Global Security: Afghanistan and Pakistan - Foreign Affairs Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-219)

RT HON LORD MALLOCH-BROWN AND ADAM THOMSON

14 MAY 2009

  Q200 Andrew Mackinlay: We need some sort of carrot to increase our constituents' enthusiasm, and I think that they would like to see some material advance in tackling corruption. How can they measure success in that? What is being done to ensure that our assistance is contingent upon the Afghan Government demonstrably being able to deliver a war against corruption?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: One thing that we have been pressing on President Karzai, and indeed on others who are choosing to run for President in the elections, is the need for this not to be a personality and tribal-based coalition campaign but to be very much about manifestos and commitments. We have argued to President Karzai that corruption will be a decisive issue for people, and that it will be unacceptable for the people of Afghanistan to see leaders who condone or turn a blind eye to corruption.

  Through DFID, we have worked hard both to make sure that our own aid money is not wasted and that we are building the kinds of institutions of governance—the checks and balances and controls over corruption—that start to clean this up. But one has to be honest—this is one of the real Achilles heels of the Kabul Government. Particularly at the regional level, there are governors appointed by Kabul who have a horrible reputation regarding corruption. We hope that this election campaign will be an opportunity for ordinary Afghans to air their grievance about that and demand of whomever they elect as President that they clean up their act.

  Q201 Andrew Mackinlay: Outside of Kabul, surely the reality is that traditional forms of justice prevail. Is that acceptable to us?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: What exactly do you mean?

  Andrew Mackinlay: Well, not a court system or a prosecution system as we know it but tribal punishments—I don't know the correct phrase, and I don't want to use emotive terms—that are probably not up to United Kingdom norms.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: I am sorry—I just wanted to make sure that you were not suggesting that it was somehow just arbitrary justice. You are absolutely right: there are so-called shuras—local justice systems—and we are working to strengthen them. We think that that—justice that reaches out across the country—is a better model than trying to get some sort of court system that is highly expensive to operate, has huge gaps in the laws it would operate from and never really manages to provide timely justice beyond Kabul. Our own reporting suggests that, in terms of winning hearts and minds in insurgent areas, one thing that scores well for the Taliban versus Kabul is the rough and ready justice that the Taliban provide. They come into town, somebody accuses somebody else of stealing farm animals or taking land, and the Taliban are not coy about it—without reference to even an informal justice system they mete out punishment. In the rather lawless areas that is often welcomed, I am told. Informal justice systems, which are fair and deliver justice quickly, are a critical building block for successful political counter-insurgency.

  Q202 Andrew Mackinlay: On governance, the way that I understand it is that there are clearly some provinces in Afghanistan where, while it is not up to our norms of governance, there is some governance and probably has been for a long time. Putting aside Kabul, where perhaps the writ of the Government runs, we are in Helmand, and the truth is that there is no governance in Helmand, is there? There might be a shibboleth of some Government official—a provincial or a district governor or a prefet—but the reality is that he is ensconced, almost imprisoned, in a Seventh Cavalry-type fort where, notionally, his standard flies, but outside of that little jurisdiction, his writ does not run. There is no governance, is there? That is the painful truth that my constituents and I have to face. There is no real governance in Helmand. We have been there a long time and that is the naked truth, isn't it?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: Well, the truth that I would not disguise from your constituents is that we are in the middle of this, not at the end. We still have a long way to go in Helmand. You have Governor Mangal, who we think is an honest and able man, who, in some of the metrics of his performance, such as poppy field eradication and other issues, is making real progress. Therefore, Helmand is better governed now than it was a year ago.

  There are local councils in the districts. I visited one of the district councils and I am sure that you did when you were there. It is not an easy life: one of the district councillors I met was killed shortly thereafter going to her home area. It is a dangerous business, and as a consequence too much development assistance to our taste still has to be delivered through provincial reconstruction teams because it is not safe enough to allow ordinary Afghan council workers to go out and deliver development projects in the way that we would like. However, compare Helmand to much of the rest of the country and you see that it is an extreme. In many parts of Afghanistan the process is much further advanced.

  Andrew Mackinlay: Yes, but we wouldn't have the presence if it weren't for Helmand.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: That's right.

  Q203 Andrew Mackinlay: I acknowledge that there are some provinces or districts that are different. I think that there are 13 districts in Helmand. How many of those 13 this afternoon are in the reasonable control—I have to use "reasonable" because I have to leave it to your judgment—of central Government? Where does their writ run in those 13? I don't simply mean that there is a fort, an office and a few people behind guns. Of those 13, how many can the Government reasonably move around in?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: About half of them.

  Adam Thomson: Yes, I would say about half of them, but each district is different, and in some of the half where there is Afghan Government governance, it is still quite insecure. But if we compare Helmand 2006 with Helmand 2009, there is considerably more governance in considerably more district centres than was the case three years ago.

  Q204 Andrew Mackinlay: Last autumn we were in the United Nations and we had before us the lovely gentleman who was the Afghan ambassador to the UN. We asked him the same question, and I remember him saying that a couple of weeks earlier there were about five districts. We all gasped. He then said, "As at yesterday"—we thought that he was about to say that the figure had lifted to seven—"there were two." That was rather the wrong direction. You looked a bit anxious when I asked you the question, and you said, "About half," but that isn't good enough, is it? We need to see that we are increasing and gaining qualitatively in governance, where the writ runs. I put that to you.

  I have a final question. This is an article 5 operation; surely it has wider implications. NATO has failed in it because implicit in article 5 is that everyone steps up to the plate. We did in relation to Helmand. I have said that I don't think there is any mandate, because it was a statement of fact that we were going in, but it has never been put to the House of Commons. It was reported to it, but it never mandated or endorsed it. Article 5 has failed. It is actually a serious failure for NATO. It was implicit that others would come in—we might make the biggest contribution, but it was all going to be one big heave. It hasn't happened, has it?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: I looked anxious about the "half" because it's not clear what the measure is. It goes to your serious point that we have to have metrics and benchmarks of progress. We are trying to develop those. I really want to be clear that, while there have been setbacks in Helmand—the loss of Lashkar Gah was the most infamous, if you like, but it was then recovered; no, Musa Qala, sorry, it was recovered and local government is now operating—the point is that the trend line is clear. We are prevailing, but as I said at the beginning of the answer, we are at the halfway point or whatever the right thing is. I am not trying to disguise the fact that we still have a hell of a hill to climb, but I use the comparison with the rest of Afghanistan for a reason. Yes, if you look at Helmand, it seems bleak, but if you look at Helmand as the worst province in the country and take a countrywide look at this, it is a lot less bleak. We are winning. That is the bottom line.

  Q205 Andrew Mackinlay: Article 5?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: On the article 5 point, it is a huge challenge to NATO because, essentially, it is out of theatre for NATO. The real issue is that NATO's tightness and article 5 shared commitments came from the concept of an organisation whose purpose was self-defence in the European theatre. The threats have now become global, as we were saying at the beginning, and unfortunately NATO's sense of solidarity is not yet an expression of that. It is absolutely the case that NATO needs to think hard about its mission. Its member countries need to think hard about their commitments to it. If there are to be more of these kinds of actions around the world, the US is very properly—if NATO is going be the vehicle for them—going to expect that others properly step up to the mark.

  Andrew Mackinlay: And us.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: And us.

  Chairman: Now we are going to shift to human rights issues. Sir John Stanley.

  Q206 Sir John Stanley: Minister, I may have misconstrued your earlier comments, but I found your previous reference to standing up for the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan somewhat feeble and defeatist. I hope that you acknowledge that over a large part of Afghanistan, including way beyond the areas where the Taliban are still in control, the treatment of women and girls, which is measured perfectly reasonably from our point of view by the standards of the UN declaration of human rights, is frankly appalling. We have seen reports only this week of another gas attack on girls going to a school outside Kabul.

  The Prime Minister was in Afghanistan at exactly the same time as us, although we did not actually see him as our paths did not cross. The specific point that I want to put to you relates to the fact that he rightly made very strong representations to President Karzai about his signing of the Shi'a family law, which has, in my view, been perfectly reasonably described by the media here as legalised rape within marriage. The issue is of huge concern to those very brave women in Afghanistan who are fighting for women's rights.

  It was widely reported in the Afghan press, and more widely, while we were there that the Prime Minister obtained a concession from President Karzai, under which he said that he would amend the Shi'a family law, which he has now signed. Are the British Government going to ensure that the commitment made to our Prime Minister will be adhered to, or will it simply turn out to be an empty promise? If it turns out to be an empty promise, Members from all political parties on both sides of the House will have to deal with constituents who are concerned about our position in Afghanistan, and who cannot understand why servicemen should lose their lives for a Government who are prepared to institutionalise and legalise rape. Our constituents simply cannot understand why we should be in that position, and I have every sympathy for that point of view.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: The Prime Minister made in Afghanistan the same argument that you have just made, which is that it is absolutely unreasonable to expect British lives to be put at risk to defend a Government who would treat their country's women in that way, and that while we accept that different systems will address issues of rights in different ways, don't expect us to put our lives on the line for a regime that would do that. The Prime Minister, in what he said publicly and in what he said in private to President Karzai, was absolutely explicit and adamant—as were President Obama and Hillary Clinton—that it was unacceptable to expect us to play a role there under such conditions. Therefore, on 27 April, President Karzai announced that the law would be changed to bring it in line with the constitution, which guarantees equal rights for women, and with the international treaties to which Afghanistan is a party. We are going to follow that very closely. For us, it is not a small matter to be brushed under the carpet—it is absolutely fundamental. While we, as I say, recognise the right of Afghans to write their own laws, there are some issues that are so fundamental that they go to the heart of why we are there.

  I want to pick up your earlier point on women, who have had a hugely improved dispensation and deal since 2002. I have mentioned the fact that there are now huge numbers of girls in school who were not there before. You mentioned the fact that some of them were attacked when they tried to go to school, which shows the limits of what outsiders can do: we can fight for the provision of schools and press the Government to treat girls fairly and give them the same rights as others, but what we cannot do is change a country's culture overnight and police the behaviour of individual Afghan families and communities towards their women and daughters. We can press for that change in attitude, but I do not consider it supine, weak or apologetic to acknowledge that we do not have the ability to go family by family across Afghanistan and teach Afghan men to treat their women properly. That revolution in attitudes has got to come from Afghans themselves.

  Q207 Sir John Stanley: I certainly accept that there have been some significant improvements since 2001, but it has to be clear on the record that we were starting, as far as women and girls were concerned, from a zero base—an absolutely zero base, from a regime that was committed to ensuring that women were brought up illiterate and that their role in life was to be treated as chattels. I hope that the British Government will look not only at what has been done since that zero baseline, but also at what more needs to be done and at the numbers of Afghan girls who are still not going to school in Afghanistan.

  We had two interesting and contrasting meetings in the Afghan Parliament. One was with the Foreign Affairs Committee, where there was just one woman, and all the rest were men—I say that with a degree of contriteness, as the women members of this Committee no doubt have some other pressing engagements, so I am sorry but we are all men here today, Minister. That was followed by a meeting, very happily, with the recently formed all-party Afghan-British parliamentary group in the Afghan Parliament. You will be interested to know, Minister, that at that meeting, which followed immediately afterwards, there was just one man and all the rest were women. At that point I do not think that they had had an opportunity to go to our embassy in Kabul, but I hope—indeed, I am sure—that, given the strong representation of women in the new Afghan-British friendship group in the Afghan Parliament, our ambassador and his staff will make every possible effort to see that they are warmly welcomed and very strongly supported by the British embassy in Kabul.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: Thank you, Sir John. I shall pass that back to our ambassador, because I think that it is something that we should build on. I hope that one reason that there was that gender balance may well be that there is a recognition of the programmes that DFID, in particular, runs for women's rights in Afghanistan and that the women in Parliament see us as a friend of that agenda. I hope that that had something to do with why there were so many women in that group.

  Q208 Chairman: We went to a girls' school in Kabul, which the British Council has been giving significant support to. That was an extremely valuable experience for all of us. Of course, none of those girls would have been in education at all in 2003.

  May I probe you a little further on the Shi'a family law process? We were given contradictory impressions by different people that we spoke to as to what would happen, and whether there would be a need for an amendment to go through the Afghan Parliament or whether some other process would be involved. Some people suggested that it was all part of the electioneering and President Karzai had done this deliberately to bolster his base, and that once the election was out of the way the law would carry on through the process. Although he said that he might put it on hold or "review" it, there was no explicit commitment to amend it.

  Can you clarify what process you or the British Government think will now be pursued within the Afghan political system? Might it be through the Parliament, which could resist it, because the Shi'a members might say to the Sunni ones, "It's nothing to do with you; this is to do with our religious codes"? Or will there be some other mechanism to ensure that the 300 or more clauses of the Shi'a code are adopted without the two or three that have caused these particular problems?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: Chairman, I don't think I can clarify it. What you heard was an accurate reflection of what we are hearing. The embassy is still pursuing what the next steps are likely to be. What President Karzai said was that he had sent it to the Ministry of Justice for review. My interpretation of the electoral politics, though, is different from yours. It might be that there was less electoral advantage to President Karzai after the elections in allowing the Bill to have been brought forward, and he may be more amenable to tackling amendments to it after the election.

  Q209 Chairman: We were told that the President had referred it back initially and then it had come back again. He asked, "Is it okay?" and was told, "Yes, it's fine." He then signed it and then realised what was in it. We were also told that the Ministry of Justice and the President had worked it out and it would be fine and that there was no problem. They had already worked out what needed to be done. Two weeks on from when we were told these things, have you any idea whether that is true?

  Adam Thomson: No, I haven't—I'm sorry.

  Q210 Chairman: Perhaps you can send us a note,[4] because when we do our report we will obviously focus to some extent on what this actually means. Our report is likely to be out before the Afghan elections.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: I happened to be with the American special envoy Richard Holbrooke when this thing broke. The speed with which he was able to get Hillary Clinton out of bed at about five in the morning to call President Karzai shows that there was no doubt about the American position and the speed with which President Obama jumped in on it means that one thing I can confidently tell you is that we are not alone on this. The most significant external voice—the Americans—are at least as outraged as we are by it and are determined to make it clear that for them, who are making even more of a commitment and losing a lot of lives, this is every bit as unacceptable as it is for us.

  Q211 Mr. Illsley: Before I come on to a question about international co-operation, I want to come back to the point that Sir John has been making about public perceptions of human rights abuses in Afghanistan and how they affect this country's views on what we are doing out there. A few moments ago you said that we can help the police force and the Afghanistan people in relation to their attitude to girls and women. I accept that and I agree with that. But there has to be some move towards them and presumably it has to start at the top.

  Only a few months ago, a father murdered his daughter because she had struck up an acquaintance with a British or an American soldier. It was only a passing acquaintance. He murdered her in public and the Afghan Government simply said that they couldn't intervene—that there couldn't be any prosecution because it was an honour killing and accepted in their country. There has to be some sort of pressure on the Afghan Government. I don't think this was in a tribal area. It was around Kabul. There has to be recognition somewhere along the line that this is wrong and should stop. I don't know whether you recall that incident.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: I don't recall the specific incident. We will look into that.

  Q212 Mr. Illsley: My question on international co-operation relates to the UN mission in Afghanistan and its efforts to channel funding into reconstruction and development. It appears that the US Government tend to ignore the UN programmes when providing funding and assistance for these programmes, whereas the British Government tend to use the UN programmes as a vehicle for putting investment into Afghanistan. Is there anything we can do to persuade the US Government to come on board in relation to the UN, so that there is a co-ordinated approach to this money going into redevelopment and construction?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: I think yes is the answer. The last Administration was famously casual about its relations with the UN and did not use it as it might have done. Richard Holbrooke is very seized of this. The Americans had always steered clear of the UN mission in some ways, although they had been interested in getting Paddy Ashdown to head it at one point because they wanted a more effective UN mission. They felt that they did not have it and therefore worked round it. Peter Galbraith, an American who is extremely close to the Administration, has been brought in as deputy SRSG in the mission. The Americans are supporting UNAMA'S big election undertaking. As UNAMA itself has sorted out some of its own staffing issues which dogged it last year and has moved to open regional offices, putting it closer to the action outside Kabul, I think the US is gaining respect for it and supporting it more. We obviously were and will go on making the argument that if you want to give this whole thing a multilateral character and legitimacy, an effective UN mission which the US is seen to support is a key objective.

  Adam Thomson: I might just add that Ambassador Eikenberry's first act upon arrival in Kabul as the new US ambassador was to join a meeting chaired by Kai Eide. It was a deliberate step.

  Q213 Chairman: Yes, we met Kai Eide and were impressed by his efforts. But there is a deep level of frustration within the UN—not just in its headquarters but I suspect everywhere—about the fact that whatever the UN does, it does not necessarily know what the US is doing. The US has an estimated $1 billion. On top of that, there is what the American military have in their so-called CERP—the commanders' emergency response programmes—which they can spend at local level, perhaps contradicting or duplicating what is being done by international organisations. So it does seem a bit absurd.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: There can be improvements. The US has been, if you like, a great piece outside the co-ordination efforts. On the other hand, truth be told, the CERP programmes tend to be operating in insecure parts of the country, where it is not as though there is a massive amount of UN or other assistance to duplicate. I think we can definitely improve on this but it is a little bit of a habit of UN people—co-ordination is right up there as one of the most enjoyable activities.

  Q214 Chairman: You are speaking of your former role?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: I am. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than committee meetings, co-ordinating this, that and the other, and there needs to be more of it. Equally we should not fall into a trap. The flexibility of the CERP programme is a rather good thing, we would say, and frankly, we wish we sometimes had a bit more like that.

  Q215 Chairman: Can I take you to the presidential and provincial elections, which are due to be held on 20 August? They are obviously not the parliamentary elections—we have had very good engagement with parliamentarians. There have been some worrying developments. It is not clear whether you can say that the Afghan people will be presented with a real choice in these elections. This week a large number of candidates seem to have withdrawn, for whatever reason. It is also reported that President Karzai has two vice-presidential candidates: one is the current one whom we met—Mr. Khalili—and the other one is the former Defence Minister who has a rather chequered history. Is that not right? Is his name Fahim?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: Fahim.

  Q216 Chairman: Are we concerned that we might end up having a rubber-stamp election where there is no choice for the Afghan people?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: There is a risk and it would be a huge pity and a real setback were that to occur. We are very clear that there needs to be a competitive election which delivers a result that people believe in, and where they believe that the campaign has allowed a real debate and airing of the issues. Frankly, there is a bit of a sense of stifled democracy in the country and of a leadership that has seemed out of touch, locked up in Kabul and not connected with the needs of people. For us, this election—not just who wins it but the very process of candidates getting out there and debating and engaging—is critical to the political renewal of the country. I mentioned earlier the anxiety for clear manifestos, so that it is not like 18th-century British elections, which were all about interests, alliances and money, but instead really is about ideas and coalitions that cut across purely tribal alliances.

  Although we are disappointed by the number of candidates who have withdrawn, there are a number of formidable candidates left. There are still a couple of alternative Pashtun candidates, one of whom I know. He has been a senior Minister and a senior official at the World Bank and is quite an able guy. There are two other candidates who are much better known internationally: Abdullah Abdullah, who was the very successful Foreign Minister in the period immediately after 2001, and Ashraf Ghani, who did all the economic reforms. Only time will tell whether those characters will catch on and become national candidates and compelling figures, but my impression is that there will be enough demand among Afghans for a real contest. Even if a lot of candidates, ultimately, are not declared after the pushing, shoving and manoeuvring before nominations close, there are enough real names in the race that we can still hope that there will be a proper race.

  Chairman: We will watch this space.

  Q217 Sir John Stanley: Minister, I want to come back to counter-narcotics. It is a pretty close call as to whether the British got a more poisoned chalice from deciding to undertake the lead role in Helmand province or from deciding to take the lead role in counter-narcotics. Counter-narcotics is of course critically related to dealing with Taliban terrorism, as UN figures suggest that narcotics fund the Taliban to the tune of $100 million a year and enable them to buy in any number of Taliban fighters from within Pakistan at the going rate of $10 to $20 a day. Why do the British Government, if they are still in that position, want to cling on to that lead role on counter-narcotics? I ask that because, although I cannot divulge details from the conversations the Committee had in Kabul, which were entirely private, we were told by a very senior and influential person that that role was basically obsolete.

  If you look at our fellow Europeans, you will see that they have come to exactly the same conclusion on their respective roles. The Germans decided that their lead responsibility for Afghan police reform was a no-hope area for them and have now passed that across to the EU. The Italians came to exactly the same view on their lead role in reforming the criminal justice system, which they have now passed to the UN. So why do the British Government feel that they need to retain that lead responsibility for an area in which we simply are not in a position to deliver, where we get constant criticism and where the Afghan Government, or possibly the US, might be willing to take on the lead responsibility? It seems to me to be really very unfortunate that we continue to have the nominal lead responsibility for a crucial area when we simply are not able to deliver the goods.

  Lord Malloch-Brown: The issue of drugs is a bit different from police training and the German lead issue that you mentioned. I think that this role originally came when the G8 partners divvied up responsibilities, and certainly the G8 partner thing has become a little redundant, in the sense that it is not the formula for sharing out roles in Afghanistan. There are other co-ordination mechanisms that remain more important. Certainly, we feel that we are doing that more because someone has to than because we are hugely enthusiastic about it, so if others wanted to take it on credibly we would help them do it. Our whole effort is about strengthening Afghan Government capacity to do that, but the Afghan ministry in that area remains relatively weak. We feel that it needs a strong external partner to help it stand up against the rather contradictory demands on it from elsewhere in the Afghan Government.

  The second big player on this is the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, of which we are a big funder, and again we encourage it to do as much as possible in Afghanistan.

  The third player is the US. In the past we have had rather different views to those of the US on some aspects of counter-narcotics policy, particularly on the eradication issue. We have wrestled this down, even under the last administration, to a managed difference of emphasis. Now, under the current Administration we are basically in the same place. We are the second biggest contributor in this area, after the US which is the biggest, but I suppose my answer to your question is that we are trying at least to be a NATO country that meets our share of the responsibility on this. We are the second biggest troop contributor. We feel that we need to help the Americans by leading on different policy issues where they wish us to. Yes, it is not a comfortable position to be in. It is not great PR to be in charge of counter-narcotics, but as I say, it is an important part of this.

  My closing point is that, while it is not great PR, it is not all a disaster. The winter survey from the UNODC, which comes out in January, is a clear indication that this year there will be more drug-free provinces and that cultivation in Helmand is down. What we have always said in the case of drugs is that it is probably a 10-year effort—that is what it was in Thailand, and in Colombia, arguably, still is—so there are no quick, easy wins. But we think our commitment in this area is slowly paying off.

  Q218 Sir John Stanley: I don't think we should take too much comfort from the short-term change, particularly in Helmand, of Afghan farmers planting wheat last year, rather than poppy. It was explained to us very fully by the embassy expert in Kabul that this was not actually due to any pressure from ourselves in counter-narcotics, but owed much more to a quite dramatic change—a deterioration—in heroin prices and an escalation of wheat prices. He also made the point that, year by year, it is quite possible to switch from poppy to wheat on an annual basis. Obviously, we hope that the downward trend is going to continue. Can I put just one more really key policy point to you, Minister? There was a vitally important agreement by NATO, as you know, last October to extend the NATO remit on counter-narcotics. Previously the NATO role had been simply to support the Afghan army with eradication of poppy in the field. The change that was agreed, crucially last October, was that NATO can now target the facilities and the facilitators—those who engage in the processing of poppy, the creation of opium, heroin distribution and so on. This is a proactive targeting arrangement under which we have the real possibility of actually trying to interdict the suppliers of processed poppy. The really disappointing feature is that, though this was agreed by NATO last October, only a handful of NATO countries—as you know, the usual countries: us, the Americans and just one or two others—are actually prepared to get their hands in the business and pull this boat along with the expanded counter-narcotics role. Can you tell us whether the British Government will do everything it can to try to get across to other NATO member states, all of whose troops face threats from the Taliban—threats can now come in any part of Afghanistan—that they all have a duty to cut off the crucial supply of cash coming to the Taliban from counter-narcotics and they had really better get behind the expanded NATO role in the counter-narcotics area?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: Yes, I will answer that, but on the issue of wheat prices versus heroin prices, I completely agree with you and have got myself into trouble for arguing provocatively that what we need for Afghanistan is a common agricultural policy. But there is a serious point behind this. We have to do something about prices at the farm gate to make alternative crops attractive vis-a"-vis heroin. I want to assure you that that is a priority that this new Administration in Washington share. They are also pushing for more development assistance for alternative sources of livelihood in the areas that remain narcotics-heavy.

  It is worth telling you that we have 37,000 projects under way in the areas of agriculture, education, health, irrigation, power, etc. More than £211 million has been given in small loans to more than 436,000 families to help farmers and small business men develop these alternative livelihoods, and we have repaired almost 10,000 km of rural roads, generating 14 million days of labour. Indeed, DFID has committed almost £500 million over the 2009-2012 period to the Afghan national development strategy, of which a key priority is this alternative livelihoods point. So, I think that we get that. We are trying to make a major commitment to dealing with this because it is so critically a pillar going forward.

  If I may, I will just pick you up on the other point about NATO. Clearly, supporting Afghan counter-narcotics operations has now been added as a fifth ISAF strategic objective in NATO's operational plan, and therefore all NATO troops are expected to co-operate in this. While I take your point about some of the countries that are there, let me just point out—I am sure that you heard about this while you were there—that in February there was Operation Diesel, which was carried out by UK and Afghan troops and which destroyed four drug factories, laboratory equipment and 1,295 kg of wet opium, and confiscated a substantial amount of precursor chemicals. So we are doing it, but you are probably right that we need to do more, and to push the rest of ISAF to do more. But we have moved from a place where ISAF was arguing that it should focus on the other military objectives and leave this to a separate thing called counter-narcotics activity, to its mainstreaming it into the military mission, precisely because ISAF understands that it contributes to insecurity and is a source of funding for the insurgency. It is there now, as a principal military objective of ISAF's mission.

  Q219  Mr. Horam: I wanted to ask you about negotiating with the Taliban. As I am sure you are aware, one aspect of the new American policy is an encouragement to the Afghan Government to negotiate with elements of the Taliban. In view of what happened in the nearby area in Pakistan, the Swat valley, when the Pakistan Government tried to negotiate, not exactly with the Taliban but with allies of the Taliban, is this a sensible thing to do?

  Lord Malloch-Brown: Well, there is certainly negotiation and negotiation. What happened in the Swat valley shows you the real risks of doing this the wrong way, and this perhaps reinforces a point we were talking about earlier, which is the difference between the Swat valley and Helmand. The Pakistan Government negotiated from a position of weakness. They negotiated when they did not have the upper hand militarily in the valley, and so the agreement was perceived by the Taliban as a confirmation of a rout, as a sort of white flag from the Government. That, I think, validates what we are trying to do in Helmand, which is to ensure that the Afghan Government enter into any reconciliation negotiations with the upper hand militarily so that they are able to do this from a position of strength, and that their reconciliation strategy is not to hand over Helmand, as the Pakistan Government appeared to hand over the Swat valley, but to incorporate elements of soft Taliban support into the existing political arrangements.


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