Downing Street Says » Afghanistan

Asked about the Taliban’s possible involvement in the attack on British troops yesterday, the Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that the Prime Minister was briefed immediately on the incident and he was being kept updated as you would expect as details emerged. Evidence was still being gathered, but we knew that local Taliban had claimed responsibility. A full investigation was of course underway.

The PMS added that he couldn’t give any further information on the nature or the detail of the briefing the Prime Minister received for obvious reasons. The PMS reiterated that we had sent our condolences to the families of those people involved in this dreadful incident and that we wanted to ensure that something like this did not happen again. There were issues around the particular incident itself but also around the training and vetting of the police.

Asked about the local Taliban claiming responsibility, the PMS said that subsequent to what he had said about the Prime Minister being briefed, there had been press reports saying that the individual allegedly responsible for the attack was safe with the Taliban.

Asked if the Prime Minister had personally sent his condolences, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister always sent letters to the families to those involved in any such tragedy.

Asked if the Prime Minister had a view on Paddy Ashdown’s piece in The Times today in which he had said that the Government had failed to sell the mission in Afghanistan to the British people, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had tremendous respect for Paddy Ashdown and his views on situations like the one in Afghanistan.

There was always more that could be done to explain to the British people what we were seeking to achieve in Afghanistan, including reminding ourselves that three quarters of terrorist incidents had emerged from the so-called crucible of terror between Afghanistan and Pakistan. What we were trying to achieve was to ensure the streets of London and the UK were safe and in doing that to remain committed to the strategy that we had laid out and would continue to lay out; military ambitions allied towards Afghanisation and making sure that we mentored and worked with local police and army to move forward in the country and to encourage President Karzai with his unity programme to take forward the reform of the Afghan government.

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with the suggestion by Lord Ashdown that if the war was lost it would be lost in the sitting rooms of the British public first rather than in Afghanistan itself, the PMS said that he thought that Lord Ashdown was referring to the importance of people understanding what we were seeking to achieve in Afghanistan. The Prime Minister had reiterated what we and the other allies were seeking to achieve to make Afghanistan and in turn the world a safer place.

Asked if the Prime Minister was content with the strategy in Afghanistan even if he wasn’t content with the media strategy in the UK, the PMS replied that he wouldn’t accept that the media strategy in the UK was not working. The Prime Minister had laid out on several occasions what we as an allied force were trying to achieve. He had also set out the process of Afghanisation. We knew that this was a tough campaign, but we also knew that with our allies we were making progress.

Asked if British troops would be told to keep flak jackets on in the presence of Afghan troops in the future, the PMS said that that was a detailed question about the way in which any incident like this was going to be investigated. Asked if the Prime Minister accepted that the morale of British troops would be affected by this and would there be extra vetting of recruits to the Afghan army and police, the PMS replied that in terms of vetting, it was the Ministry of the Interior that was responsible for the recruitment of Afghan police.

It was a relatively recent phenomenon for Afghanistan to have a national police force, given the structure of the country. The international community had been working with the Ministry of the Interior to try and improve these procedures. We provided police advisers and mentored the recruitment process. We had also been working with the provincial AMP Command to develop recruitment and vetting processes.

Selection recruits already had to provide character references from local officials, a senior police officer or a local senior community leader. There were things in place but we needed to look at these processes again.

We had worked with the Helmand police in particular to introduce a comprehensive registration process and when the Prime Minister was in Afghanistan at the end of August, he had been shown a crimestoppers initiative that encouraged local people to get in contact with police.

The Prime Minister had the highest regard for what our troops were doing in Afghanistan and anywhere they were engaged in conflict. He was always impressed by their resolve and their desire to achieve their objectives; they were professionals and they were doing a professional job. Clearly the loss of any colleague was a terrible situation to be in but these were highly trained, professional soldiers and people would have heard members of the military expressing that as well.

Put that there was some testing of heroin use among applicants and should it be done for every single person, the PMS said that he did not have detailed knowledge on the vetting process beyond what he had just mentioned but he would look at this point.

Asked why other allied countries did not find it necessary to have troops on the frontline to keep their streets at home safe, the PMS replied that he could not comment on what other allies had said about their specific intentions, but all of them shared the view that there was a combined effort here in Afghanistan, both to make the country safe and to increase Afghanisation.

Put that not all allied countries had troops on the frontline, the PMS said that all the countries involved would have troops on the frontline and sadly most of the countries involved had experienced fatalities as well. Put that other countries had not suffered losses on the same scale, the PMS said that the UK presence was second largest after the US presence, so regrettably that might be expected.

Asked whether the Government’s argument for being in Afghanistan was undermined by people such as Jim Jones saying that there was only a small number of al Qaida operatives left in Afghanistan, the PMS said that he had not seen the comments made by Jim Jones, so he could not comment on that in particular. The Prime Minister would reiterate the fact that it was incontrovertible that three quarters of terrorist incidents had emanated from that part of the world.

Put that it was Afghanistan in particular that Jim Jones’ comments were aimed at, the PMS said that the significant traffic between Afghanistan and Pakistan was one of the reasons why the strategy was described as an AfPak strategy.

Asked if the Prime Minister would encourage young people to join the army, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had the most tremendous regard for our armed forces. It was not for him or the PMS on his behalf to comment on what any individual should do as far as a possible career was concerned, but he believed that we had an exceptional armed forces.

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» Thursday, November 5, 2009

Afghanistan

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