TRANSCRIPT OF SPEECH AND Q&A
GIVEN BY THE PRIME MINISTER, MR GORDON BROWN
IN LONDON
ON FRIDAY, 4 SEPTEMBER 2009
PRIME MINISTER
Let me say first of all how grateful I am to Dr Chipman, to the renowned and august International Institute of Strategic Studies, and to its distinguished members who are with us today, not just for hosting the speech that I am giving today but for your long-term interest in Afghanistan and for your leadership in addressing problems of terrorism round the world.
We meet here in the week we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War, and it is impossible not to feel an overwhelming sense of awe and humility at the scale of achievements and the record of service and sacrifice that has defined our British armed forces for generations. It is a history of extraordinary courage and of dedication, often in the face of the greatest of adversity. It is a history of a spirit of service that is recognised in every corner of the land in the great national acts of remembrance on Armistice Day and now on Armed Forces Day. And as people gather in Wootton Bassett, as they have done today, to honour two brave servicemen, a local tribute that has become a national symbol of honour and gratitude, which remembers all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Nowhere have I seen more clearly that sense of service but also the resilience of spirit of our armed forces than on each of my visits to Afghanistan. As I travelled around Helmand province last weekend, our forces were the first to point out to me the positive signs amid the challenges. I visited a police station that had been a polling booth and heard stories of Afghans voting for the first time. I witnessed the joint operation room in Lashkar Gah at work, British forces supporting the Afghan army and police in bringing security and the rule of law to that provincial capital. And I heard from the governor, Governor Mangal, about the real progress being made combating the heroin trade.
But I also saw – as others who have visited and Sir David Richards is here with us today – the scale of the challenges now and in the months ahead. Today has seen another serious incident in the northern province, where Taleban hijackers had to be intercepted. In Helmand in the last four months, over 50 British servicemen have been killed. 64 have been seriously injured. These are not just statistics. Each one is the loss of a professional, dedicated and brave serviceman and in each case there is the grief of a family whose lives will never be the same again. Each one a hero who deserves the same unending gratitude that we give to the heroes of the First and Second World Wars. And it is right that their service will be recognised by the new Elizabeth Cross announced by Her Majesty the Queen.
There is nothing more heart-breaking in the job I do than meeting people who have lost someone who is a loved one in their family. There is nothing more heart-breaking than, as I did this week, meeting a teenager who has lost his leg. These young men, we have got to thank for the service to their country.
I want to take head on, therefore, the arguments that suggest our strategy in Afghanistan is wrong, and I want to answer those who question whether we should be in Afghanistan at all. There are, of course, those who fear that history shows international intervention in Afghanistan is doomed to failure.
There are of course those who argue that our counter-insurgency strategy cannot establish the security and stability we seek; and there are those who also argue that policies for development – while admirable in principle – will make no difference in a country that is one of the poorest and most corrupt in the world – no difference, at least, for many years. And there are those who answer that a strong Afghan state is not just a long and laborious task but probably an impossible one in the near future.
So I want to answer those who argue that while our motive, to deprive Al Qaeda and terrorists of a base, may be well-intentioned, our strategy is flawed. And I want to remind people that what we are doing in Afghanistan is part of an international strategy. It is right, of course, that we play our part, and we do not leave the people of Afghanistan to struggle with their global problems on their own. So others too must take their share of the burden of responsibility. 42 countries are involved, and all must ask themselves if they are doing enough. For terrorism recognises no borders. All of us benefit from defeating terrorism and greater stability in this region, and all members of our coalition must play our proper part. The British strategy is part of a wider international strategy and must be understood in that context.
Our aim in 2009 is the same as in 2001. We are in Afghanistan as a result of a hard-headed assessment of the terrorist threat facing Britain. We are part of a coalition of more than 40 countries embracing not just NATO – with the Danes and Estonians alongside British troops in Helmand – but countries like Australia. So this remains, above all, an international mission. We’ve all seen the reality of this threat: in Bali, Madrid, Mumbai, and of course on the streets of London four years ago.
It is our efforts at home and abroad – the efforts of our allies, the efforts of our armed forces, of the police and security services back in Britain – which prevented and continue to prevent further terrorist attacks. It is a totality of effort which in Britain is better resourced and better coordinated than before – from increased counter-terrorist policing at home, to stronger checks at our borders, to international capacity-building, and to the work of our armed forces and other agencies abroad.
It is right that eight years ago Britain with America and our allies – on behalf of the international community as a whole – helped to remove from Afghanistan a regime which enabled Al Qaeda to plot terror around the world, and which culminated in the attacks of September 11th – not just on America, but of course attacks on the freedoms and values of us all.
But we knew that as we removed the Taleban from power and drove Al Qaeda from Afghanistan, so Al Qaeda would relocate – and they did so, on the remote mountains of Pakistan. A new crucible of terrorism has therefore emerged. The Director-General of our security services has said that three quarters of the most serious plots against the UK have had links that reach back into these mountains. At present the threat mainly comes from the Pakistan side, but if the insurgency succeeds in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups will once again be able to use it as a sanctuary to train, plan and launch attacks on Britain and the rest of the world.
The advice I receive from the security agencies is clear. The sustained pressure on Al Qaeda in Pakistan combined with military action in Afghanistan is having a suppressive effect on Al Qaeda’s ability to operate effectively in the region – but despite these difficulties, the main element of the threat to the UK continues to emanate from Al Qaeda and Pakistan.
Al Qaeda retains some contacts and provides limited support to the Afghan insurgency, principally through the provision of training for foreign fighters and military expertise; continues to view Afghanistan as fundamental in the establishment of a pan-Islamic caliphate; and therefore a peaceful and stable Afghanistan would for them be a severe propaganda blow and strategic failure for Al Qaeda. A safer Afghanistan means a safer Britain.
It is on this basis that I made clear in the Spring – as did President Obama – that preventing terrorism coming to the streets of Britain, America and other countries depends on strengthening the authorities in both Pakistan and Afghanistan to defeat Al Qaeda, and also the Pakistan and Afghan Taleban. For if in either country the Taleban are allowed to undermine legitimate government, that would open the way once again for Al Qaeda to have greater freedom from which to launch terrorist attacks across the world – and would have longer term implications for the credibility of NATO and the international community, and for the stability of this crucial region and for global stability.
That is why our Strategy, published in April, reflects an integrated approach across both countries. And we are now seeing what has not been obvious before: joint and complementary action on both sides of the border. In Pakistan in the last few months, the army and security services have taken on the Pakistan Taleban in Swat and elsewhere. Last week President Zardari told me his forces are preparing to tackle the threat in Waziristan, because he fully recognises that terrorism poses as serious a threat to Pakistan as to the rest of the world.
We also agreed on the importance of stepping up action against Afghan Taleban leaders based in Pakistan.
In Afghanistan, the Afghan army and police are not yet ready to take on the Taleban purely by themselves. That is why the international coalition must maintain its military presence. I believe that most people in Britain accept this - but I know they are concerned about how long international forces – and British forces in particular – will have to stay. And they ask what success in Afghanistan would look like. The answer is that we will have succeeded when our troops are coming home because the Afghans are doing the job themselves. From that day on, we will be able to focus our efforts on supporting the elected government on security and on development and on human rights. The right strategy is one that completes this job, which is to enable the Afghans to take over from international forces; and to continue the essential work of denying the territory of Afghanistan as a base for terrorists.
As the reviews of General McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry will make clear: to reach that point where international forces can return home, we must place a greater emphasis on building up the Afghan army and police; on a unity of effort across international and Afghan authorities; on focusing our resources – both military and civilian – in the areas that matter most; and thus on securing the population.
It is security that comes first – as in any counter-insurgency campaign. As I heard at the shura I attended in Lashkar Gah in April, giving Afghans security matters more to them than anything else we or their government can offer. And as General McChrystal has said: the measure will be the number of Afghans shielded from violence, not the numbers of enemy killed.
That security, however, comes at a price. The last four months, as I have said, have seen over fifty British fatalities. August was also the worst month for American fatalities since the campaign began in 2001. This was undoubtedly in part because both British and American forces went on the offensive – and the main offensives, Operation Panther’s Claw and River Liberty, were successful in bringing security to areas in central and Southern Helmand previously under the control of the Taleban.
There has been much comment on Panther’s Claw. Our commanders, NATO commanders and international leaders all agreed the Taleban should not be allowed free rein in these key population areas.
We do not yet know the full facts of the election – but it is already clear that thousands did vote in Central Helmand, rather than the few hundred some have claimed. Turn out was not as high as many, like me, might have hoped, and the incidents of voter irregularity and intimidation being reported must be thoroughly investigated, including by the Electoral Complaints Commission. But the very fact of the first elections run by Afghans themselves is an important step forward for the people of Afghanistan. And we should remember that the Taleban vowed to destroy this election – and they failed. Despite the fact that part of the country is in conflict an election was held. And 6,000 polling stations opened across Afghanistan.
Now as we look beyond the elections the biggest challenge facing our forces remains that of defeating the Taleban tactic of using explosive devices – mines and roadside bombs. Having failed in 2006 and 2007 to defeat international forces by conventional means, the Taleban have more than doubled their IED attacks over the past year. International casualties are almost twice as high as this time last year as a result, and three quarters of them are due to IEDs.
This is a tactic which of course is inherently hard to defend against but having spoken at length to our experts and commanders – who have been working closely with the Americans and the coalition in reviewing how best to respond to this evolving threat – I am confident we are fully focused on dealing with it. Bob Ainsworth and I are determined that in doing so our forces will have every possible support. It requires not just new equipment but new tactics, better surveillance, specialised troops, and offensive operations – not just one single response but many.
So we have since 2006 spent over £1billion from the reserve on new vehicles for Afghanistan, including 280 mastiffs which offer world-leading protection against IEDs. Between November 2006 and April this year we have increased the number of helicopter hours by 84% – and on top of that, as well as sharing coalition helicopters, we lease hundreds of hours each month from other operators for routine supplies. Let us be clear: while we are committed to giving our commanders more options, what separates successful counter insurgency from unsuccessful counter insurgency is that it is won on the ground and not in the air.
Already this year we have deployed 200 specialist counter-IED troops. Last week our forces cleared one of the most dangerous stretches of road in the world, the notorious ‘Pharmacy Road’ and ‘Route Sparta’ near Sangin – and their great skill and bravery uncovered and defused 37 IEDs, in the area where seven British soldiers have been killed by IEDs in the last month.
And our offensive operations are also focusing more on countering the IED threat. Last month in a dawn raid by British and Afghan forces one of the largest IED-making facilities ever found in Helmand – hidden in a warren of mud buildings – was seized and destroyed along with a massive haul of 50 pressure plate IEDs, fuses, detonators, batteries, chargers and quantities of TNT and ammonium nitrate – a haul we believe was destined for Sangin.
I can report that this brings the number of explosive devices found during the current tour by 19 Light Brigade to over 1,000. IEDs – 1,000 of them – designed to kill and maim but successfully dismantled by British forces.
And now, as I announced last week, we are sending another 200 specialist forces and new equipment to find and defuse the IEDs, and identify and target the networks who lay them. We are increasing our surveillance to track the Taleban and target their bomb-makers. To ensure we have the best protected vehicles for road moves, we are buying, on top of the ones already ordered and coming into the theatre, another 20 ridgeback mine-protected patrol vehicles so that more will be going into operation over the next three months.
And the first Merlin helicopters – which I saw being adapted for Afghanistan at RAF Benson in July – will now be flying in Helmand within two months and, together with enhancements to other types, by next spring compared to 2006 we will have doubled the number of helicopters, and increased flying hours by 130%. Of course the equipment has to be manufactured, delivered and adapted – and the personnel trained to operate it. But it is simply wrong to doubt the speed of our response as we adapt to the new tactics of the Taleban, and the scale of the financial commitment both to our soldiers and to this campaign.
Military spending in Afghanistan – the spending that comes from the Treasury reserve, over and above the defence budget – is going up far in excess of this significant increase in troop numbers: it was around £180,000 per year to support each soldier fighting in 2006; it is now over twice that number, £390,000, for each soldier.
In recognition of the debt we owe to our forces as well as the need to properly equip them, we are increasing pay for our forces at a faster rate than for other public servants. In 2006 we introduced the first flat rate bonus for all who serve in Afghanistan and other operational theatres – paid for out of the treasury reserve – money now £2,380, tax free, for a six month operational tour – fairer than income tax relief and offering more money for the average soldier.
Over the last three years medical care both in Afghanistan and back in Britain at Selly Oak hospital and Headley Court and elsewhere, has been radically improved – and I want to thank all the medical teams and their support staff for their dedication and for their achievements. Last year we doubled the lump sum compensation we give to the most seriously wounded, while recognising that we still need to improve this program and have started an urgent review.
So we are giving our service men and women the additional resources they need to keep themselves safe, to fight and succeed in their operations and to bring security to Afghanistan. But as we do so, we will also continue to adapt and improve our counter-insurgency strategy for Central Helmand which we set out in April and which underpins this summer’s operations. It is a strategy that – let me now explain – starts with short-term security, but links to medium term Afghanisation and longer term development to create a stake for Afghans in the future of their country.
It is a strategy that has to be based on credible, deliverable and, where right to do so, time-specific objectives – objectives above all for the advance of Afghan responsibility and autonomy for their own affairs. The more Afghans can take responsibility in the short term, the less our coalition forces will be needed in the longer term. And in our case it is a strategy focused on the key population areas of Central Helmand – not just the towns but also the relatively densely populated Helmand River Valley, where the fight against the insurgency must be won.
And this is a strategy radically different from the Russian Strategy in Afghanistan and indeed from all previous foreign interventions in Afghanistan, which lacked the support of the population, which stayed in the cities and ignored the country, and did not seek to empower Afghans themselves in maintaining security. And ours is essentially a four-pronged strategy for accelerating the Afghanisation of this campaign.
First we will now partner a growing Afghan army presence in central Helmand.
Secondly we will be strengthening the civilian-military partnership, including on improving policing. Thirdly, we want to support the Governor of Helmand by strengthening district government – backed by targeted aid – and a more effective and cleaner government in Kabul. And fourthly we want to build on the success of the ‘Wheat not heroin’ initiative which I discussed with Governor Mangal at the weekend; we want to extend it to thousands more who depend on the land for their livelihood.
Back in 2007 I said that we would shift over time the emphasis of the strategy to what I called Afghanisation – and greater responsibility for Afghans in all those areas. So let me take each in turn and how we plan to progress it. First, the Afghan army. The numbers of our forces devoted to training and mentoring the Afghan army has been increasing, albeit slowly. At a national level we have helped train tens of thousands of Afghan troops and thousands more Afghan police. Afghan forces are already running security in Kabul, and over time they will take over other districts. In Helmand a British battalion has been mentoring an Afghan army brigade – living, training and fighting alongside them.
But we must now move from simply mentoring the Afghan army to what we call ‘partnering’ – partnering with them as they take more responsibility for their country’s security. When we clear an area of Taleban, it is the Afghan army and police who must hold that ground and prevent the Taleban from returning. So when I met the new NATO and US commander, General McChrystal, in Afghanistan last weekend, I made clear that to back his new counter-insurgency approach Britain supported faster growth both of the Afghan National army and the police.
In the spring NATO announced that we would support the expansion of the Afghan army from 80,000 to 134,000 by November 2011. That training is already proceeding, but it is at the rate of 2,000 per month. Britain would support a more ambitious target of 134,000 by an earlier date of November 2010 – which would mean increasing the rate of training to 4,000 at least per month.
It is clear that to achieve this rapid increase in numbers – and to increase the quality and effectiveness of the new Afghan forces – this will require a new approach, shifting from mentoring – where small numbers of mentors work with Afghan units – to this approach of partnering, where the bulk of our combat forces would be dedicated to working side by side with the Afghan army at all levels. British troops would eat, sleep, live, train, plan, and fight together with their Afghan partners, to bring security to the population. And this is in our view the best route to success, the most effective way to transfer skills and responsibility to the Afghan security forces, the best way to gain the trust of the population – and therefore the most effective way to complete our tasks.
In principle every British combat unit could partner a larger Afghan counterpart. By November 2010 we envisage up to a third of our troops partnering Afghan forces. That means that our combat units in Helmand could be ready to partner an Afghan army corps of around 10,000 soldiers. And to help us achieve this goal we will press the new Afghan President to assign greater numbers of Afghan army forces to Helmand, where the challenge to legitimate Afghan government, and of course to the security of the people, is today the greatest.
But this is a military strategy complemented by an even greater emphasis on civilian effort to work with local communities. And the second element therefore of our strategy is strengthening the security of and support for the local population by the strongest possible civilian-military partnerships, including support on policing.
Our forces were the first in Afghanistan to set up a fully joint military-civilian headquarters, and we did so in 2008 – a model which the Americans, having seen it in action, are now looking to roll out across the whole country. In the 12 months following that we doubled the number of our civilian support experts on the ground. And I saw this joint approach in action in the joint operational coordination centre in Lashkar Gah. The police are often on the front line, taking heavier casualties than even the Afghan army – which is why over 100 of our armed forces are currently dedicated to mentoring them, in addition to our civilian police mentors. The challenge here is perhaps even tougher than the Afghan army, but there are positive signs – including the success of the focused district development programme – though we need to go further in tackling problems of illiteracy, drug abuse and corruption, and logistical problems like ensuring police are paid adequately and on time, without which progress on tackling corruption and building up our police forces there effectively will be impossible.
Third, at the heart of the future for Afghanistan with its predominant village and rural population is the strengthening of local and district government – a vital part of any counter-insurgency strategy anyway, but a vital part of countering the shadow governance of the Taleban.
A few months ago, when I was last in Afghanistan before last weekend, I attended a shura – a meeting of district officials and elders. And it was there to agree the priorities for the local communities, and they were discussing plans for policing and informal justice but also new roads, clean water, and other basic services. And as our policy of Afghanisation and localisation advances, our experts will work with shuras in more villages and more districts in Helmand – and right across Afghanistan I believe priority must be given to the training and mentoring of the 34 provincial governors but also 400 district governors as well.
Our development department has over the last three years in Helmand funded 60km of new roads, 1,800 wells, irrigation for 20 thousand hectares. Construction has now begun on a project to develop the hydropower plant at Gereshk and work will begin this month to expand the airfield at Lashkar Gah. Construction will soon begin on a new road linking the two towns.
And I can say today that we are ready to fund and partner the first Afghan district teams to be sent down to Helmand for stabilisation purposes – Afghan officials working alongside our teams – not only reinforcing the hard gains of our forces during this most difficult of summers but advancing Afghan responsibility for their own affairs. And to ensure this effort has the widest possible support, we will provide an extra £20 million for security and stabilisation work in Helmand – including police training and basic justice – increasing by around 50 per cent what we have provided over the last year.
Now the fourth part of our strategy is moving the economy of Central Helmand over time from heroin to wheat and to diversify even further. Attacking the heroin trade, while a worthy objective, is not, of course, the fundamental reason why we are in Afghanistan. The fundamental reason is to ensure Al Qaeda cannot again use this region as a base to train and plan terrorist attacks across the world. But there are links between the drugs networks and the insurgency and terrorists; and the drugs networks are one of the most powerful forces standing against the kind of legitimate Afghan control which over time could take over the job of dealing with terrorism and the insurgency.
That is why we as part of NATO have been part of mounting more than 80 operations across Afghanistan in this work this year, precisely targeting the links between the drugs networks and the insurgents.
But we also know that the strategy will work best when we provide an alternative livelihood for the farmers. And I believe that the key to the reduction in heroin in Helmand this year by 37 per cent – a fact that was announced by the United Nations earlier this week – was Governor Mangal’s ‘food zone’ programme. With the support of the British military and civilian experts, wheat seed was delivered to 32,000 Afghan farmers – combining an alternative to poppy with protection from Taleban intimidation in a secured area of Central Helmand. The independent study carried out by Cranfield University confirms that the results in the food zone are much better than outside. And we will help Governor Mangal to extend this programme next year; we will also help set up agricultural training college. Over time we want to see Central Helmand restored to its former position, known as the ‘breadbasket’ of Afghanistan.
As we look beyond the elections, there are changes we want to encourage with our coalition allies at a national level too. Clearly the priority is for the new government of Afghanistan to retain the trust and support of its people. This means action against corruption – but it also means reaching out, including to other candidates in the election. And as in every other comparable conflict in history, lasting peace and stability will involve all sides reaching out and engaging in dialogue. This process must be led by the Afghans themselves, and as President Obama has said: ‘there is an uncompromising core of the Taleban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated. But there are also those who have taken up arms because of coercion, or simply for a price. And these Afghans must have the option to choose a different course.’
Our military efforts are essential to this process of reconciliation and reintegration of former fighters, because it must take place from a position of strength: the insurgents must come to believe they will not win, but that all those that can be reconciled, they must see an alternative way forward founded on the renunciation of violence, acceptance of the democratic process, and the severing of any links with terrorists.
Political progress must then be backed by a far stronger economy. In a country where over half of Afghans live below the poverty line and 40 per cent remain unemployed – around three quarters of which are men under the age of 35 – poverty and lack of opportunity is a problem that must be addressed. And that’s why we are committing £36 million over the next four years to a national Afghan programme for employment, which will create 20,000 permanent jobs and boost incomes for 200,000 Afghans.
As well as increasing our civilian assistance to Helmand to back the work of our forces there, our Department of International Development will also continue to work at a national level on longer term objectives – continuing to support, as we have since 2002, improvements to health and access to education – sometimes forgotten at times like these.
It is a truly remarkable achievement that thanks to the help of the whole international community, basic healthcare now covers more than four-fifths of the Afghan people. 40,000 more Afghan children will see their fifth birthdays this year compared to 2002. And we should remember again that when the Taleban ran the country, only a million children were in school, all boys. Today there are 6.6 million children at school – 2 million of them are girls.
With the help of our development funding, 10,000 new teachers were recruited from 2007, with more expected in 2009. And this is an investment in the future of Afghanistan and its stability, and its resilience against extremism – and therefore in our security. Our work on education in Afghanistan – together with the increasing focus on education in Pakistan – brings me to a final point.
I have described the courageous and skilful work of our forces, rightly the focus of so much of our attention and our concern; and, behind that work, our coordinated, military-civilian counter-insurgency strategy, aimed with our coalition allies at securing the population and building up the Afghan authorities to a point where they can defeat the insurgency and the terrorists themselves, and our forces can return home. I have set out today the challenges facing us as we put this strategy into effect, the work we are doing to improve it, and the broader national and regional context.
But returning from Afghanistan again I also reflected that while our objective is to advance justice, tolerance, and opportunity – underpinned by security – that of our enemies is an ideology of violence, intolerance and resistance to modernity, as alien to the Islam religion as it is to the West.
And so, as in the Cold War, achieving our objective depends not just on armies and treaties – it depends on us winning hearts and minds. The task of winning hearts and minds in Southern Afghanistan is not primarily ours – it is for the elected Afghan government, the leaders of Afghan civic society. But we can and must support them in this, just as we must support them in security, governance and development.
Encouraging new links with Muslim thinkers and with young people; using all modern means of communication to engage with moderates and all who espouse a peaceful interpretation of Islam; co-operation between institutions of learning; multi-faith dialogue – showing at every stage that we are not in a struggle against Islam, but against extremists who abuse the name of Islam for their own purposes.
So Britain will continue our proud tradition of supporting education, a free media, the exchange of ideas and learning in Afghanistan, as we do in the rest of the world. And this is more than soft power, or even smart power: this is about people power – empowering individuals and communities to stand up against extremism.
This has been the most difficult of summers. The situation in Afghanistan is serious – nowhere more so than in Helmand. And when I meet young people who have suffered at the hands of the Taleban, and who are in hospital, and when I meet the families of those people who have been bereaved, I have to keep asking myself, ‘Are we taking the right decisions for them and for the conduct of the action in Afghanistan? Are we doing what is right both by our forces and by the population of this country?’ And every time I ask myself, as I do, these questions, my answer is, ‘Yes, we are taking the right action, the action that is necessary to safeguard both our country and promote security in the world.’
It is at times like this when we must strengthen not weaken our resolve. We must stand up to those who would threaten our way of life. We must take heart from progress that has been made since 2001. And we must take actions to deal with the changing and new tactics of the Taleban.
And I know we are asking a great deal of our armed forces. I can assure them that the government will continue to give them every support. But just as important, so too, I know, will the people and the communities of our country.
And in return we are setting credible and deliverable objectives for their work - above all for the advance of Afghan responsibility and autonomy. I repeat, the more Afghans can take responsibility in the short term, the less our coalition forces will be needed in the long term. And this, of course, must be accompanied by credible, deliverable and specific objectives in Pakistan, especially on action against terrorist networks based in their country.
So: continuing the enhancement of security for our forces; expanding the vital work that has discovered and dismantled 1,000 IEDs this summer; a radical step-up in the training of Afghan forces, through partnering not mentoring; Britain ready to work with our allies to train around 10,000 new forces in Helmand alone; stronger district governors in Helmand and across Afghanistan’s 400 districts; local communities given greater power to run their own affairs, backed up by a civilian strategy to provide clean policing and services as well as security; through our development work, securing for Afghans a greater economic stake in the future of their country; and pressure on the new Afghan government for an anti-corruption drive throughout the country.
These are objectives that are clear and justified – and also realistic and achievable. It remains my judgement that a safer Britain requires a safer Afghanistan. In Afghanistan last week, I was further convinced that, despite the challenges we face, a nation emerging from three decades of violence can be healed and strengthened; and that our country and the whole world can be safer; because together we have the values, the strategy and, I believe, the resolve to complete our vital and important task.
JOHN CHIPMAN (Chairman)
Prime Minister, thank you very much for your remarks. We have gathered together a large proportion of the London-based IISS membership here and experts on Afghanistan, Pakistan and the region, and so we are very grateful that you are able to stay a few minutes more to engage in the discussion and debate with that membership.
An awful lot of strategic questions were raised by the remarks that you just made. People here will be interested to judge whether that goal to have ‘Afghanisisation’ and to train 4,000 more per month is a realistic goal given the situation now in Afghanistan. People will also be interested perhaps to investigate what the true balance is between the challenge we have in Afghanistan and the specific challenge we have in Pakistan. You mentioned that much of Al Qaeda has now been displaced in Pakistan and argued that, were we not in Afghanistan, some might remove themselves again to a safe haven in Afghanistan.
People might be interested in knowing what the relationship is between these two; if we have a very large footprint in Afghanistan, what will be the tolerance of Pakistani public opinion for the very direct action that has to be taken in Pakistan? Finally, to my mind, a third big strategic question to which you also made reference was exactly how and at what point does one negotiate with the Taleban or deal with the so‑called ‘reconcilables’? A standard phrase is that we need to do this from a position of strength; what is that position of strength? How do we determine that we are strong enough to flip some of the Taleban more to our side or in support, at least, of the elected government in Afghanistan? Those are some of the questions in my mind and the members will have more.
QUESTION
My question, I am afraid, is a very much more general one. Dr Chipman in his introductory remarks quoted the policy statement of Bob Gates, Secretary of Defence for the United States, about what American policy is. You, sir, referred quite frequently and properly to the alliance and what our allies are doing – not what they are not doing, that is another matter – but if one is to read the press in this country, one would believe that we were the only people out there, we were the only people making any effort, and we were the only people taking any sacrifices. In fact we are, of course, a small if not a vital part of a very much larger alliance, of which the United States are making by far the greater contribution and suffering the greatest losses.
I asked my great‑nephew, aged 18, the other day whether we should still be in Afghanistan or not, and his surprise astonished me. He said that we have got to be there so long as the Americans are, and I have never expected to have that kind of reaction from a young man of his generation. His point was that we have got obligations as allies which we cannot weasel out of, that our success there is the success of the West as a whole, not simply of this country, and our contribution there goes very much deeper than simply establishing stable governance in Afghanistan; it is establishing the success and the self‑confidence of the West under a very, very heavy general threat. So, would you not agree, sir, that my great‑nephew was absolutely right? So long as the Americans are there, we have got to be there as well.
PRIME MINISTER
Thank you for both your contribution to our country as a great historian and also to the contemporary debates of our time, and I should also now join you in thanking your great‑nephew as well for his contribution to this great debate. I am encouraged by the fact that the proposals that we have been making about greater Afghan responsibility for Afghan affairs, is now the established policy – as you heard from the remarks of Mr Gates, quoted earlier on – of the United States of America. In other words, we are at one on the challenges we face and how we must meet them moving forward.
I am also at one with you that this is a broad coalition of forces brought together by the Americans after 2001 and these countries are countries that also owe a debt of gratitude to the NATO alliance. I think that each country must look over the next few weeks at the contribution that it is making to this project, at the level of burden‑sharing they should be considering for themselves, and I think it is true to say that we have got a right to expect other countries to make a bigger contribution in the future.
The fact that we share the same basic and fundamental values of the Americans – that arises from our history, our experience, but also from our basic traditions of philosophical thought – the fact that we share the same objectives now for how we can achieve things in Afghanistan makes me confident that the alliance between Britain and America is stronger than ever. It also makes me confident that we can persuade the rest of that NATO alliance, and the group beyond NATO that is involved in the coalition, to recognise their responsibilities in the matter for the years to come.
QUESTION
Thank you, Prime Minister, for coming and talking to us so clearly. Can you help those of us who support the campaign over the question of measurement? In most wars you can measure progress or lack of progress; traditionally it is arrows on the map, places you take, enemies you kill, but none of those fit. I feel part of the reason for the anxiety, sometimes dismay, in this country is that it is very hard to know what actually is going on. What is success and what follows from that? If we could have a system of measurements that are regularly produced, because this is going to go on a long time, so that people can actually measure more clearly by a number of indices, in a number of ways – because it is obviously not just one – even if we are doing badly, what progress is or lack of progress. I think it is this haze of anxiety that people live in; with families of soldiers who are in Afghanistan, I find that there is this haze of anxiety, they don’t know enough about it, which is baffling and, in the end, dangerous.
PRIME MINISTER
You rightly ask; the British public are saying to us, ‘Can you show us that you will bring forward results and that you will have success in the time to come?’ You then rightly asked about what then are the measures of that success. The Taleban tactics, as we all know, changed over the last year or two, from a position where they were prepared to take us head on in military conflicts and we could defeat them, as we did in almost every part of the previous period, but the use of the explosive devices means that they are effectively fighting guerrilla warfare.
Now, the first thing I think that we have got to say is, despite what has been said in newspapers all over the world this summer, the record of success of our forces in dismantling these explosive devices has been very high indeed. When I say 1,000 devices have been dismantled, then a very high proportion of those that have been laid by the Taleban with the view of killing our British forces have not been able to be ignited in a way that they planned.
What then are our measures for the time ahead? We have got to show that we are tackling this IED threat, our measures for the time ahead must be the quantity and quality of Afghan forces in the field. It must be the quality and size of the Afghan police force and its effectiveness free of corruption. It must be the success of achieving local governance that is accepted by the people of Afghanistan themselves in the local communities. When I, as I said, visited a shura and heard people talking, you could see that they had moved from a system where the Taleban were enforcing their form of justice, to them being at the centre of the justice process themselves. So we must show that we have strengthened local district governance, and that must be accompanied by being able to show that the corruption we know has existed at the centre is reduced. We will also have to show that we have made progress on the economic prosperity of Afghanistan because people must have a stake in the future of Afghanistan other than simply in heroin.
So, there are measures of progress that you can examine, this is part of the debate at the moment that we’re having as a result of the McChrystal review, that while it is essential that we show that the very high proportion of explosive devices are dismantled, it is essential also for the longer term that we show that we have, in practical terms, built up the Afghan ability to run their own affairs – and it will be measures of that, and population that comes within the civic institutions, within the scope of the police and the Afghan army, that I think will be the decisive measures of the future.
So what I’m saying today is, ‘Yes, I understand that the British people need to know that what we are doing is part of a strategy to move things forward.’ They know that the Taleban have changed their tactics. We have got to show that our response to that – directly by dealing with the devices, but also our response by moving forward Afghan responsibility for their own affairs – is something that can make a difference. I believe it can. And I do believe – and you rightly ask the question, ‘Can we increase the amount of training quickly?’ – yes, if we make that a very important part of what we’re doing.
And talking to General McChrystal, but also talking to some of the other countries, they are ready to play their part – some of them more ready to play their part in the training of Afghan forces than they are in being there in some cases, on the ground. So I believe that this is a deliverable objective, and it’s one that we can both discuss with the rest of our coalition for our areas, where we’re involved, but also for the whole of Afghanistan.
QUESTION
Thank you, Prime Minister. As kind of a coda to what Sir Michael and Lord Hurd have already addressed, of course what’s palpable is that there’s also rising debate and dismay in the United States – I should say anxiety in the United States – about the extent of the goals and the extent of the mission. And you’ve addressed – you started your remarks addressing – these very directly, so forgive me if I raise it again, but when you said that it would be a huge propaganda failure for Al Qaeda to see a stable and peaceful Afghanistan, of course the flipside of that, that many people worry about, is that it’s a propaganda benefit for Al Qaeda if there’s a long term, indefinite and very bloody commitment. And so, I guess the question is, your remarks about Afghanisation, I think, are very welcome in this context, but it seems to me that when people talk about solidarity, about the extent of the problem, and when you talk about it, you get to a situation where you’re describing the goals in almost perfect terms. Is there a counsel of realism that should be part of the alliance deliberations, as well as a counsel of solidarity?
PRIME MINISTER
Well, I don’t want to suggest that there is an absolutist position that we can get to. I talked about credible, specific, and in some cases, time‑specific, objectives that we can set. It is credible to say that, over the next period of time, we will build up the Afghan army with the Afghan people themselves. I don’t think you’ll find that there’s a shortage of recruits, in the right circumstances. I think the Afghan soldiers themselves, according to all my friends in the British Army, are good soldiers, and potentially able to do well.
I think the issue is – will the coalition have the determination to follow that through? That’s also true of police. We have had initiatives to train police. We have sent police trainers, but it is also true that other countries, who have made promises that they would do this, have not stepped up to the mark in the way that we expected. And so it will depend on the determination of the whole of the coalition to follow through this strategy.
I think it is deliverable, I think it’s credible, I think most people would agree it’s credible, I think you can set time horizons for training up the Afghan forces, and particularly for the partnering objectives that we are going to set. But we will need the rest of the alliance to work with us to achieve it. If the same thing as I’m saying goes for not just police and army, but for the build‑up of civic institutions, that’s a more difficult thing to say you’ve achieved results, because local government, as you know, can be successful under one personality or individual, and then that person’s transferred and the whole thing falls apart.
But we are going to have to work, not just at a national level, but I think everybody recognises, far more at a local level, working with the tribal chiefs, recognising some of the problems that we perhaps didn’t recognise at the beginning about how they wish to operate themselves, and working sometimes with the grain, where we had attempted before not to work with the grain.
So are these objectives I’m setting credible? Yes. Are they deliverable? I believe so. Does it depend, however, on the will of the whole coalition? Yes – and I think that’s an important element of every discussion.
QUESTION
Thank you, Prime Minister. Just two questions: one about the adversary and one about objectives. The one about the adversary is, you’ve hardly mentioned, maybe haven’t mentioned, the word ‘Pashtun’ or ‘Attan’, and it has looked in recent months increasingly as if we’ve blundered, without intending to do so, into a war with Pashtun nationalism, and that has been one element in the insurrection that has also had other elements: you’ve mentioned the Taleban frequently and, of course, Al Qaeda. But I wonder if you could say something about how you envisage the possibility that Pashtun elements, which themselves come in many different forms, may be, as it were, addressed and separated from the more dogmatic Taleban cause.
And the second question is you said at the beginning that you would address the objection that an Afghan state cannot be built – and you’ve partly developed an answer to that in response to Dana Allin’s question, but I wonder if you could say a bit more because, to many, it does seem as if, up to now, there’s been an attempt to do the impossible: to create something which has very little meaning in most Afghan minds. Nothing in their history suggests that the loyalty to the state transcends loyalty to family group, tribe or whatever, and there’s no reason to suppose that loyalty to the Afghan state could develop in a situation, where, frankly, even now, eight years after the initial Western involvement, there’s very, very little in the way of a justice system that operates, as it were, under the Afghan government, and many survivals of a justice system operating locally or with Taleban participation. So the notion that we should be focusing on a state may be too ambitious a notion, and perhaps the concentration needs to be on the simpler question of ensuring no Al Qaeda revival in Afghanistan.
QUESTION
Prime Minister, I wonder if you can say a word about Iran’s role in assisting regional stability. Immediately after 9/11, they seemed to be reasonably helpful; they saw common interest in stopping the Westward flow of drugs. More recently, one hears that they’re being unhelpful; perhaps after tightening UN sanctions, they could be still less helpful.
QUESTION
In the build up, Prime Minister, to the programme of Afghanisation, the accelerated programme, do we have sufficiency of combat power, which seems to me to have been a problem since 2001, particularly 2006. You talk rightly about the achievements of Panther’s Claw, but look at the level of casualties in Sangin. Have we beaten too light in our footprint? And on this, following what Nicholas was saying, have we got enough in the kitty for contingency? Al Qaeda just isn’t resident in Waziristan and in Pashtunistan: it’s resurgent, as we now know, in Yemen and Somalia, where we have treaty obligations to neighbours.
PRIME MINISTER
Well, I think this is a fascinating group of questions. Let me start with Professor Roberts, who rightly raises two questions that arise from the whole history of Afghanistan. The first is, can the state ever be in a position to exercise the authority that is necessary for people to feel secure, and for there to be security? Secondly, is the division or the recognition of the tribal loyalties something that we have failed to take fully into account in our efforts? And I think there is some truth in the suggestion that post‑2001 we did not, all the allies, appreciate sufficiently the long history of Afghanistan, the weakness of a central state. I think it was said in Britain in 1914 even that – I think it was AJP Taylor who said that the only knowledge that people would have of the state if they lived in a remote village or part of the country was the existence of a post office, and I think in Afghanistan it is absolutely true to say that when you meet people in local shuras they’re not talking about the role of the central government at all; they’re talking about how they can get local justice and how they can get greater local security and they rely for that not on central government, they rely on what can be created locally. So yes, I do agree with you that we cannot place all our faith in the responsibility being taken by a government in Kabul; we will have to build up local government.
Now, that answers your second question. To build up local responsibility for local affairs – and this is a question in relation to the Pashtuns particularly – you will have to work with the grain of the history of Afghanistan. Now, that does not mean that in cases where you have tribal chiefs who are drug overlords that you can condone that behaviour, but there must be some recognition of the local systems, the modus operandi, so to speak, of the local tribal system in what we do. So I do think more emphasis has got to now be placed on local and regional government. Where you’ve got a good governor, like Governor Mangal is a good governor in Helmand, you’ve got to support him and what he’s doing, but he has got to be encouraged to have constant contact with the local tribal leaders and build up district governance. That, in my view, is a better way forward than relying, as perhaps people did at the beginning, on a central state to be able to build an army, build a police force and then dispense justice on that basis.
But we cannot ignore the fact that if you’re going to have an Afghan national army you’ve got to have an apparatus at the centre and we cannot ignore the fact that as long as Afghanistan’s legislators are wanting to impose laws that are quite in contradiction to the dignity and rights of women, we’ve got to be clear that this debate has got to be held for Afghanistan as a whole. So we’ve got to get the balance right between what we now know is a greater emphasis on local communities and having a state that is at least successful. I think you’re really telling us that we’ve got to have a better understanding of the history of Afghanistan to move forward.
That also raises for me the question of Pakistan. I think the most interesting and probably the most positive development of the last year has been the fact that simultaneously on both sides of the border there is action against terrorism and I am surprised and encouraged by the speed at which there appears to be developing a national coalition in Pakistan that the terrorists have got to be taken on. I think what happened when the Pakistan army went into the Swat Valley could have been action that was taken temporarily that was successful and then huge numbers of displaced people and then actually a longer-term build up of support for the Taleban. What seems to be happening is that people are returning, that they are managing to resume their lives but under justice that is not Taleban justice, but under a better framework. And I hope that what Pakistan can prove is that their attention to this problem of terrorism, which has never been complete because of the issues with India, but that attention to these problems of terrorism is something that is bringing results but can still command the support right across the political system and, of course, bring the army, the security services and the politicians together in one common effort.
When it’s raised with me the role of other powers in the region, and you raised the question of Iran and its tactics, I am very conscious that if you’re going to have a desertion from the Taleban then, as the Professor has said, we are dealing with people who are paid some dollars a day to do the work and therefore they’re mercenaries; we’re dealing with people who are intimidated and therefore they are reluctant people; and we’re dealing, as you said, with Pashtun nationalists who may, in some cases, see that the future of Afghanistan depends on resisting what they will claim is an occupying force rather than supporting a Pashtun who is the elected president of the country. But you will also have this group of completely irreconcilables and that’s people who are ideologically claiming Islam to justify any terrorist attack on anybody who is from a western or coalition power and the attempt to build a caliphate that excludes any other religious views.
Now, the first group of people are clearly, potentially, ones who could be persuaded to renounce violence, renounce terrorism and support the democratic process and that is something that I think Pashtun nationalists could be in a position to do, even though at the moment they feel that their only alternative is to support the Afghan Taleban. So there are opportunities here, but as long, in my view – and this is where we may part company – as long, in my view, as you’ve got a strong enough Afghan government and you’ve got local government that is in a position to make it possible for us to deal with this problem of reconciliation from a position of strength.
I think the third question was about the number of troops necessary for the Afghanisation. This is really what we’ve got to look at in the next few weeks. I’ve always said that it would require the review that is taking place, both in America and here after the election, to determine for us what is the proper level of troop numbers for the next stage of the exercise. Now, clearly, the approach is as I’ve described it, but the new element of that is a greater attention and concentration on partnering with the Afghan forces. That requires us to look at what resources we need for that particular part of our exercise. It’s what I’m discussing with the Chief of the Defence Staff; I’ve had a discussion also with our new Chief of the General Staff; Bob Ainsworth and I are involved in discussions, obviously, with the Americans on this as well and it will have to be a coalition decision at some point as to whether other countries are prepared to share the burden with us and with others.
We have a situation, as you know, where the Netherlands, Canada and, potentially, Japan have indicated their wish to have dates by which time their active forces would not be in the country and we’ve got to deal with that situation at the same time.
So this is part of the continuing process after the election of reviewing the strategy that we are outlining which, as I say and repeat, is a shared strategy between us and the Americans.
QUESTION
If your programme of Afghanisation is successful, could you envisage a situation, as Eric Joyce suggests, whereby our troops are no longer on a war footing at some point in the next parliament?
PRIME MINISTER
I think the issue is how fast we can move on this and what we’re saying today is that we’re going to move faster. If, as I say, Afghan forces can take more responsibility for the functions of security in the different parts of Afghanistan and if, perhaps, we consider that transfers of responsibility are done district by district or province by province, then it is possible to envisage that as the number of Afghans taking responsibility grows and the quality of their leadership grows we can reduce the numbers of our forces. That is the basis of our strategy and it’s the basis of the American strategy as well. So I can’t be time‑specific about the build up of Afghan forces that we’re trying to achieve. When we see the quality of the effort and when we’re assured that responsibility can be taken, that is the point at which we can say that the need for British troops is a great deal less and the need for Afghanistan to take more responsibility is, in fact, what we’ve always been trying to achieve.
QUESTION
Prime Minister, taking away from Afghanistan but staying on the same theme, I wonder why your government and other western governments are not paying attention to Al Qaeda in places like Somalia and Yemen. Thank you, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER
I think I’ve got to say to you the answer is that we are paying attention to the role of Al Qaeda in different parts of the world. A considerable amount of effort is being made to both examine and see what we can do in the position that Somalia faces. My worry has been that over the course of months you will see Al Qaeda moving into different parts of Africa, undermining elected governments there, inciting religious divisions that mean that there is conflict within these countries and, of course, using these countries as a base to send terrorists out of these countries into countries like Britain.
I think we’ve got to accept, however, that the leadership of Al Qaeda is based in the Pakistan mountains, that the crucible of terrorism that I’ve talked about is the concentration of Al Qaeda supported by the Taleban of Pakistan and the Taleban of Afghanistan, that this is the most serious concentration of terrorist planning in the world and we have got to recognise our responsibilities not just on our behalf to keep our streets safe, on behalf of the rest of the world as well, working with allies to deal with that problem. But I can assure you that a great deal of work is going into looking at the position of Al Qaeda and, of course, as you know, Al Qaeda operates in different ways in different countries. Some people exploit local grievances that are in fact local grievances masquerading as Al Qaeda objectives for the caliphate and for the extreme view of Islam that some of them take, and I think we’ve got to look at each individual area as well as look at the general position of Al Qaeda.
JOHN CHIPMAN (Chairman)
Prime Minister, thank you very much for choosing the International Institute for Strategic Studies to deliver this important speech and also for engaging with our membership. The debate here was perhaps a little bit different in style from that you’re accustomed to in the House of Commons, but at least as intellectually challenging I do hope.
For the rest of the membership here, could I also say, given that you’re interested in these subjects, that on the 18th September we will be receiving here President Zardari of Pakistan and a few days after that, the date to be confirmed, General McChrystal – both personalities who the Prime Minister has had cause to mention in today’s address, for which we thank him very warmly. Thank you very much.
