By Kirsty Buchanan
DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR
BRITISH troops risk being drawn into a Vietnam-style conflict in Afghanistan, which could see soldiers still fighting there for the next 15 years.
Senior military sources and ministers admit the strength of insurgency in the lawless southern province of Helmand caught planners off guard.
Taliban fighters, bankrolled by the Helmand's heroin barons and Al Qaeda, have staged a bloody welcome for our troops.
The shocking number of soldiers' deaths and reports of troops under daily siege has exposed a pitiful lack of thought behind the deployment.
Commanders, prepared for the traditional hit-and-run tactics of Taliban ambushes, have been stunned by a wave of frontal assaults against paratroopers pushing into the lawless Helmand heartland. Fighting, sometimes hand-to-hand, continues day and night, pushing troops to the brink of exhaustion and exposing a lack of logistic and air support.
Isolated in outposts and cut off for days from the British headquarters at Camp Bastion, the soldiers risk being over-run by an enemy that was dangerously under-estimated.
And while the Taliban are taking heavy losses, foreign Chechen and Pakistani fighters are joining the battle with their fellow jihadists.
The insurgency has all but stalled Britain's reconstruction remit and forced the US to delay plans to withdraw 3,000 soldiers from the south.
Ministers and military leaders insist failure is not an option.
Defeat or early withdrawal would plunge Afghanistan back into civil war, threatening to topple President Hamid Karzai's government and transform the country into a breeding ground for terrorists once more.
But defence analysts warn real change could take up to two decades.
Now ministers are facing demands for an inquiry into how they planned and sold the deployment and why they ignored warnings that British troops were being sent into danger ill-equipped and under-strength.
The Commons defence select committee will launch a probe into how Britain's mission has shifted from reconstruction to counter-insurgency, despite ministerial assurances.
British soldiers first arrived in Afghanistan in November 2001, after the fall of the Taliban, as part of the International Support and Assistance Force. Forty soldiers have been killed there since.
In May, Operation Herrick saw for the first time Nato extended its reach to the Taliban strongholds of the south and Helmand province.
US troops were already engaged in bloody battles there.
British troops, ministers assured, would not become embroiled in a USstyle counter-insurgency battle.
The then Defence Secretary John Reid insisted their mission was one of reconstruction and suggested it could end without a shot being fired.
This misplaced faith was reflected in the soldiers we sent. The 16 Air Assault Brigade of 3,500 soldiers included just 650 combat troops - the 3rd Battalion the Parachute Regiment.
But within weeks it became clear the Nato Task Force, primarily made up of British, Dutch and Canadians, was under-resourced and under-manned.
Shortages of protection, particularly air support, were exposed and ministers had to have a re-think.
As 3 Para pushed into Taliban strongholds in Musa Qala and Sangin Valley they were taken to the "brink of exhaustion" by near constant ambushes, firefights and nighttime sniper attacks.
Roadside bombs are a constant threat and suicide attacks - once unheard of in Afghanistan but now imported from Iraq - are common. New Defence Secretary Des Browne committed additional troops and equipment in July but admitted our appearance had "energised" the Taliban.
But defence analysts warn that without a significant increase in support from Nato, Britain's bolstered frontline is still too thin.
Christopher Langton, an Afghanistan expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said:
"There is a feeling there was overoptimism - that forces would be able to stay for a relatively short timeframe, bringing stability to the province. Now the realists are talking about 20 years. The only other option is to withdraw and allow Afghanistan to sink back into civil war."
With more than 7,200 British troops still committed in southern Iraq, Britain's quest for success in the country has left ministers begging to Nato allies.
James Arbuthnot, chairman of the defence select committee, said: "It would not necessarily need tens of thousands of troops, but a lot more than are there now. We have got a very small number of people, given the ground we are trying to dominate." He added: "My own view is that Nato allies so far have not done as much as they should for a deployment they voted for."
The blame game has turned to our European partners - particularly Germany, which has 2,700 soldiers doing very little in the relative safety of northern Afghanistan.
Pleas from Nato's military commander General James Jones for 2,000 more troops and additional aircraft met "broad agreement" at a meeting in Warsaw on Friday. But it remains to be seen if that translates into long-term commitment.
Paul Moorcraft, director of the Centre for Foreign Policy Analysis, warned that only a significant increase in manpower and resources would give the Nato Task Force any chance of success. But he said: "If there was a massive, massive effort on behalf of Nato then maybe that might lead to success but that is not going to happen. There is not the political will."
WHILE Operation Herrick has left British ministers looking dangerously naive, it has served to highlight the ingenuity of their forces. Lieut Gen David Richards, the British commander of the Nato force, has drawn up plans for a network of "security zones" throughout the British area. Troops have fanned out along the Sangin Valley to establish outposts of law and order, allowing the Afghan national army and aid agencies in but the plan risks being wrecked by the lack of resources.
The 650 infantry of 3 Para are not a large enough force to cover the 12 administrative districts of Helmand, an area four times the size of Wales.
The Afghan government lacks enough staff to man all the district offices and those brave enough to accept postings face brutal intimidation by the Taliban. Absenteeism among the 600 Afghan army recruits is at 40 per cent - meaning by June there will be just 130 fully trained local soldiers in the province.
Without more men, the 1,500-mile border with Pakistan is open for Taliban commanders to withdraw across and foreign fighters to pour in.
It also allows heroin to flood out, which is a real problem as the drug is the "glue" that binds the Taliban, war lords, drug barons, Al Qaeda and Afghan villagers together.
Ninety per cent of heroin sold in Britain is grown in Helmand. Tony Blair's promise to wipe out the trade was a propaganda coup for the Taliban who told poor Afghan farmers he was going to destroy their livelihoods. However, opium farmers exported a record-breaking crop this year. Talk of "turning a corner" in the fight against the Taliban suggests the next six months could break the rebels and pave the way for reconstruction. The 16 Air Assault Brigade's tour ends next month, to be replaced by 3 Commando Brigade.
The Royal Marines will continue to push across Helmand but defence expert Michael Williams warned that signs of victory should be treated with caution.
"The Taliban has all the time in the world. These are not politicians who need to worry about an election, " he said. "They will blend into the population, take their old lives back during winter and come back in the spring."
General Sir Richard Dannatt, the new head of the British Army, has insisted the mission in Afghanistan "will succeed" but cautioned that forces are now "running hot". Anyone who believes Britain will be pulling out of Afghanistan at the end of three years needs to "get real", he said.
The reality is peace, if it comes at all, may take a generation to secure.
There is an old Afghan saying: "The West have all the watches, we have all the time."
