Afghanistan

A few years ago, when I was serving with the Grenadier Guards in Iraq, I was part of a team tasked with looking after the visiting Secretary of State. There were five Defence Secretaries during my short spell in the army – a sign, perhaps, of the lack of attention the last government paid to the armed forces. Some were impressive, some less so. One was famous for falling asleep during briefings, but the one I was accompanying in Basra was wide awake. He wished to carry out of the most important missions facing Cabinet members in a warzone: conduct an interview with the Today programme on BBC Radio Four.

On Thursday, Andrew Mitchell rolled out the government’s first overseas aid initiative – a transparency watchdog – and took to the airwaves to explain the idea. It makes particular sense in a downturn to ensure that taxpayer’s money is well spent but also to give voters the feeling that independent assessments are carried out to guarantee value for their money.   On Newsnight, the International Development Secretary ran into a criticism, often voiced by the aid community – that the Conservatives are too willing to “militarise” aid or to “politicise” it. He dealt with the criticism  robustly – but I want to have a go too. Because while these are

The shootings in Cumbria this morning meant that today’s PMQS was always going to be a subdued affair. David Cameron was impressive, though.  You wouldn’t have guessed it was his first time answering questions and he controlled the pace of the session expertly. There were fewer people on the front bench than last week meaning that Nick Clegg was more visible than he had been during the opening of the Queen’s Speech debate. Clegg sat to Cameron’s right while Hague was on his left. Harriet Harman asked some cleverly constructed questions, her ones protesting at plans for those accused of rape to be given anonymity are never going to be

I hope CoffeeHouse readers will forgive the attention I am heaping on the Afghanistan War these days, but the campaign is moving into a decisive phase with a July donor’s conference in Kabul that Hillary Clinton is reportedly attending, a “peace jirga” scheduled to consider plans to negotiate with the Taliban and only a year to go before the first US combat troops begin heading home. No 10 is now letting it be known that the Prime Minister, his key Cabinet ministers, generals and aides will gather shortly to discuss the mission. A sort of condensed Obama review of the UK contribution. Besides the Afghan experts already in the Crown’s

Four weeks into the new government and the National Security Council machinery is still being put in place and ministers are still getting read into their briefs. The visit by William Hague, Andrew Mitchell and Liam Fox to Afghanistan was important, despite the brouhaha over the Defence Secretary’s comments. Such a visit was simply not imaginable under the Brown government. On the other hand, insiders say there is no real difference yet from the NSID committee that Gordon Brown created and the National Security Council that David Cameron has convened – except that the latter meets weekly, producing a torrent of tasks for officials. Permanent Secretaries are meeting regularly to

You may not have expected anything less, but it’s still encouraging to see the new government pay so much attention to Afghanistan. After David Cameron’s meeting with Hamid Karzai last week, no less than three ministers have visited the country today: William Hague, Liam Fox and Andrew Mitchell. And Whitehall’s number-crunchers are busy trying to find extra money for the mission. There’s a sense, though, that all the attention actually represents an underlying shift in focus. In his interview with the Telegraph today, Liam Fox is surprisingly forthright on Afghanistan, suggesting that our troops won’t hang around to fully rebuild the country: “What we want is a stable enough Afghanistan,

Yesterday’s attempted car-bombing in Times Square doesn’t really tell us anything beyond that there are sociapaths willing to blow people up, and that sometimes luck – rather than judgement – foils their bloody plans.  But, given the Pakistani Taliban’s claim that they were responsible for the attempt, it does serve as a grim reminder of the poison seeping out of that region.   The question now, and for the next few months, is whether the West will somehow become more engaged inside Pakistan.  It’s notable how British ministers have increasingly namechecked the country when justifying our presence in Afghanistan – but, still, it seems that the Taliban and other Islamist

Today’s Express is reporting that David Cameron has said it would be wrong to set an ‘artificial deadline’ for withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, but that he hoped troops would come home during the course of the next Parliament.   In many ways this is smart politics. Given that President Obama has said that US troops would be looking to come home from 2011 onwards, it is hardly surprising that the Tory leader hopes British troops would return within the next five years. Other countries in Helmand, like Denmark, have begun signaling the same. The statement may – I say may – help those who care passionately about the

The Tories’ Invitation to join the Government was never going to dwell on defence. (You can listen to the brief chapter on defence here.)  But that doesn’t mean defence isn’t an election issue. It is, and it’s one that the Tories will win. Brown’s defence record is abysmal even by his standards. Former service chiefs have described how Brown ‘guillotined’ defence budgets whilst fighting two wars, and field commanders in Afghanistan have made constant reference to equipment shortages. These accusations were corroborated by facts that Brown then tried to distort before a public inquiry. That’s not all. As Alex notes, buried in Labour’s manifesto, is an admission that the Defence

The choppers, and the whoppers, were flying at Westminster today. David Cameron invited the prime minister to try a spot of accountability at PMQs. Would he admit that he scrimped on transport aircraft in Helmand? Brown, with breathtaking cheek and not a little rhetorical dexterity, flipped the question upside down. ‘I do not accept that our commanding officers gave the wrong advice,’ he said and insisted that he never sent underequipped troops into battle. He clarified this with a smokescreen. ‘I take full responsibilitiy but I also take the advice of our commanding officers.’ Here was the morality of the restaurant freeloader, accepting the food but passing the bill down