbar province and say, "What will be the long-term
consequences of using local leadership and local people, equipping and
supporting them to drive out al-Qaeda?
Are you creating a militia there which you will come to regret having
created at some time in the future if it turns its attention to insurgency?" The fact of the matter is that the next
stage in that process was to ensure that the leadership of that community
encouraged its young people to enrol and enlist in the national security forces
and they have done that. I have not got
the figures, but they are quite stunning for enlistment in the army and in the
police service in Al Anbar. That was at
the encouragement of the local sheikhs and the local leadership, so the next
stage of the process took place and followed on immediately after the success
of using those forces in order to drive out al-Qaeda. If we see these processes through, for example, the engagement of
JAM militia and its leadership in Basra, Iraqi solutions, leads to those people
coming the whole way across to serve their country either in the army or in the
police and subjecting themselves to the proper rules and disciplines of that,
then that will be the sort of sustainable progress that we need, but we cannot
get to where we need to be unless we are prepared to take the risk of that
transition and we have to leave the Iraqis, I think, the opportunity and the
space to do it. My response to you is
that that will reinforce, I think, the national process, but there needs to be
more political leadership at the centre for this reconciliation process and I
do not think there is any doubt about that.
I have just been reminded by a note that the figure that I shared with
the Committee of 2,000 investigations and 1,000 dismissals was a national
figure and not a Basra figure, but I do not have in my brief here a figure for
Basra.
Q46 Mr Crausby: Could I turn then to the question of
provincial councils. The Prime Minister
told us on 8 October that it was important that local elections go ahead in
early 2008, making provincial councils more representative, so in what ways at
present are the provincial councils insufficiently representative?
Des Browne: Well, as far as we are concerned at Basra of
course, significant political players in the south-east boycotted the
provincial elections when they took place before, so there are important
political factions that are not represented on the provincial councils at all
and that is one of the reasons why we support early provincial elections,
although they were planned to take place in the timescale that we were talking
about because we believe that there would be more involvement, greater
involvement of political parties representative of the political interest and,
consequently, the councils that emerged would be more representative.
Q47 Mr Crausby: So will there be local elections held in
Basra next spring and do you expect the Governor of Basra to be re-elected?
Des Browne: The timing of the provincial elections is
subject to legislation being drafted by the Government of Iraq and we continue
to work with them to see if we can progress that legislation with a view to the
objective that we share with them, that there should be early provincial
elections. I cannot predict from here
exactly who will be elected, but what I can tell the Committee is that if all
the political parties engage in the process, then the electoral system will
ensure that the provincial council is representative of the balance of
political power in the area, which it presently is not because people boycotted
the elections in the past.
Q48 Chairman: I would like to move on to Afghanistan now
and I will give a bit of preamble by saying that both in Iraq and in
Afghanistan, when the Select Committee has visited our troops on operations
there, we have been highly impressed by the work that they are doing, by the
commitment that they are showing and the courage that they are showing day in,
day out. It is all very well for us to
flit in for three or four days at a time and to think we understand what it is
that they are going through, but the achievements and the work that they are
doing are utterly astonishing, and I think we ought to pay tribute to
them. Secretary of State, in
Afghanistan, in Helmand, what have our Armed Forces achieved over the summer,
would you say?
Des Browne: Well, first of all, thank you very much,
Chairman, for your generous remarks and I will ensure that they are reported to
the troops, not only those who have recently come home from Afghanistan in
particular, but those who have gone out to replace them, and I will make sure
that that information is conveyed to them.
Actually, I know from my own dealings with the Committee that that is
the view of the Committee across the board, that everybody on the Committee has
that view.
Q49 Chairman: And it always has been.
Des Browne: Frankly, everybody who sees what our troops
are doing on the ground both in Afghanistan and Iraq comes away with that view,
I think. I think I last gave evidence
on Afghanistan in May and I spent some time, I think, describing Operation
Silicon which was the operation that sought to expand the Afghan Government's
authority out from the town of Sangin and up the Sangin valley, which I am on
the record, I think, as describing at that time as one of the most dangerous
places in the world. The aim was not
only to keep the Taliban on the back foot, but to let some normality return to
Sangin itself because the people of Sangin had been denied that for some time,
so rather than me trying to describe it, I have brought this picture which I
will circulate for the Committee which is designed to show the difference
between around the time when I last gave evidence and the month of August when
we came to the end of that operation.
This picture shows effectively the market street of the town of Sangin
itself and if the media contain themselves, I will make sure that they get a copy
of it themselves before they leave, but I did not bring enough colour
photocopies for them. It seems to me
that it shows a town which is substantially deserted, where the people have
been driven out, stopped from doing their normal, everyday tasks and work by
the brutality of the Taliban to a bustling market street where the normal,
everyday business of the town dominates the picture.
Q50 Chairman: That is a very stark picture. It is very important to have that evidence
and I think we would, if it is possible, include that in our report.
Des Browne: It will be of course.
Q51 Chairman: We will, within the limits of publication of
these things, do our best to do so.
What proportion of Helmand is under ISAF control?
Des Browne: I will seek to answer that question in this
way: that there are large parts of Helmand where no one lives, large parts of
it are desert, and no one has any intention of bringing it under control in the
sense, I think, that you mean, Chairman, neither the Taliban nor ISAF. By and large, the population is concentrated
in the valley of the River Helmand and an area either side of it which
variously measures a few kilometres or is quite narrow in places, and the area
has come to be known as the 'green zone' for the very obvious reason that when
the growing season is on, it becomes very green and very dense. A substantial part of it, I have not
actually measured how much of it, is under control, but substantially the areas
where people live are. I do not think
necessarily it would be helpful to put a figure on it, but the General might be
able to give you some sort of perspective on that better than I can in terms of
proportions.
Lieutenant General Wall: It is a question of degree of control, I
think, and of course our efforts in the design of the Afghanistan Development
Zone strategy that originated last year and has been carried forward by General
McNeill focuses inevitably on centres of population, so in population terms the
progress is quite good, but I cannot give you a specific percentage. Lashkar Gah is an area where considerable
progress has been made to the point where we would regard it as stable. It is the focus of our principal 'quick
impact' projects and it is the place where small numbers of NGOs can
function. Gereshk and the upper Gereshk
valley are places where progress has been made to a lower level of control, but
nevertheless a lot better than six months ago.
Sangin, we have heard about, but there are still areas that have not yet
had the opportunity to have this security situation created and the development
to flow in behind it, the stabilisation work to flow in behind it, and those
would include the upper Sangin valley, up to Khajaki where of course there is a
separate project going on which is creating a local effect with considerable
investment there from the United States, and then down south in Gharmsir, so in
population terms it is reasonable progress and perhaps we could in writing
offer you some proportions.
Chairman: That would be helpful, yes.
Q52 Willie Rennie: You talked about the police in Iraq a moment
ago. Have any of the lessons from Iraq
been transferred to Afghanistan in terms of the training of the police and
trying to end the corruption?
Des Browne: Yes, there is no question that it is of
advantage to our training both of the Afghan army and of the police service
that we have learnt lessons from Iraq, yes, there is no question about that.
Q53 Mr Hancock: Is our main purpose still, as far as Helmand
province is concerned, to counter the insurgency there, to tackle the
activities of the Taliban and ultimately to defeat the Taliban?
Des Browne: Well, our main purpose there is to counter
the insurgency and generate a degree of security which will allow the
development of governance and economic development for the Afghan people which,
in my view, will be what will in the long term defeat the Taliban, yes.
Q54 Mr Hancock: Does that not then lead to a contradiction
when you have President Karzai and his invitation for the Taliban to join the
Government and where does that place our troops in tackling the Taliban in
Helmand province when the President of the country is inviting the very people
we are fighting and who are killing our soldiers into the Government and what
is your reaction to that, Secretary of State?
Des Browne: Let me just say at the beginning of this that
what we refer to from here as 'the Taliban' are not a generic, homogeneous
organisation. We do not look upon them
as all being the same and indeed we do, for the purposes of our tactics,
differentiate those whom we consider to be irreconcilable and whom we put in
the top tier from those whom we consider to be prepared to fight with them in
certain circumstances whom we put in a lower tier from those whom we consider
support them from the communities out of fear or out of their desire for some
degree of stability which the Taliban have in the past produced whom we put in
a lower tier, so I think we have to be careful about how we use this
descriptive noun of 'the Taliban'.
There clearly are people who are capable of being persuaded and
encouraged to make the transition from a general allegiance to that political
philosophy to engagement in the democratic processes and the better governance
of Afghanistan and we should encourage people to make that transition. That has always been the case in
Afghanistan. Indeed, the previous
Governor of Oruzgan province who just gave up office, I think, in September was
a former Taliban. I have somewhere in
these papers, but I cannot put my hands on it right now, but somebody may give
it to me, a list of other politicians who have been in the Government, and I
have at least four of them here: the former Governor of Oruzgan; a senior
Aruzai(?) tribal leader in northern Helmand is an ex-Taliban senior commander
in the south and he is actively engaged ----
Q55 Mr Hancock: At that time when they were members of the
Taliban, the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan.
Des Browne: No, no, these people are present.
Q56 Mr Hancock: Yes, but when they were actively involved
with the Taliban, as government ministers, the Taliban were running the
majority of the country. Here we have a
situation where we are fighting the Taliban or a version of the Taliban, to use
your words ----
Des Browne: No, I think I may be misleading you or you
may be misunderstanding me, Mr Hancock.
I am saying that these people were Taliban and are now in government, so
there are people who have made that transition successfully, some of them into
ministerial portfolios, so the fact that President Karzai continues to
encourage others to make that journey is not a surprise to me. The attention that the fact that he does
that has received recently is to some degree surprising to me because it has
always been his position and he has appointed ex-Taliban people into
government. I think we need to accept
that one of the measures of success in Afghanistan is going to be the political
process's ability to get people to sign up to it and some of them will be
people who at some stage signed up to one or other of the tiers of the Taliban
movement.
Q57 Mr Hancock: But, Secretary of State, his invitation was
not to those people who had deserted the Taliban, it was an invitation to the
current leadership of the Taliban who are the ones who are orchestrating the
war against our forces in provinces like Helmand. He was not looking for dissenters from the Taliban, he was
looking for active co-operation with the leadership of the current Taliban
regime that operates in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. How does that place us?
Des Browne: Well, it puts us into the position where I
think we have to recognise that that is part of the process that is often
described by the military and others as there being no exclusively military
solution to Afghanistan. Part of what
we are seeking to do is to create an environment where people can make that
very transition. Of course, there are
some of them who will be completely and utterly irreconcilable and would only
make that transition if they did it on those terms. That is unacceptable.
President Karzai made it clear to them when they responded in those
terms, some of them, that that would be unacceptable, but for those who are
prepared to make the transition which those to whom I have already referred
have made, there must be a place for them in a future Afghanistan. It is not an unconditional process, but
unless somebody is brave enough to engage in it, then it cannot happen at
all. It is what we call 'reconciliation'.
Q58 Mr Jenkin: Can I say that I entirely agree with you,
Secretary of State, on this question, but does that not beg the question: have
our commanders on the ground got enough freedom to make the peace with these
factions where they can in the same way as General Richards made the peace with
the tribal leaders in Musa Qala? Do we
not need lots more Musa Qalas, given the limitations we actually have on our
military resources?
Des Browne: Well, the point is that it is the people who
are engaged in the violence who have to make the peace. We have to create the environment which
encourages them to do that, but the engagement, just as in Musa Qala, has to be
between Afghans and that is the sustainable peace. We will facilitate it, we will help people to engage in it, we
will protect people as they move around if they want to engage in these sorts
of discussions, but it is the Afghans that have to make the peace. I make that point quite specifically about
Musa Qala because the settlement that was arrived at in Musa Qala, which was
not sustained but is just the sort of settlement that we have to make
sustainable so that we can move forward, was an Afghan settlement and it was
led by President Karzai.
Q59 Mr Jenkin: So long as we divide the so-called Taliban
from their support for al Qaeda we are actually achieving our objectives and fulfilling
our national interest.
Des Browne: Of course we are doing that, but we recognise
how difficult it is. Of course, as Mr
Hancock suggests, there are people who are so ideologically bound to the
objectives of the Taliban and indeed often describe and articulate them that it
is almost impossible to consider that these people would make that transition,
but there is plenty of room for other people underneath to make the transition
providing they are prepared to sign up to a democratic future for the country
and to identify with the principles and ideals that underpin the Afghan
constitution.
Q60 Chairman: Secretary of State, let us move on to
NATO. The Combined Joint Statement Of
Requirement has still not been fulfilled.
What are the prospects of NATO actually addressing the deficit in the
number of troops that it has provided, and do you expect to see any improvement
in this? Are the NATO defence ministers
meeting this week?
Des Browne: In answer to the last question, yes, I do
expect to see some progress in relation to it.
Frankly, I doubt whether that progress will get us to the point where
SACEUR can say that the CJSOR is fulfilled, but I think that we will see some
progress. I think we have seen
progress. It is not of a scale or
nature that is necessary to fill the gaps in the force structure which exist
and need to be filled, but we need to keep working on that not just for the
good of the operation itself, for the ISAF force in Afghanistan, but in my view
it is in the interests of NATO itself that all the countries live up to the
commitments that they joined up to collectively.
Q61 Chairman: So when General McNeill says that the troop
levels are not adequate for the task in hand, do you agree with him?
Des Browne: I have to accept the advice of General
McNeill. I am not in a position to, and
I would not seek to, gainsay the advice of any of those whom I look to for
military advice never mind someone who is in charge of the ISAF troops. We need to recognise that a number of our
allies deserve some recognition for their commitment and in some cases for the
sacrifices that they have endured in support of what we are seeking to achieve
and for the people of Afghanistan. I
think sometimes there is a danger that this part of the discussion makes it
appear as if it is only us and the Americans that are involved in this but I
know the Committee knows otherwise, that the Canadians, Australians, Czechs,
Estonians, Danes and others have made a significant contribution and are
present with us in the south where the danger is greatest, sometimes in small
numbers, but in relation to their own forces those numbers are quite
significant.
Q62 Chairman: Indeed, and we have to recognise that other
countries making contributions in the north but not in the south are also doing
things that very much need to be done.
Des Browne: Absolutely.
Q63 Chairman: What is the risk that we will have to retake
ground that we have taken from the Taliban this summer? I asked you this question slightly
yesterday, but do you mind repeating the answer?
Des Browne: I should have mentioned in that litany of
countries the Netherlands who are doing great work in Oruzgan along with the
Australians. I had better add them just
in case they think I deliberately left them out, if somebody reads the
transcript of this evidence!
Q64 Chairman: Will we have to retake ground that we have
already taken?
Des Browne: This is the issue that General McNeill
brought to our attention in the interview that he gave. There is a significant danger that we will
find ourselves in a position where we are unable to hold. I think the point that the General was
making was that the Afghan forces themselves are not capable of holding what we
have achieved and that we will be required to go back and retake that ground. We have to be alert to that. As I said yesterday in answer to this
question when you asked it in the House, our ability to be able to prevent that
from occurring is a function of our ability to be able to train and mentor the
Afghan security forces to be able to fill in behind us and to be able to take
and sustain what we have achieved. That
was part of the reason why the Musa Qala agreement was unsustainable in the
longer term, it was that the Afghan security forces were then put into a
situation that they were not ready for and were incapable of sustaining.
Lieutenant General Wall: The role of the ANA, as we have seen in Iraq,
the role of the indigenous security forces, is crucial here and I think they
are gradually growing. We know that the
aspiration is for them to be bigger over time than we had expected, which will
mean more Afghan military, Kandaks in particular, down in the south and
particularly in Helmand. In response to
the idea of having to retake ground that we have been over before, I think we
need to recognise that we are not only going into areas in order for that
activity to flow through to stabilisation, there will occasionally be
situations where the Taliban need to be kept off balance and we will go into
places not necessarily with the intention of remaining there in
perpetuity.
Q65 Chairman: General McNeill said the trouble is that when
we take ground it would be nice to have the troops to hold it. Unfortunately we do not. Has NATO stopped believing in the concept of
overwhelming force?
Lieutenant General Wall: I do not think we can claim that we have had
overwhelming force across the piece in this operation.
Q66 Chairman: Is that not the problem?
Lieutenant General Wall: I think the fact is that there is a finite
rate at which we can make progress.
Although if there were more forces that progress might be faster in
military terms, actually the real challenge here is to sequence all of the
lines of development in this operation.
You will have witnessed the extent to which the so-called comprehensive
approach is being applied very effectively in Helmand. There is sometimes a risk that if the
security that is created by military forces, whether it is sustained by the
Afghans or not, hopefully it is, when they take the lead in particular areas is
not backed up as fast as we would like it to be by the progress of
stabilisation and that is not least because the stabilisation activity is very
difficult to implement. So perhaps
there is a more complex synchronisation challenge here than we are taking
account of.
Q67 Mr Borrow: Pakistan is going through significant
political change at the moment. What
implication does that have for Afghanistan both now and in the future?
Des Browne: Never mind what we have witnessed
immediately, there is no question that the challenges that the Pakistan
Government faces in dealing with instability in its tribal areas and its border
regions are important to the long-term stability of Afghanistan. Whatever parts of their administration might
say about that, the Pakistan Government itself has consistently been acting to
tackle these problems and I think we should recognise that those security
forces have paid a very high price for seeking to tackle these problems. Our concern is that there are Taliban centres
of operation located in Pakistan and the terrorists are able to organise acts
of violence in Afghanistan from Pakistan.
That is our view. Solving this
is not just about border controls. In
an earlier evidence session we had a discussion about the ambition to try and
close this border between Afghanistan and Pakistan and whether that was ever
likely to be able to be achieved given our own experience with a much smaller
land border in Northern Ireland and quite significant numbers of forces never
mind the terrain that that represents. The solution in both countries lies in
tackling the causes of the insurgency.
That is why the most important part of dealing with it has to lie in
some constructive dialogue between the respective countries. We have seen some indication of that
dialogue taking place. It has been
reluctant at times, but it was engaged and very successful in a substantial
meeting across the borders which both Presidents attended and we need to see how
that work goes forward.
Q68 Mr Borrow: What progress has been made over the Summer
in Pakistan in the sense of denying the Taliban bases or reducing their
footprint within that part of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan?
Des Browne: I am not really in a position to give the
Committee an assessment of what progress has been made there. I have not yet visited that area. Although the next time I go to the region I
have plans to go to Pakistan and make some sort of assessment for myself, I
would much rather comment on that from a basis of experience. I have seen reported some degree of success
but, equally well, I have seen reports of other incidents which suggest that
the Pakistanis are having considerable difficulties in containing insurgency
and terrorist activity within these tribal areas.
Q69 Mr Jenkin: A recent Chatham House report, rather
depressingly, confirms that in terms of winning the insurgency we have got a
great difficulty in Afghanistan because there seems to be an unlimited supply
of material and recruits for the insurgency in Pakistan. Can you give some indication of how our
global counter-insurgency campaign joins up all these different theatres,
Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere into some kind of comprehensive
plan? It seems to me that we tend to
talk about different theatres and different countries when in fact the
insurgency we are working against is thinking much more comprehensively than we
are.
Des Browne: We are very conscious of that. In our international alliances we ensure
that we share information and that we consistently take a view across the
region and across the world because we know to our cost here in this city that
the training of terrorists in that regional area, in Pakistan in particular,
can deliver risks to the streets of our cities. So we are conscious of that and we work indeed with regional
governments to build capacity in the region and share information across from
one theatre to the other that is necessary.
You will have noticed that both the Foreign Secretary and Malloch Brown
have been to Pakistan recently and they have been raising just the sort of
issues that we have been discussing about the nature of what is happening in
Pakistan and the effect that it has on our objectives in Afghanistan. So you can rest assured that all of this
goes on all of the time.
Q70 Mr Jenkin: Would the General like to give a military
assessment?
Lieutenant General Wall: I think one needs to segregate this into at
least two different levels or aspects.
Clearly we have got insecurities in southern Iraq and southern
Afghanistan being provided by people whose aspirations are local or, at worst,
regional and we have discussed those two sub-campaigns if you like. Then we have got those whose aspirations are
to export their motivations from those sectors into Europe and perhaps in some
cases into mainland UK. You will be
aware of the contact strategy that seeks on a number of lines of operation to
deal over time with that latter and more ominous phenomenon. The military role in that, the pursue and
the external prevent piece, is something that is factored into our plans in
those theatres.
Q71 Mr Jenkin: We have spectacular tactical victories due to
the prowess and expertise of our Armed Forces but we still seem to be
strategically very challenged.
Lieutenant General Wall: We are strategically challenged because there
is not a purely military solution to the situation Afghanistan finds itself in
vis-à-vis the Taliban and other extremist groups. Hence all the discussions we have had about finding solutions
through bringing people to the political table and so on and so forth
apply. The scope for an assessment of
progress here has to be gauged against expectations of the time-frame. The nature of this in its scoping complexity
is that this is something where progress will at best be gradual and we are
making gradual progress.
Q72 Mr Hancock: Does your intelligence tell you there is a
possibility that you can actually defeat the insurgency that emanates from
Pakistan through political means because it would appear that cannot be done,
can it? If there is an unbroken chain
of supply both of material and personnel coming from Pakistan there seems to be
a difficulty on the part of the Pakistani authorities to do that. Do we fully understand in intelligence terms
if that is an achievable goal or not?
Lieutenant General Wall: Did you say is achievable in military terms?
Q73 Mr Hancock: In military and political terms.
Lieutenant General Wall: No, I do not think it is achievable in pure
military terms. The military effect is
to create a situation where other influences can be brought to bear to change
people's thinking and encourage them to take up a political approach and, in
the case of those people who are actually almost soldiers of convenience for
the Taliban because they do not have many economic opportunities, to provide
them with some other outlets for their activity.
Des Browne: Significant progress has been made in
Afghanistan. There are a number of
metrics of that progress in relation to health and education and governance and
the one that I most prefer which is the return of refugees into
Afghanistan. We ought not to under-sell
the progress that has been made.
Q74 Mr Hancock: I was not.
Des Browne: The nature of the challenge and the nature of
the insurgency is also a function of the progress that we have made and their
determination to stop that progress being spread. So we have some significant achievement in Afghanistan to show
that it can be done.
Mr Hancock: I was not decrying that. I think you tend to misinterpret things I
was saying. I was talking about the
scale and the scope of the insurgency and the supply of both men and material
from Pakistan. It makes whatever you achieve
in Afghanistan very difficult to sustain if we cannot plug that movement in
some way.
Chairman: We have gone into this to the extent that we
can.
Q75 John Smith: Secretary of State, do you still believe that
if ISAF were not occupying the space it is in southern Afghanistan then people
who would be a direct threat to this country would do so?
Des Browne: I believe that if we were not doing what we
are doing in southern Afghanistan then the situation for the people of
Afghanistan would be much worse than it presently is and I think that is the
true comparison. It is not, "What is
the situation like in Helmand province compared to 18 months ago?" The true comparison, if you can make it, is,
"What is the situation like in Helmand as opposed to what it would have been
like now if we had not provided the degree of security and support for the
people of Helmand province that we were prepared to provide?" I genuinely believe that if that got to the
stage of restricted governance or Taliban dominated governance that there would
be or just a lack of governance altogether then it could easily again become a
training ground for terrorists who would want to carry out acts on our
soil.
Q76 Willie Rennie: One metric that you did not mention earlier
on was narcotics. Could you give us an
update on how that is progressing in terms of counter-narcotics? It seems to me like Groundhog Day; it is
like wading through treacle. You get
reports of things that seem to be happening on counter-narcotics but overall
the picture does not seem to be any rosier than it was 18 months ago.
Des Browne: There are presently in Afghanistan, on the
official reporting, at least 13 provinces now that are narcotics free. I dare say there are some, but against
whatever that metric is, that are declared to be drug free in terms of drug
production. A year ago when we got that
report there were six. I think that is
important progress. I do not think
there is any question, however, that we have seen an increase in poppy growth
and in opium production and consequently in heroin production in other
provinces, including in Helmand province.
I do not think it is any accident that the Afghan Government, who have
the principal responsibility for counter-narcotics, are successful in an
increasing number of provinces, nor that there should be a concentration in
other provinces. I still believe that
our strategic approach to this, which we have accepted the lead partner nation
responsibility for, is the right one, that we need to build up the rule of law
and we need to build up the capacity of the local government, we need to build
up the opportunities of alternative livelihoods and in that environment we can
drive down poppy production. I think
that that strategy is right. I do not
think we have got that wrong. I think
it is very difficult to deliver it. I
think we should recognise at all times the nature of the long-term commitment
that we have to try and deal with this issue.
Q77 Willie Rennie: We hear the same rhetoric every time somebody
comes before the Committee about alternative livelihoods and the justice
system. What are the peculiarities of
Helmand that makes it impossible to enact this rhetoric?
Des Browne: It is the nature and scale of that challenge
that is the particular problem in relation to Helmand. It is a very, very small part of the arable
land of Afghanistan that is used for this production. It can be done in a comparatively small area as opposed to the
scale of the challenge that we are facing in terms of the whole of
Helmand. I think it is the history of
the place, it is the nature of the tribal structure, it is the fact that before
we came there were a significant collection of warlords, criminals, Taliban and
others who were all closely inter-related with each other, that is what is
special about Helmand province.
Q78 Willie Rennie: Do you think we should review the Afghan
Government's primary responsibility in this area?
Des Browne: No.
Contrary to what I understand is written today in one of the Afghan
newspapers, the lead responsibility for this lies with the Afghan Government
itself and we support them. It is only
if we are successful in helping them to build up the pillars of government that
are necessary for this that we will be able to see this being successful in the
long term, so we should concentrate on that.
There is no sustainable answer to this if we do not do this through the
machinery of the Afghan Government.
Q79 Mr Hamilton: The problem is there does not seem to have
been a decision that we are going to eradicate the poppy crop if it is going to
be left in the hands of the Afghan Government.
We cannot be in there for an indefinite period of time; it is not an
open-ended book. At some time or other
there has got to be an abstraction. At
what point is that abstraction going to take place? It does not seem to be going to take place if we cannot deal with
the poppy crop issue. I think that is
the problem that many of us have.
Des Browne: I do not think it is right to say that the
Afghan Government is not prepared to eradicate poverty. There is a debate that goes on about aerial
eradication, about ground spraying and about manual eradication, but that is
not the area that you want to get into.
My sense of the times that I have previously given evidence about this
before to this Committee is that there is agreement between our view of how we
should do this and the efficacy of aerial eradication with the Committee, there
was no dispute between us about that.
It is the ability of the Afghan Government to be able to deliver its
policies on the ground which will be the measure of success. We are facing very great challenges in
Helmand province; there is no doubt about that, because of capacity. We have made some significant progress, as
the General has already alluded to, not just in immediate reconstruction but
also in working with the local provincial governor and others in building up
capacity. We have been quite successful
in relation to that but we start from a very low base. I think we have to accept that we will need
to be patient to see that capacity built to the point where it starts to have
an effect on the ground before we see significant reductions in the
measurements of poppy production and heroin production that comes from it. This is a long-term engagement. Other countries have done it. They have measured the success in terms of
time by what they have been able to achieve in a decade rather than in one
growing season.
Q80 Mr Jones: I do not think for one minute it is an easy
problem to solve. When you fly, as you
will have done, into the PRT base at Lashkar Gar, in the fields next door to
the British base there is field after field of poppies. Is not the real issue that needs to be
addressed not confusion on how to deal with it but that if it is left to the
Afghan Government to sort out the level of corruption and the involvement of
certain key members of even President Karzai's family in this trade before you
try and eradicate it? Do you not think
that this is not going to go away politically for 100 years because the former
Prime Minister emphasised it time and time again as an important reason why we
were in Afghanistan, to eradicate poppy production because it comes onto the
streets of the UK?
Des Browne: I think in your question you identified some
of the challenges that the Government faces in relation to dealing with
this. As part of our support as lead
partner nation in this area we have strategies to deal with those very
issues. Every time I or other ministers
meet with any ministers, including President Karzai, we make it very clear to
him how important it is for dealing with narcotics that they deal with the
issue of corruption and that certain key people who are identifiable are
brought to justice. However, his
ability to be able to do that will depend on the justice system being able to
prosecute, convict and hold them. That is also a challenge.
Mr Hancock: Secretary of State, would it be possible for
you to supply some information? You
said a year ago there were six provinces which had dealt with the poppy
cultivation and that it was now up to 13, but that is only relevant if you know
what they started at. Afghanistan
produced enough poppies to create heroin to supply the whole world; they had a
bumper harvest in the current year.
Those figures are only relevant if you know whether those 13 provinces were
actually major players in poppy cultivation as a starting point and we ought to
know that otherwise they are pointless statistics, are they not? I think it would be enormously helpful if we
knew a bit more detail about that sort of statistic. If there has been success in the last year in getting seven more
provinces nearly clear of the drug production I would like to know how that was
achieved because I think that would be helpful. Up to now we have not had that sort of information given to us as
a Committee on the three occasions when those officers responsible within the
Government have been here to give evidence.
They have never been able to put a sustainable argument about what has
been achieved and how it has been achieved.
Q81 Chairman: Would you be able to give us a memorandum on
that, Secretary of State?
Des Browne: I think I can do better than that. I will send you a copy of the UN report that
has all of this information. There is a
UN report on this every year and this information is in the public domain. There are at least three provinces that I
can think of, Balkh, Qandahar and Badakhshan, that had significantly high
productions of poppy, opium and then heroin and are now production free and so
drug free in that sense.
Q82 Chairman: If you could send us a copy of that report
and then we will consider whether we need to ask further questions.
Des Browne: Absolutely, Chairman. The second point is why this has been the
case in these particular provinces. It
has been the case in these provinces because of political leadership. A sustainable process can be delivered. This is quite often because of individuals
who are the governors of these provinces who have made it their business to
concentrate on this issue and give strong political leadership on it and also
their ability to be able to deliver for the people alternative livelihoods
means that they do not have to, in order to sustain their families at the
poverty level, engage in this production.
It is invariably a consequence of that.
If we get to that sort of stage in Helmand I am absolutely certain we
will see that process as well.
Chairman: We look forward to getting the report and
then we might ask you some further questions in writing.
Q83 Mr Havard: My question is about co-ordination. The General mentioned sequencing earlier on
and that is absolutely crucial in all of this.
We visited Turkey last week and talked to the Turks. They play an interesting role in Afghanistan
at the moment as a contributor to the general ISAF operation. It is really a question about the tensions
between a UN mandate supporting a newly elected government, prosecuted largely
by NATO forces through ISAF and where the EU sits in all of that because they
will be a player. You are going to have
meetings later in the week. There was
great concern expressed about the co-ordination arrangements for the EU rule of
law mission because I agree with you, the questions about where stability comes
from, that whole thing about the justice system, policing and so on is going to
be important. The EU are taking a role
on it now. NATO is doing a military
stand. Can you say something about how
you see those things being properly co-ordinated and then sequenced with the
stabilisation and economic capacity of people to move away from growing
poppy?
Des Browne: I think now there is unanimity across the
international community that the mission in Afghanistan, in all its aspects and
all its comprehensiveness, requires clearer leadership from the top than it has
had. There is now agreement across the
international community that that leadership has to come from the United
Nations. There has been quite a lot of
public talk about a specific figure to lead the United Nations mission from whom
all the contributors would be prepared to accept some form of leadership. I think we are very near to that point. I believe that will transform the
international mission in Afghanistan when it gets that leadership. I think that all the other strands of this,
whether they are provided by NATO or the European Union or indeed those people
who are outwith that, the NGOs and others who contribute, would welcome
that. I know that the Americans are
very keen to see this, which may be counterintuitive to many people's view of
them, but they recognise the importance of it.
That sort of leadership, which I think is just around the corner, will
make a very significant difference. It
will give a focus to the whole process that it has hitherto lacked. There has been a tendency for all of the
countries to want a bilateral relationship as it were for their own
contribution with the government of Afghanistan taking up the time of the
President in particular and distracting him from decisions that he needs to
make in terms of his own government but also introducing an element of discord
sometimes into what we are doing.
Q84 Mr Havard: Do you think that will encompass the OEF
mission as well?
Des Browne: In terms of the military aspects of this
mission, we will continue to have the military command that presently we have
and the Americans will be content with that as they are the principal
contributor to OEF.
Q85 Chairman: So you see no prospect of OEF coming out of
NATO command?
Des Browne: I do not think we will move much from where
we presently are.
Chairman: Thank you.
Q86 Mr Jenkin: It is one of the basic things about
counter-insurgency warfare that you have a single chain of command and a single
plan. Is OEF and ISAF capable, with its
dual command chain, of working to a single plan? I wonder if General Wall would comment from a military point of
view on that.
Lieutenant General Wall: I think the way we came to this,
incrementally and from slightly different directions, has clearly not left us
in the ideal situation in terms of clarity of chain of command and there are
significant concerns in a number of circles about the bifurcated approach. There is no doubt that people are getting
better and better at coordinating effects on the ground. I absolutely agree with you about a single
chain of command. It kind of reinforces
the Secretary of State's point about how you deliver cohesion multi-nationally
across a whole range of government activities because this is not just about
military unity, it is about the totality of effects, to which end there is going
to be an element of different people operating in a co-ordinated rather than a
singularly commanded way and, therefore, it is really about coordination and
cohesion rather than a specific chain of command. Notwithstanding all of that, we are quite clear that if OEF were
to move some of its capabilities into ISAF then that would be helpful.
Chairman: That takes us on to joint issues about Iraq
and Afghanistan, starting first with Mike Hancock.
Q87 Mr Hancock: Do you think the planned reductions in force
levels in Iraq will allow the MoD to return to the harmony guidelines that you
set yourself for the coming year?
Des Browne: I think that the reductions will help reduce
the breaches in the harmony guidelines.
I do not think there is any question about that. There are no plans to commit the forces,
which in numerical terms are released from Afghanistan, elsewhere. So there will be an easing of the burden on
our forces and we have seen that burden eased also in the reduction of our
involvement in the Balkans and in Northern Ireland, but I think we still
continue to see that in some key trades and units there will continue to be
pressure, which is why we have introduced other measures to try and alleviate
these, such as recruitment and retention initiatives.
Q88 Mr Hancock: So at the present time there are no plans at
all to offset the reductions in Iraq by a possible increase in force levels in
Afghanistan?
Des Browne: No.
Admitting that our overall forces are clearly a constraint on what we
can do, that is just logical. There
never was any decision ever made about force levels in either Iraq or
Afghanistan by combining consideration of the two of them together. Decisions have always been made on the
merits of the individual theatres themselves.
Q89 Mr Hancock: Have you planned on a best and worst case
scenarios for the assumptions with regard to force levels that you require?
Des Browne: Of course we plan on the basis of the forces
that we have available to determine what we can to. In relation to the issue of harmony guidelines, there is no doubt
that we are planning that reductions in Iraq will help to reduce the breaches
in the harmony guidelines. That having
been said, in certain niche capabilities we will still face the same sort of
pressures that we presently have and we will not address them by reductions in
forces in Iraq, we will have to address them otherwise, we will have to get
people in to do them.
Q90 Linda Gilroy: The Prime Minister said in his statement last
week that there would be some more Mastiff vehicles for use in Iraq and that is
very welcome. For what purposes are
they being used by UK troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are there some
problems as far as use in the Afghan terrain?
Des Browne: I think the General is probably better placed
than me to share with the Committee what we are prepared to share with the
Committee as to exactly what we are using these vehicles for, although it must
be obvious to the people both of Afghanistan and Iraq what we are using them
for because we are using them in their communities. I would rather the General dealt with that point. The Mastiff vehicle has been an astonishing
success. There is no question that
there was a problem identified with the suspension of the Mastiff when it was
first used in the harsh terrain of Afghanistan, but that has now been fully
rectified and the vehicle is proven in the Afghan theatre. I have to say, when I visited the 12
Mechanised Brigade and Brigadier Lorimer, those who had used the vehicle were
singing its praises fulsomely and saying that it added significantly to their
capability there. We got over some
problems. The fact that we covered this
problem in theatre was part of the opportunity cost of getting these vehicles
so quickly. Previously our approach to
procurement would have been that we would have exhaustively tested the vehicles
before we committed them to the theatre. So unless we were 100 per cent certain
that they were ready for the theatres we would not have let them anywhere near
that terrain. The opportunity cost of
getting the vehicles as quickly was to recognise that we would find things in
using them in Afghanistan that we might need to rectify and resolve. So it was not a surprise to us that we
identified this problem. We did not
anticipate a specific problem with the suspension, but it would not have been a
surprise to us had there been a problem and we were geared up to correcting it
and we did it in good time. Perhaps the
General could comment on how the vehicles are being used.
Lieutenant General Wall: They have been hugely successful. The fact they have turned up so quickly and
they have been integrated so readily into day-to-day business and that our
soldiers have been able to adapt them to a range of uses is a tribute to all of
the excellent work that has gone on.
More would be welcome. There are
places where the environment is just that little bit too harsh and there are a
number of approaches one can take to compensate for that by using other
systems, a greater reliance on helicopters or accepting that the reliability of
these vehicles will suffer in the places where the environment is most harsh
and that is a judgment for Commanders at the time.
Q91 Linda Gilroy: Arising from that harsh environment, what
general concerns, Secretary of State, do you have on wear and tear on equipment
generally and what that means in terms of replacement and for future
procurement budgets?
Des Browne: I think we are learning a significant amount
in both Iraq and Afghanistan daily about our equipment. I am very proud to say that our response to
that has been an appropriate one and we are equipping our forces now better
than they ever have been before and I think that is recognised by them and
certainly that is the feedback that I get directly from them. It is undoubtedly the case that these harsh
environments not only take a toll on the vehicles but they take their toll on
those who maintain them as well. We are
asking people to work much harder than they would have had to in other
environments, ie our mechanics, engineers and other people who are maintaining
and supporting this equipment. The more
we learn the more that feeds into our long-term procurement decisions. Lord Drayson is more day-to-day responsible
for this than I am, but there is no question that we are learning lessons and
we are feeding these into our procurement plans in the future.
Q92 Linda Gilroy: In the Government's response to our
Afghanistan report earlier this year you said, "We have allocated additional
flying hours and are working hard to generate more". Do you continue to have concerns, as the Committee does, about
the sustainability of the current workload on the aircraft and the crew, and
how soon are the new Merlins going to be ready?
Des Browne: Our helicopters are working very hard as are
the people who fly and support them in Afghanistan. I suppose I should open these remarks by confirming what I have
said before to this Committee and to many others who have raised this issue with
me, defence needs more helicopters. That is why I announced in March 2007 that we would be increasing
our battlefield helicopter fleet by buying six more Merlins and converting
eight Chinooks for earlier operational use and specifically that will increase
our Chinook and Merlin fleets capability by 20 and 25 per cent
respectively. The first Merlin is going
to be available to deploy in operations in about March 2008 and the first
Chinook in 2009.
Q93 Robert Key: Can you tell us when the roll out will
happen? When will all eight be in
service? When are they planned to be in
service?
Des Browne: We plan to have the first Chinook available
to deploy in operations in 2009. At
this stage I am not able to give a specific date. I think we would need to write to you on that.
Q94 Chairman: Secretary of State, you conducted an
end-to-end review of the airbridge earlier this year. May we have the conclusions of that review and a summary of what
improvements were made as a result, please?
Des Browne: I can actually. I have a list of them here.
There have been a large number of improvements agreed and implemented
including logistics in aircraft engineering trades, having manning and
recruitment targeted for improvement, new heavy loading equipment is being
procured from the USA, 2 further C-17 transport aircraft are to be purchased
with seat pallets included in the fit, passenger protocols are being reviewed
and passengers' feedback processed, an air movement process study is currently
in progress and there are two related land reviews going on. Presently we are able to airlift troops and
material across the world, particularly in supporting Iraq and Afghanistan
which have lengthy lines of communications as you know. It is a very challenging business with a
large amount of personnel and material being moved into a hostile
environment. Between April and December
2006 we moved nearly 37,000 passengers.
The RAF did that in support of operations which is a 42 per cent
increase in the same period in 2005. Of
course, I think very importantly, we have reduced the journey time to
Afghanistan by 24 hours by refurbishing Qandahar airfield and using the
Tri-Star aircraft which is fitted with the appropriate data system. That is a summary list of what we believe we
have achieved.
Q95 Chairman: Thank you.
Secretary of State, we have finished three minutes before two hours are
up. Thank you for listening to our
requests for short answers and to the Committee for short questions. I think it would be wrong to finish this
session without again paying tribute to our Armed Forces and for the work they
are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan. We
do so in an extremely fulsome way because they are doing it for us and they are
doing it with great courage.
Des Browne: In anticipation that I might be asked to
provide the Committee with details of the reconstruction programme recently I
brought a list of the consolidated QIPs in the PRT in Lashkargah which sets out
in detail what has been achieved. There
are 82 of them on the list. I will
leave them for you.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
