Brown confirms Afghan troop rise
By Alex Stevenson
Five hundred more troops will be sent to Afghanistan, the prime minister has announced.
Gordon Brown gave his first update to the Commons on the struggle against the Taliban since Afghanistan’s presidential and local elections took place on August 20th.
He argued “Afghanisation” – increasing the number of Afghan security forces – justifies increasing the number of British troops by around 500 to 9,500.
But Mr Brown made clear the plan to raise British force levels was subject to three conditions.
The new Afghan government must demonstrate its commitment to bring forward Afghan troops; every British soldier must be “fully equipped for the operations they are asked to undertake; and the international coalition must see “all countries bearing their fair share”.
“We are determined to provide our forces with the resources they need to keep them safe,” the prime minister told MPs.
“But we are also determined to make the right decisions about equipment and about troop deployments as part of our wider strategy.”
In April Mr Brown announced a “temporary uplift” to the number of British forces serving in Afghanistan, from 8,300 to around 9,000. Yesterday Downing Street confirmed the current total is 9,150.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) told politics.co.uk last night that getting more “boots on the ground” would help “mitigate the risk to British forces”.
A spokesman said: “As we go towards more Afghanisation of this mission, rather than having a somewhat smaller Afghan team alongside your frontline force, mentoring them and showing them how to do it, you’re more one-to-one – you equal out the number of Afghans to Brits.”
As part of this process the prime minister announced the Afghans will set up a corps headquarters in Helmand and that British forces will partner 5,000 of the 10,000 Afghan troops the coalition will be training in Helmand.
Officials in No 10 are keen to emphasise that the difference between training and mentoring will become irrelevant under the new arrangement – as Afghan forces will work on the same level as British soldiers.
“In future operations the protection of populated areas must be the shared responsibility of Afghan and coalition forces,” Mr Brown added.
“This will be central to the new benchmarks and timelines we will set out as part of a new framework for the transition to Afghan authority – Afghan forces taking responsibility for security for the Afghan people, area by area.”
The MoD hopes working with Afghans will enhance the security of British forces, because they are able to flag up small cultural warning signs which British soldiers might not notice.
“An Afghan will spot that someone is not the right tribe for the area – perhaps they’ll be a suicide bomber,” the spokesman explained.
Mr Brown used his statement to announce a series of improvements to equipment. Unmanned aerial vehicles have increased their flying hours, an extra £20 million has resulted in a fourfold increase in the number of Mastiff and Ridgeback vehicles since April and the first Merlin helicopters are being deployed to Helmand in two weeks.
“No one should doubt our commitment to responding as fast as we possibly can to the new and deadly tactics of the Taliban,” Mr Brown pressed.
He said annual military spending on the Afghanistan operation had increased from £700 million in 2006/07 to over £3.5 billion this year.
A total of 221 British forces have died while serving in Afghanistan since coalition forces ousted the Taliban from Kabul in October 2001.
Of these 34 have died since July 21st, when parliament rose for its summer recess.
At the beginning of prime minister’s questions Mr Brown read out the names of each of the 37 British soldiers who have lost their lives since the last PMQs session.
David Cameron passed on his condolences at this “very sensitive reminder”, but criticised Mr Brown in his statement for a previous “evasive” answer about the number of reinforcements the military had called for.
Mr Cameron was referring to the revelation by former Army chief General Sir Richard Dannatt that he had asked Mr Brown for 2,000 extra troops – and had been refused. He cited a previous question in which the prime minister insisted that Britain had the manpower needed for current operations.
“We are only going to carry the public’s confidence if we are straight with them about the problems we face,” the Tory leader said.
“We support the mission in Afghanistan providing we’re realistic about what we’re going to achieve.”
Mr Brown pointed out that, since then, troop levels had risen from around 8,000 to the now-proposed 9,500.
“Whenever there has been a need for us to protect our troops… we have been prepared to send the troops, finance the deployment and support them on the ground,” he insisted.
