Faster Afghan withdrawal plans considered

14 September 2012

The withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan may be set to speed up due to new assessments of the security situation in the country by senior military commanders, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has said.

In an interview with The Guardian, Hammond said that circumstances in the country had changed in the last six months, and that commanders had been "surprised by the extent to which they have been able to draw back and leave the Afghans to take the lion's share of the combat role".

The UK has been able to close 52 bases and checkpoints in Helmand in that period, leaving just 34 still operating, Hammond told The Guardian.

"I think there is a bit of a rethinking going on about how many troops we do actually need … there may be some scope for a little bit more flexibility on the way we draw down, and that is something commanders on the ground are looking at very actively," he said.

"I think that the message I am getting clearly from the military is that it might be possible to draw down further troops in 2013.

"Whereas six months ago the message coming from them was that we really need to hold on to everything we have got for as long as we possibly can. I think they are seeing potentially more flexibility in the situation. Talking to senior commanders you get a clear sense that their view of force levels is evolving in light of their experiences."

Hammond said it was not right for British troops to continue nation building in Afghanistan long after al-Qaida had been "eliminated" from the country.

"We have to be clear why we came here in the first place," he said. "I believe very clearly that if we are going to ask British troops to put themselves in the firing line, we can only do that to protect UK vital national security interests.

"We can ask troops who are here to help build a better Afghanistan, but we cannot ask them to expose themselves to risk for those tasks. We can only ask them to expose themselves to risk for Britain's national security, which is what they signed up to do."

"…The ultimate measure of success must be the extent to which we can leave Afghanistan in a state that will continue to deny its territory to international terrorists," he said.

The UK was close to achieving that, the Defence Secretary added.

"Even if we had achieved nothing lasting, every year that goes by keeping the bombers at bay, keeping them off our streets, is a significant achievement in itself. But we have clearly built the basics of a future that will deny the space of Afghanistan to those who would seek to harm us."