A reconstruction report-card
Fraser Nelson 5:34pm
Like James, I’ve been admiring the new issue of Time – what caught my eye was its superb report on the Kajaki Damn in Afghanistan. This is Britain’s top reconstruction project in the Afghanistan and it’s taken an American publication to give us the low-down (and a stunning collection of photographs) on how Our Boys are doing. Here are my top five extracts….
1. Military officials say the insurgency doesn't have the numbers to win a conventional fight. But the Taliban doesn't need to win. It just needs to outlast the will of foreign nations. Few Afghans believe that the Taliban offers a better alternative to the current government, but many are convinced that it will be around longer2. There are only 8,500 British troops in Helmand. According to U.S. Army counterinsurgency doctrine, Helmand needs at least 25,000 troops to be secured--nearly half the foreign forces in Afghanistan. NATO officials call the effort in Afghanistan an "economy-of-force operation," meaning that the few troops available have to be applied strategically
3. As the Taliban controls the only road leading into Kajaki, all the equipment and all the labour have to be flown in by helicopter… The Louis Berger Group, contracted by USAID, would be ready to push the start button today if it weren't for the security problems…. [Their] warehouse in Kabul is packed with hundreds of crates of equipment that have to be transported to Kajaki, along with some 300 tons of cement. It would take a convoy of trucks just a few days to bring the materials to the site; by helicopter, it will take several months.
4. "We are afraid," says Madin [an Afghan]. "The Taliban has force. It has power." [Major Mike] Shervington, who leads about 200 men, asks, "More than me?" Madin shrugs. "You will come down and fight, and you will win," he concedes. "But you will win only for one hour. Then you will go back to your base. The Taliban will return."
5. Shervington believes he needs at least another 100 troops to drive out the insurgents in his area, but foreign forces are already stretched thin in Helmand province, and other areas have taken priority. Without additional troops, he can't hope to gain the confidence and cooperation of villagers like Madin
Previous
Comments
Disraeli's Ghost
July 6th, 2008 7:11pmRead the Sunday Times story on the US/Iraqi progress against al Qeada
Robert Williams
July 6th, 2008 8:18pmCaontributions from last week's PMQs
Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD): I join the Prime Minister in the expression of condolences, and endorse all his comments on why British troops must remain in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future. On Monday, I attended the funeral in my constituency of Lance Corporal James Bateman. He did not die in vain, and nor did any of the other seven members of 16 Air Assault Brigade who have lost their lives in Helmand province over the past month.
The Prime Minister has referred to the 43 nations that are in Afghanistan. Will he confirm, however, that the number of European NATO countries in southern Afghanistan can be counted on the fingers of one hand? Is it not time that our European allies did more to send their troops to the front line, and that they stopped relying on Britain to take the brunt?
Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con): Are we to understand that the right hon. Gentleman’s bleak message to the country is that for many years to come, at Prime Minister’s questions, he and his successors will pay mournful tribute to the gallant men and women who in the previous week have been killed in Afghanistan fighting an unwinnable and deeply unpopular war when it is widely understood that the Taliban are not international terrorists and that the international terrorists are now mostly trained in Pakistan, Iraq and Britain?
Is that a Lib Dem policy? Or the view of a Member for a garrison town. Tapsell is doing more than the Lib Dems to attract the votes of UK Muslims.
TrevorH
July 6th, 2008 8:27pmAh - the damn busters (as the Germans said)
Chris
July 6th, 2008 11:32pmSo what's your point, Robert Willliams? That Tapsell is a disgusting piece of work, or that soldiers don't deserve representation, because all they do for their country is die?
Elizabeth
July 7th, 2008 7:46am'Unwinnable and unpopular war.'
Count me in and I am no Lib Dem.
Robert Williams please do me a favour and explain why we are over there.
I get boiling mad each time another of our service personnel is murdered in Afghanistan. So does everyone I know. These young men and women are among the best and brightest of our nation and we are throwing away their lives for I know not what.
I would appreciate anyone giving me a rational explanation for our interfering in Afghanistan and don't say 'poppies'. The poppies are flourishing under NATO, it was the taliban that was cutting back that particular trade.
But now we get to the nub in some folks eyes, no!! poppies, no drug gold, no money for amongst much else things they would prefer we don't know.
How funny - we go into Afghanistan and make the poppies flourish, we illegally hand Kosovo over to the drug lords...all the better to felicitate the drug trade. None would dare call it conspiracy, would they?.
Please explain all - someone, or is it like the mythical Schleswig/Holstein question. Is that the famous question only three could answer and no one did.
Robert Williams
July 7th, 2008 12:55pmChris & Elizabeth ask me questions. I was expressing no judgment on our Afghan expedition nor any lack of respect for our troops. I was merely pointing out what appeared to me to be an anomaly:-
1. The Lib Dems picked up many votes with their opposition to the toppling of Saddam, I thought they were similarly lukewarm about our presence in Afghanistan, but the Lib Dem MP for Colchester is a keen supporter - but does he reflect party policy?
2. Meanwhile paleo-conservative Sir Peter Tapsell wants our troops brought home.
Elizabeth
July 7th, 2008 1:51pmRobert
Thank you for replying.
Paleo-conservative Elizabeth wants them brought home too because nobody can give me any good reason for us being in Afghanistan and throwing away the lives of truly magnificient service personnel.
Why are we there putting our troops in harms way??.
Explain!!!!! Anybody!!!!!!Please!!!!!
TGF UKIP
July 7th, 2008 6:38pm"The Taliban doesn't need to win. It just needs to outlast the will of the foreign nations." Plainly then with the jelly-like Real Labour or Blue Labour in Britain, the euros already under their beds, all the Taliban need do is hope, pray and send lots of opium money to the Obama campaign.