Afghanistan and Pakistan

Part of Bills Presented – in the House of Commons at 3:20 pm on 16 July 2009.

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Photo of John Reid John Reid Labour, Airdrie and Shotts 3:20, 16 July 2009

I think that the hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong. What I outlined, in slightly less than a minute and a half, was the strategic objective and the short and longer-term means of achieving it. I did precisely what he asked for; I did not give a list of aspirations; I gave a list of objectives, which is what a strategy is about. Beyond the grand strategy of politics is the military strategy of how to achieve it, and behind the military strategy are the planning assumptions and the resources necessary in order to achieve that.

That is why I turn now to resources. Let me tell the House that the configuration that we sent in to Helmand province in 2006 was not, contrary to some of the statements made in recent days, chosen by politicians. That configuration-that series of resources, in shape, capabilities and numbers-was decided upon by the chiefs of staff. Secondly, its funding was not refused by the Treasury. It was my job, as the then Secretary of State, to get it fully funded, and one of the three conditions that I laid down before we went into Afghanistan was precisely that the Treasury would fund it.

Having said that, since then there has, of course, been a change of tactics by the Taliban, a change of circumstances and a change in the mission itself, in some ways. So people are right to ask whether the current resources meet the current tasks, notwithstanding the fact that they have met the tasks in the past. We are right, therefore, to ask the Government to keep an open mind. No plan survives the first contact with the enemy, and as the enemy changes in response to our actions, and the resources we need are different or greater, it is the obligation of Government to supply the resources that the military thinks that it needs to accomplish the objectives set out. I hope that the Government will do that. I am not in a position to decide on what Sir Richard Dannatt or anyone else requested, but when we ask young men and women to risk their lives at the front, we should ensure that they have the resources to minimise those risks.

I wish to tackle another myth-that I at any stage hoped, predicted, expected, promised or pledged that we would leave Afghanistan without firing a shot. It is not true. No matter how often the press repeat that, they cannot make an untruth truthful by constant repetition-although Goebbels recognised that if an untruth were repeated often enough, people might come to believe that it was the truth. In fact, to the contrary, I insisted that were great threats in Afghanistan. Indeed, I refused to deploy the troops for four months beyond the original date because we did not have the configuration necessary-the Dutch were not in Oruzgan province to protect our northern flank.

I could give quotation after quotation, but I shall make a couple suffice. The other day I said:

"I did, however, insist that we would not be aggressors. We did not seek war. We did not go there as part of an invasion. For our part, we would be happy to go and work with the Afghan Government and leave without firing a shot."-[ Hansard, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 4.]

But the Taliban wanted to destroy that which was being created and we were therefore forced to defend ourselves, which we did with great vigour.

I said three years ago that

"only someone who is dreadfully naive would think that we will be allowed to carry out ...the NATO task, in which we will be involved when we go to the south...unhindered by any attacks."-[ Hansard, 23 January 2006; Vol. 441, c. 1159.]

Earlier, I had said:

"I stress that wherever NATO troops are in Afghanistan they may be liable to attacks from insurgents. If they are attacked by insurgents and terrorists, of course we will defend ourselves-that is the nature of the rules of engagement and of our remit."-[ Hansard, 12 December 2005; Vol. 440, c. 1093.]

I hope that the House will forgive me for raising these points. All hon. Members, as politicians, are used to being misrepresented, but it does not usually happen on a subject as sensitive as this, when there are families grieving for those who have died and who expect us to set the record straight.

If we do not understand the nature of the conflict, we will not understand whether we can win, what is the nature of "victory" and whether we are making progress. I commend to the House the thoughts of several British generals, but especially those of General Rupert Smith, who describes the nature of the present conflict as the "struggle among the people". That is what we are engaged in, and the nature of the victory therefore lies not in the traditional victory parade on a definite date with a definite piece of land secured, but in preventing the Taliban from enforcing their will on the Afghanistan people, by excluding al-Qaeda and by securing our country's safety. But it is a continuing struggle that will go on for a considerable time. Nevertheless, it is important that we believe that we need not be there indefinitely. Part of our aim in our strategic objectives is to allow the people of Afghanistan, through their own Government, to continue that struggle when we are gone-in the way that the people of Iraq are doing against the internal enemy.

Military force has no utility on its own. It only has utility in pursuit of a political objective. So when we have a military surge-as we are having now, and I welcome that-we need to bear in mind that at some stage we will also need a political surge. If we are to achieve some form of stability in Afghanistan, that political surge means that we will have to deal with, talk to and perhaps incorporate among those who govern Afghanistan those tribal elements and those elements of the Taliban who are opposed to al-Qaeda. In other words, we must help to build a hybrid state there.

In short, there is no military solution. The military are there only to accomplish the political objectives that we have laid out. Our aim is to enable Afghanistan to continue on its own so that it can build a civil society and develop its own economy and security. Above all, we want a better society for the people of Afghanistan. In working for that, we can make sure that our front line in Afghanistan protects the people in our communities and country.