Afghanistan, November 08: British politicians and military chiefs have defended the mission in Afghanistan as Remembrance services for generations of war dead highlighted the human cost of the unpopular conflict.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown led calls for the public to back the increasingly bloody war, as a new poll revealed falling support, confusion over the mission’s purpose and skepticism about its success.
“If we do not take action in Pakistan and Afghanistan then Al-Qaeda would be plotting more trouble and more chaos in the streets of our cities,” Mr Brown told BBC television.
The prime minister joined Queen Elizabeth II in laying a wreath at the Cenotaph memorial for Remembrance Sunday, which marks the end of World War I on November 11, 1918, and all those killed in conflict since.
Similar services were held across the country and in British bases in Afghanistan, taking on added poignancy with the announcement of the 231st British fatality there since the US-led invasion in October 2001.
Britain’s chief of defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, admitted the need to win back support for the mission, which he said was far from over.
International forces were unlikely to achieve their goal of handing over security to Afghan forces until 2014, he said.
“General McChrystal estimates that it will not be before 2013. I think that’s a little optimistic. I’d say about 2014,” Stirrup told the BBC, referring to the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal.
British troops are training Afghan soldiers and policemen to take over security once they leave, but this strategy was thrown into question this week when a rogue policeman opened fire on British forces, killing five.
In a newspaper article, Foreign Secretary David Miliband accepted the reasons for the war were “complex” but said that pulling out before the Afghans could provide security would give global terrorism “free rein”.
A new Comres poll for the BBC revealed that 64 per cent of the public think the war is “unwinnable”, up six points from July, and more than 40 per cent do not understand why Britain is there.
Some 63 per cent think troops should be withdrawn as quickly as possible, up three points from August, the poll of 1,009 adults on November 4-5 showed.
However, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth said this would not affect British strategy.
“British public opinion has been dented by the level of losses that we have received, but we cannot run a campaign like this off the back of an opinion poll,” he said.
“We have to persevere, we have to show some resolution.
“This campaign is directly connected to our safety back here in the United Kingdom. And people need to recognise that. Failure will be a disaster for us.”
Mr Stirrup said Britain’s leaders should make more of their successes in Afghanistan, where he said international troops had inflicted “significant damage” on Al-Qaeda and forced them across the border into Pakistan.
“It’s painful and it’s slow and it’s halting but it is in the right direction,” he insisted.
Mr Ainsworth added: “The only reason that it (the threat) has moved into Pakistan is because our troops are in Afghanistan.
“If they were not there, the threat would be back, the threat would be real, the threat would grow to the level it was some years ago.”
—Agencies