Examination of Witnesses (Questions 174-179)
RT HON
LORD MALLOCH-BROWN
AND ADAM
THOMSON
14 MAY 2009
Q174 Chairman: Good afternoon,
Minister, and Mr. Thomson. We are pleased to see you before us
again. It is a different topic this time, but I suspect that we
may touch on some of the same issues that we did the last time
you came before us. We, as a Committee, are looking at Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Two weeks ago, members of the Committee were in
both countries so we are on top of what is happening. We begin
by asking you for your assessment of where we have got to since
2003. It seems that the basis on which we went into Afghanistan
has shifted to what we are doing now. We went in on a counter-terrorist
agenda and now we seem to be doing a lot about nation building
and building state institutions. Do you agree with that assessment?
Lord Malloch-Brown:
The difficulty is that you can eliminate individual terrorists,
but if you leave a country as a failed state and a seedbed for
renewed terrorism, you leave your job unfinished. Perhaps the
early statements of the mission were two-dimensional—one-dimensional,
if you like—but the objective of leaving an Afghan Government,
who are representative of their people and able to offer security
to their people, and offer to the world a secure state that will
not be a source of future terrorism, is an extension of the mission,
not a change of mission.
Q175 Chairman:
You wouldn't say that it was mission creep, then?
Lord Malloch-Brown: I wouldn't
say that it was mission creep. A deepening of the mission might
be a more accurate description.
Q176 Chairman: When we made the
decision in 2006-07 to take on the main role in Helmand, was it
expected at that time that we would now be in a situation where
we are losing four or five British servicemen every week—sometimes
in a single day—and that we would be engaged in such heavy
fighting? It has been suggested to us that, based even on remarks
made by some senior military figures, we had unrealistic goals
when we initially deployed in Helmand, and that we are now suffering
the consequences.
Lord Malloch-Brown: There were
famous statements at the time, not only from generals but from
some of the Ministers involved, that it might almost be a walk
in the park. It was a little misleading because the whole reason
we were going in was that the problem in Helmand needed the military
commitment of a member of ISAF to contain what was clearly a resurgent
Taliban threat. It is fair to acknowledge that the extent of the
difficulties—the loss of life, the seriousness of the insurgency—was
not perhaps fully understood at the beginning.
Q177 Chairman: We seemed to go
in on the basis of peace support and counter-narcotics, yet we
have ended up with counter-insurgency as the main priority. Would
you accept that the original assessment, the basis on which we
deployed to Helmand, was not correct? We should have been more
realistic about the threats that would be faced.
Lord Malloch-Brown: Again, yes
and no, in that we knew there was an insurgency that needed to
be contained. In that sense, that was the rationale for the deployment.
As always with these kinds of actions, you hope that you can do
it through what you term peace support, but you have to be ready
to up your game and commitment if that initial strategy does not
work. So, I think that we remain consistent with the objectives
that took us into Helmand: the purpose remains the same; the task
has proved a lot harder than we originally estimated.
Q178 Chairman: Some commentators,
in particular a book by Stephen Grey, have referred to the poor
state of Army equipment and the political and military chaos in
2007, pointing to the tension between the military and the officials,
and between different Government Departments. Is it fair to say
that there was not a sufficiently co-ordinated and joined-up approach
between DFID, the MOD and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
in 2007?
Lord Malloch-Brown: I think that
there are two different issues. On the issue of military supplies,
we have acknowledged—the Prime Minister has acknowledged
to the Commons—that we have had to up our performance in
that area, in terms of meeting delivery schedules and providing
reinforced equipment that would protect our troops, particularly
on the issue of vehicles that could survive the road ordnance
put up by the insurgents. Just this morning there was a National
Audit Office report on that, which gives us an improvement mark,
but not yet a perfect score—there are still some equipment
delays in terms of logistics and delivery. So, we have to keep
on working at that, and I think that the Ministry of Defence would
completely share—if it had a representative here—the
sense of urgency and the need to keep focused, so that our troops
are properly equipped and protected.
On the second issue—co-ordination between
the three Departments—again, as we have sought to have an
operation that balances the objectives of development, political
progress and security, we have recognised that we have had to
improve our co-ordination arrangements. We now have in Helmand
a senior Foreign Office official—although such an official,
the equivalent of a two-star general in terms of ranking, could
come from any one of the three Departments—on the ground
to co-ordinate our efforts, to ensure that they are joined up.
Clearly the thing was not as tightly knit as it should have been
in 2007.
Q179 Chairman: You are referring
to Hugh Powell. Members of our Committee met him. He is of a higher
grade than was there before.
Lord Malloch-Brown: Yes. The previous
arrangement, before Hugh, was basically that you had a military
leadership down there, with a civilian PRT—provincial reconstruction
team—but very subordinate to the military effort. Now, in
Hugh, you have someone who is leading all the non-military operational
activity there, and is seeking to integrate the activities of
all three Departments.
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