THE HELMAND DECISION

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Notes

¹Stuart Tootal, Danger Close: Commanding 3 PARA in Afghanistan (London: John Murray, 2009); Max Benitz, Six Months Without Sundays: The Scots Guards in Afghanistan (London: Birlinn, 2011); Patrick Bishop, 3 Para (London: Harper Press, 2007); Chris Terrill, Commando (London: Century, 2007). See also BBC2, Afghanistan: War Without End?, 22 June 2011 and BBC2, Afghanistan: The Battle for Helmand, 29 June 2011.

²Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011); James Fergusson, A Million Bullets: The Real Story of the British Army in Afghanistan (London: Corgi Books, 2008), Stephen Jermy, Strategy for Action: Using Force Wisely in the 21st Century (London: Knightstone, 2011). See also Theo Farrell, ‘Review Essay: A Good War Gone Bad?’, and book reviews by Frank Ledwidge and Robert Johnson, in RUSI Journal (Vol. 156, No. 5, October 2011).

³The debate effectively began with the lecture given by then Chief of the Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, at RUSI, London, 3 December 2009, calling for ‘the habit of thinking strategically’ among British defence professionals. Available at <http://www.rusi.org/events/past/ref:E4B184DB05C4E3/>.

⁴House of Commons Defence Committee [HCDC], Operations in Afghanistan, HC 554, 17 July 2011, paras 28, 67.

⁵See, for example, the reports and evidence of the Public Administration Select Committee [PASC], Who Does UK National Security?, HC 435, 18 October 2011, and HC 713, 28 January 2011 (both London: The Stationery Office, 2011).

⁶HM Government, UK Policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: The Way Forward (London: The Stationery Office, 2009), p. 18.

⁷‘Questions by Angus Robertson to Minister of State (Armed Forces) Nick Harvey’, Hansard, HC Debates, 2 February 2011. Also see Sheila Bird and Clive Fairweather, ‘IEDs and Military Fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan’, RUSI Journal (Vol. 154, No. 4, August 2009).

⁸ Daily Telegraph, ‘Child Suicide Threat to British Troops’, 13 December 2008.

⁹ Independent, ‘Taliban Doubles Number of Bomb Attacks on British Troops’, 13 June 2010.

¹⁰The Future Rapid Effects System (FRES) programme was intended to provide a generic medium-weight vehicle from which many variants could be economically derived for the next generation of armoured, manoeuvre warfare. See for example Olivier Grouille, ‘FRES: Alive but Not Quite Kicking’, RUSI Defence Systems (Vol. 12, No. 1, June 2009).

¹¹National Audit Office, Support to High Intensity Operations, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, HC 508 (London: The Stationery Office, 14 May 2009), p. 13.

¹² National Audit Office, Support to High Intensity Operations, Report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, HC 508 (London: The Stationery Office, 14 May 2009), p. 13., p. 12.

¹³Author interviews 13 and 22 September 2011. Requests from theatre for items under the Urgent Operational Requirements procedure were sent direct to the Chief of Joint Operations at the PJHQ, and thence with a recommendation to the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Operations) for approval. The only occasion when a politician intervened, and the only occasion when a request from theatre was delayed, was over the uplift of 500 extra UK troops during the period of the Afghan elections in 2009. There was a two-month delay in confirming the decision while Downing Street sought clarification of the incoming Obama Administration's position on the Afghan elections. Ex-senior officers are adamant that no equipment request from theatre was either refused or delayed at any time after June 2006.

¹⁴See Thomas J Scotto et al, ‘Attitudes Towards British Involvement in Afghanistan’, briefing paper, Institute for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, March 2011, p. 4; and also BBC News, ‘Most Remain against Afghan War’, 7 October 2009.

¹⁵Author interviews with senior military officials, September 2011.

¹⁶Janice Gross-Stein and Eugene Lang, The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2007).

¹⁷Author interview.

¹⁸Author interviews.

¹⁹HCDC, op. cit., Ev. 605. Author interviews.

²⁰See also, James Fergusson, Taliban: The True Story of the World's Fiercest Guerrilla Fighters (London: Bantam Press, 2010), pp. 133–35.

²¹HCDC, op. cit., para 34.

²² HCDC, op. cit., para 33.

²³ HCDC, op. cit., Ev. 478, para 38; author interview, 19 April 2011. In fact, the ‘immovable figure’ of 3,150 was lifted to 3,350 when it was realised that Chinook helicopter crews had been omitted from the cap. Even that adjustment had to be agreed by the service chiefs. Butler also pointed out that any capped figure was always 12 per cent lower on any given day because of the normal R&R requirements for individuals, and that before any injuries or illnesses are taken into account.

²⁴HCDC, op. cit. para 38.

²⁵Declassified copy released in June 2011. See John Ware, ‘UK's Original Helmand Deployment Plan Examined’, BBC News, 22 June 2011.

²⁶Author interviews, 19 April and 15 September 2011.

²⁷HCDC, op. cit., para 43.

²⁸HCDC, op. cit., para 43.

²⁹Evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry by John Reid as Secretary of State for Defence 2005–06, 3 February 2010, Evidence Transcript, p. 55.

³⁰ Evidence given to the Chilcot Inquiry by John Reid as Secretary of State for Defence 2005–06, 3 February 2010, Evidence Transcript, pp. 58–59.

³¹Author interviews, 13 and 22 September 2011.

³²Chilcot Inquiry, op. cit., pp. 55–56.

³³Author interview, 5 July 2011.

³⁴HCDC, op. cit., para 44.

³⁵Bill Roggio, ‘Taliban Losses in Afghanistan, Gains in Pakistan’, Long War Journal, 25 June 2006.

³⁶Personalised accounts of the platoon houses in Sangin during that summer can be found in Bishop, op. cit., and of the Royal Marines in Kajaki in Terrill, op. cit., both in Note 1.

³⁷Bishop, op. cit., p. 107.

³⁸Author interview, 1 April 2011.

³⁹ Daily Telegraph, ‘Paras Almost Retreated under Taliban Assault’, 2 October 2006. Many interviewees have stressed that the fear of losing a fully laden Chinook in operations to keep Musa Qala supplied, and the political effect that would have, overshadowed everyone's thinking at this time, from the CDS in London to the theatre commanders in Camp Bastion and Kabul.

⁴⁰By the time of the pullout in late September 2010, Sangin had accounted for 106 British fatalities. See BBC News, ‘UK Troops Leave Helmand's Sangin’, 20 September 2010.

⁴¹Bishop, op. cit., p. 49.

⁴²Some interviewees have reported that he was indifferent to the whole concept of the plan; others that he simply put the fighting military logic first, given the Taliban activity he observed.

⁴³Bishop, op. cit., pp. 110–11.

⁴⁴The Helmand Executive Group formed the nucleus of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, made up of officials from the Foreign Office, the military and the British Embassy Drugs Team, and headed by a regional co-ordinator from the Foreign Office. See also HCDC, op. cit., Ev. 497, 498.

⁴⁵HCDC, op. cit.

⁴⁶ HCDC, op. cit., para 51; and private briefing with author.

⁴⁷HCDC, op. cit., para 45.

⁴⁸ HCDC, op. cit., para 50.

⁴⁹Tony Blair, A Journey (London: Hutchinson, 2010).

⁵⁰Personal interview, 13 September 2011.