Downing Street Says » Afghanistan

Asked what the Prime Minister would say to people who thought it was time to withdraw British troops from Afghanistan, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had set out our strategy in Afghanistan on Friday. The Prime Minister felt that Afghanisation was a critically important part of the next stage of the campaign and that President Karzai needed to pass certain tests when he took up his second term. This had been a tough campaign and would continue to be a tough campaign but the Prime Minister was determined that the campaign in Afghanistan continued in the way he had set out in his speech on Friday. The future of Afghanistan depended on driving out corruption; building up local troops and local police; and making sure that the economy moved from over reliance on the heroin trade to wheat and other agricultural products.

Asked if the Prime Minister accepted the view of Sir Jock Stirrup that not enough had been done to explain the mission in Afghanistan, the PMS said that Sir Jock had been making a general point, that the Prime Minister agreed with, that more could always be done to explain the strategy in such an important campaign, which was one of the reasons the Prime Minister had made the speech last Friday, his second major speech on Afghanistan in the last couple of months. The speeches, together with the Prime Minister’s visits to Afghanistan and the continued focus on Afghanistan in the National Security Council, emphasised how important this was in terms of the Prime Minister’s priorities and the Government’s agenda.

Asked if the Prime Minister agreed with Sir Jock Stirrup that 2014 would be the earliest time at which British troops could pull out of Afghanistan, the PMS said that he was not sure that that was precisely what Sir Jock had said; he had been asked about a date from the Americans and Sir Jock replied that he was not sure whether or not it would necessarily happen on that date. We all knew that the exit strategy from Afghanistan was entirely dependent on the speed with which we could move on Afghanisation. The timescale was partly in the hands of the allies but also partly in the hands of those people on the ground, and how quickly they could build up, train and deploy the resources they needed to self-govern Afghanistan.

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» Monday, November 9, 2009

Afghanistan

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