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Army: Advice of Attorney-General

My Lords, I stand corrected—negligible training. I raise this because we are about to deploy on a complex operation in Afghanistan. There are currently two entirely different military operations taking place in Afghanistan. One is a fighting war under US command as part of offensive operations with Operation Enduring Freedom. The second is the NATO operation providing support to the Afghan Government in their role of stabilisation and reconstruction. United Kingdom forces are currently involved in both operations, although I believe that only the Harrier force is currently undertaking tasks that are responsible to both commands on different missions. However, the Statement, relayed by the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, on 26 January 2006 to your Lordships’ House, explains that there will be a transition process for the new commitment of UK forces to Afghanistan. He said:"““In terms of command and control, to begin with, the multinational brigade will come under the coalition. This is a necessary transitional measure””." He went on to say:"““I therefore anticipate that later this year, at the earliest opportunity, ISAF will take control of the forces in the south, during our command of ISAF””.—[Official Report, 26/01/06; col. 1321.]" ISAF is part of NATO. We are therefore sending our troops initially to work under direct US coalition control, working to an offensive operation task, before they become a supporting NATO force for the Afghan Government. I think that the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General will want to ensure that the rules of engagement are clear to every soldier, sailor or airman who might find himself having to defend his actions subsequently in this very complex command situation. I believe that we have a military of which we can justifiably be very proud. Like every group, there will be those who break the law. We have a system to bring them to justice, and the fact that we do speaks well for the probity, integrity and reliability of our services. We must make sure that we in return give them the duty of care which is their due. There will also be times, perhaps more often than in normal peacetime circumstances, when military personnel will be falsely accused. It is important that we have a proven and reliable system, which can then clear those who face such false allegations. In sum, we are content from these Benches that the system is right, but we worry that it suffers from resource problems.