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Middle East and Afghanistan

My Lords, we on these Benches are very grateful for the comments of the two noble Lords. When, at the Ministry of Defence in the early to mid-1980s, I was involved in privatising the Royal Ordnance factories and contractorising the dockyards, the official Opposition at that stage was led by a certain new Labour Member of Parliament called Gordon Brown. My ministerial colleague at that stage, the noble Lord, Lord Lamont, visited Rosyth to spell out the benefits of our contractorisation policy. Sadly, if I remember correctly, his ministerial car received a severe rocking, but the men of Lerwick are built of stern stuff and the noble Lord survived. I am delighted to see him in the Chamber today. I intend to focus my comments primarily on the defence aspects of Afghanistan, although of course the widely held view, as was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, is that the failure to solve the Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians lies at the historical heart of so many regional conflicts and terrorism issues. My noble friend Lord Wallace will be talking about the Middle East and its wider dimension later on. Sometimes I think that, were instructors at staff colleges to create a mythical country posing the most difficult challenge to our forces, it would have many of the characteristics of Afghanistan today: a large inhospitable landmass with extreme temperatures; a complex tribal population; 90 per cent of the world’s opium production, with all the corruption that goes with that; borders virtually impossible to police, with pursuit over them barred; above all, a country that has defeated and devoured invading foreign armies over the centuries. Our forces in Afghanistan today are being asked to undertake a task somewhere between one fraught with extreme difficulty and a nightmare. That they have achieved so much is a tribute to their training, their character and their bravery, but are we asking them to achieve the ““Mission: Impossible””, given their limited numbers and resources? I am delighted that our military chiefs, politicians across the political divide, the British Legion and the media are now campaigning for greater recognition of what our Armed Forces do for us, for better accommodation, for better medical and psychological support for the wounded and for a better financial package for those service personnel and/or their families following serious injury or death. But all that is for another day’s debate. In the defence policy debate in the other place last week, the Secretary of State, Des Browne, attempted to put the most favourable interpretation on events. To be fair, there have been real achievements: 40,000-plus Afghan troops trained; 4.8 million refugees returned home; 83 per cent of the population having access to medical facilities, as the Minister referred to; 5 million children in education; and Afghanistan close to becoming self-sufficient in food production. Virtually parallel with that, however, we have a Chatham House publication entitled Coalition Warfare in Afghanistan: Burden-sharing or Disunity?, which paints a very different picture: "““Western forces’ success in fighting the Taliban and Al-Qaeda and in achieving a satisfactory level of security throughout Afghanistan remains limited … The coalition’s internal cohesion regarding the … Afghanistan operation is becoming increasingly fragile … The coalition forces’ comprehensive approach towards stability and reconstruction operations remains an elusive concept””." It continues: "““The conflict has increasingly become a regional one … As long as parts of Pakistan serve as a safe haven for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, coalition forces will not be able to control Afghanistan””." We expected so much from our allies. Western forces in Afghanistan amount to approximately 50,000, plus potentially a similar number of Afghan forces. Using a formula based on population and landmass, the US forces’ counterinsurgency manual estimates that a force of 400,000 to 600,000 is required to pacify a country like Afghanistan. Too many NATO countries are just not pulling their weight. We have the ludicrous example, quoted in the aforementioned Chatham House paper, of reconnaissance data collected by German Tornado aircraft under ISAF being denied to the more combat-oriented US-led Operation Enduring Freedom mission. All this with Brigadier John Lorimer, the commander of British forces in southern Helmand province, telling us that troops face a marathon mission lasting decades. It must be heart-wrenching for our valiant forces to conquer positions and seize territory, only to know that lack of numbers means that those gains cannot be properly held and are likely to have to be retaken. That is intolerable. Thankfully, there has been an improvement in equipment, vehicle protection and helicopter numbers, from a slow start. The dominant problem, however, is a major shortage of troops on the ground. With Afghanistan, we are talking about a country the size of France. In drawing my remarks to a close, I have four specific questions for the Minister. First, can he foresee a serious increase in troop levels from either ourselves or our allies? Secondly, do Her Majesty’s Government favour the appointment of an Allied supremo to whom the Karzai Government could relate, rather than the current multiplicity of military and civilian chiefs, often with divergent missions? Thirdly, what exactly is our policy on opium production? And, fourthly, given that our Apache helicopters have to be used for escort duties as well as combat roles, what are the implications for the rest of our Apache fleet back in the UK? Few can doubt that the uncertainty and concern that reign in Afghanistan today are compounded by a regional backdrop of anxiety: the unresolved Israeli/Palestinian issue, the turmoil in Pakistan, possible Turkish action in Iraq, the re-arming of Hezbollah and the rising militias in Lebanon and, above all, concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its role as the quartermaster of insurgency. It is difficult to be other than pessimistic and very worried at this time.