Sunday, January 21, 2007

Remember the promise in Afghanistan?

I wrote about it here, where Tony Blair promised that our troops in Afghanistan would get what they needed to defeat the Taliban.

At the time I said this:
It is interesting to note that Tony Blair felt it politically necessary to go public with a pledge to provide anything our boys needed in Afghanistan. I suspect the idea was to look good in the media.

What is fascinating is that the response "We could do with more helicopters" came back over the megaphone that is the mass media. You have to wonder if the commander concerned thought St Tony may have been spinning so thought he would pin the fella (or words to that effect) down.
Well, according to the Sunday Telegraph here, the promise has not been kept. Our troops are short of all sorts of equipment and requests for more seem are being turned down on cost grounds.

For example requests for more helicopters and thermal imaging equipment. What is more, the 4 armoured vehicles for getting troops out of mine fields in Helmand province are all broken down.

This is a disgrace. We need to win in Afghanistan as Tony Blair indeed said, and we can't with out the right kit.

4 comments:

CityUnslicker said...

given our lack of resources, we desperately need to remove our troops from Iraq where they have completed their mission to the best of their ability.

This then frees troops and equipment for Afghanistan where we need to reinforce fast to fight the Taleban in the spring.

Benedict White said...

CityUnslicker, regretably there is much truth in waht you say.

What is shocking, or perhaps on reflection, not, is that Tony Blair has not kept his promise.

However, we do need more troops and equipment than we currently have, and the MOD is clearly unfit for purpose and in my view has been since before the Crimean War.

Anonymous said...

It's hardly about "winning" out there, more about helping.

Benedict White said...

Anonymous at 7.41, Helping? What? The Taliban? I thought we were supposed to be securing Helmand and taking it off them!

Have you seen a memo I haven't :)