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Counter-Insurgency (Iraq/Afghanistan)

The hon. Gentleman, who serves with distinction on the Select Committee on Defence, raises another old chestnut that is mentioned time and again. Of course there must be a range of vehicles. I thought that I was arguing that the range seems to be rather heavily biased on one side, and that there has not been strategic thinking by either the military or the Ministry of Defence about what may be required in future better to serve the interests of this country and our soldiers by preventing deaths in counter-insurgency operations. What insurgents aim to achieve is to make us send home as many body bags as possible. Their main task is to defeat whom they would call the ““invaders”” and to make the ““invader nation”” withdraw its forces by having an impact on public opinion in its country, leaving them a better chance of taking over. As for the concept of vehicle design and construction, ask the drivers which vehicles they would prefer if they want to stay alive, not be crippled, and avoid being in a body bag and becoming yet another triumph for the insurgents to gloat about. In order to defeat any insurgency, it is necessary to train the host country's own military forces so that they can deal with the problem and protect their own people. That is happening successfully in Iraq and Afghanistan; their armies are doing a great job and allowing our forces gradually to be withdrawn. More often than not, the host country's forces have the same vehicles as ours, and in some cases better ones. For example, Iraqi forces have a variant of the Cougar and armoured Humvees. The Afghani forces lag slightly behind, probably for good reasons; they use Toyota trucks. Such parity ensures that there is no feeling of inferiority and that the host country's troops are on a par with the UK troops who are training them. When we come to the Royal Air Force, I fear that the contrast is extreme and the situation nothing less than an unmitigated disaster. For Afghanistan to succeed after the withdrawal of UK and other troops, it must have sufficient air power. Yet can hon. Members see us training the Afghan air force to use the Eurofighter, an aircraft that was never designed for ground attack? We are using equipment that we have been landed with for the sake of using it and because the UK does not have anything more practical to use. I have argued long and hard that in counter-insurgency situations, turbo-prop aircraft, which the host country's pilots can be trained to use alongside our own pilots, are the most suitable aircraft. However, in a similar way to the arguments about vehicles, the powers that be compare single or double-prop aircraft with fast jets and do not consider the practical alternatives. Our pilots train on the Tucano, so what is wrong with a ground attack version? Let me reinforce the point. Fast jets have to sit at suitable bases that are limited in number. It could take 20 to 30 minutes for them to get into the air and to reach the target, which they cannot see, given the speed they fly at, so they have to rely on a forward air controller. Obviously, they do not stay long over the conflict area. By way of contrast, a prop aircraft can loiter overhead giving surveillance cover, because it can see exactly what is happening on the ground. A prop aircraft can attack accurately within a minute or two and give genuine air cover. What an advantage that would have been over these last few years. Equally, reconnaissance operations should have their own aircraft, such as the Pilatus Porter PC-6, which can operate with the patrol being able to land and take off within very short distances indeed, acting as an evacuation carrier and a general supply vehicle. These aircraft should be operated by other ranks within the Army, and we should learn the lessons from other successful counter-insurgency forces such as the Rhodesians, whom I have referred to in the past and who were extremely successful. There is a constant shortage of helicopters, yet the Merlin is a very good, if extremely expensive, helicopter. The RAF's Mk 3 Merlins cost £19 million each, and the six Danish ones cost £29.3 million each and £34,000 an hour to run. I repeat that figure of £34,000 an hour to run to my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who, judging by his expression, slightly doubted or queried what I said.