This is a House of Commons Committee report, with recommendations to government. The Government has two months to respond.
This is the report summary, read the full report.
This delayed report relates to events that took place over a year ago, focusing on the work of the Ministry of Defence and the UK Armed Forces. More than 150,000 British Armed Forces personnel served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021. This came at a cost, with 457 deaths in service, and financial expenditure of £27.7 billion. (Introduction)
The withdrawal of US forces in line with the Doha Agreement made the subsequent collapse of the Afghan Government inevitable. The speed of that collapse was a greater surprise to the military establishment than it might have been. It would have been very difficult in practice for the UK and other NATO allies to retain a military presence in Afghanistan without the US. The end of the NATO mission has been severely detrimental both to the people of Afghanistan and to the security of the region, as well as to Alliance and UK military credibility. (Chapter 1)
The military elements of the evacuation from Afghanistan were a success, and we welcome the award of medals to Armed Forces personnel who served on Operation PITTING. The same praise, however, cannot be given to the efforts of the UK Government’s civilian operations in support of the evacuation. The processing and prioritisation of potential evacuees under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) could and should have been much further advanced by the time that the need for the evacuation became urgent. Several thousand eligible Afghans—whose safety is by definition at risk in Afghanistan—still remain to be evacuated under the ARAP well over a year after the end of Operation PITTING, and we ask the Government to set out what action they are taking to ensure safe passage to the United Kingdom for these people. (Chapter 2)
The withdrawal from Afghanistan has understandably had a negative impact on veterans’ mental health, increasing demand on related public and charitable services. We urge the Government to ensure charities working in this area are suitably resourced. (Chapter 3)
The Government must conduct an open, honest and detailed review of military operations and political decisions throughout the 20 years of UK involvement in Afghanistan, from the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 to the evacuation from Kabul in August 2021. (Chapter 4)