Former British commander in Afghanistan says Treasury is crippling war
(Heathcliff O'Malley)
Brigadier Ed Butler, who says the Treasury has hampered the British campaign in Afghanistan
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The British military operation in Afghanistan was crippled by a spending cap imposed by the Treasury, a former senior officer told MPs yesterday. Brigadier Ed Butler, who commanded 16 Air Assault Brigade in Helmand province in 2006, told the Defence Select Committee that the financial constraints meant that the Army could “just about hold the line, but couldn’t sustain a higher tempo” in its campaign against the Taleban.
The brigadier resigned his commission last year, claiming that he wanted to spend more time with his family. But his premature resignation was widely acknowledged to be in protest at the handling of operations.
His brigade suffered high casualties during its six-month tour. Thirty-five members of the Armed Forces died during the brigade’s tour of duty, although 14 of these were killed when an RAF Nimrod caught fire in mid-air and exploded.
Many soldiers who were killed by enemy action died in isolated outposts such as Musa Qala in northern Helmand where the Taleban launched multiple attacks on the district centre, which was being guarded by only a 30-man platoon.
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Brigadier Butler told the committee that in 2006 the Treasury had “capped” resources available for the operation, limiting funding to £1.3 billion for a “three-year campaign”. The Government has always denied imposing a cap on resources for the mission. “There was a Treasury-imposed cap on the number of troops we could have in Afghanistan,” he said.
With the troops available to him — 3,300 — “we could just about hold the line but we couldn’t sustain a higher tempo”. Brigadier Butler said he was visited by numerous ministers during his tour of command but not once by a Treasury minister.
The financial constraints resulted in a severe shortage of helicopters in the field and seriously hampered the ability of British forces to cover the ground, Brigadier Butler said.
He pointed out that in Northern Ireland there were 70 helicopters for 10,000 to 15,000 troops but in Afghanistan, with casualties rising steeply in the fiercest fighting since the Korean War, there were far fewer.
He said that the Taleban “forced us off the road” when they turned to “asymmetric warfare”, targeting the troops with roadside bombs. But there were not enough helicopters to move soldiers around Helmand province.
Brigadier Butler’s devastating exposé of the restrictions he had to deal with as he commanded his brigade appeared to contradict the public pledge made by Tony Blair when he was Prime Minister that the troops in Afghanistan could have whatever they wanted. Gordon Brown was Chancellor at the time.
Brigadier Butler was also highly critical of the overall government strategy towards Afghanistan. In 2006, he said, the main fighting was in the north of Helmand and efforts should have been made to start development and reconstruction programmes in the other areas. But nothing was done. “Whitehall was of the view that the whole of Helmand was burning, but actually it was about 6 per cent of the province where the real battles were going on,” he said.
The Government should have implemented development programmes in the first 100 days of the campaign, he said.
He told the MPs: “No one knew what type of campaign we were involved in. It came as a considerable shock when it was discovered what we were engaged in.”
The “tribal tapestry” in Whitehall was as complex as it was in Afghanistan, he said. In December 2005 he and other senior commanders and officials had gathered in Kandahar to work out what needed to be done in Helmand, but their recommendations “were not taken forward”.
He said that the officials working in Helmand from the Department for International Development were the most “risk-averse” of the civilians involved in the campaign, followed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the security services.
Brigadier Butler was giving evidence about the so-called comprehensive strategy in Afghanistan under which all government departments are supposed to co-ordinate their work.
He said that a strong secretary of state was needed to ensure that everyone co-operated, and praised John Reid, who was Defence Secretary in 2006, for “knocking heads together”. “It needs someone with clout back home. . . if you want to go into these places [Afghanistan], you must go deep and go long or go home. . . and it must be properly resourced,” he said.
