Central and South Asia

Deployed in Afghanistan

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Britain will send 500 more forces personnel to Afghanistan – but only if key conditions are met. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown says, they will be sent as long as they have the necessary equipment, if other NATO allies boost their troop numbers and more Afghan soldiers are trained. We speak with two veterans of the war in Afghanistan – one British, and one American.

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MARCO WERMAN: I’m Marco Werman. This is The World. The British government says it’s willing to send 500 more troops to Afghanistan. Prime Minister Gordon Brown made the announcement in parliament today. But first he opened the session by reading the names of all 37 British soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan since July. Brown ended his reading of the list this way:

GORDON BROWN: And from number 34 Squadron Royal Air Force Regiment Acting Corporal Marcin Wojtak. Nothing can erase the pain for their families. Nothing can be greater than the pride we take in their contribution to our country and our sadness at their loss.

WERMAN: As for sending in more troops the British prime minister said he’s responding to requests from his military commanders in Afghanistan. But he added certain conditions must be met first. The extra British forces must have proper equipment and training he said. The Afghan government must commit to training more local forces and Brown said other NATO member states must also commit to sending reinforcements of their own. The key decision there of course is the one President Obama will make. He’s reviewing US troop levels right now. We’re going to spend the next few minutes speaking with a couple of veterans of the war in Afghanistan. First retired British Army Captain Beattie who won the Military Cross fro Bravery in Afghanistan in 2006. He returned for a second tour of duty in 2008. Mr. Beattie, 500 more British troops doesn’t sound like a lot how important is this?

DOUG BEATTIE: It sounds quite meager doesn’t it? But actually it’s very, very important because actually the headline figure that you have for British forces in Helmand, in [INDSICERNIBLE] Afghanistan is of the 9000 that we have there now something in the region of only 2400 are actually frontline combat troops, so-called boots and bayonets on the ground who are grinding away at the Taliban on a day-to-day basis. So these extra 500 troops will actually be a huge boost to that force and will give us the ability to dominate ground that we have taken and had to hand back to the insurgents on so many occasions.

WERMAN: Right. Helmand is that where you were?

BEATTIE: Yes it was. Yes. Which is in the south just adjacent to Kandahar Province.

WERMAN: Right and so when you were there did you see signs of just how the British mission was suffering because there were too few troops on the ground?

BEATTIE: Well exactly and that was the problem. And the very common term that we were using was called cutting the grass. We would go into an area in the Upper Sankin Valley or the Upper Giresh Valley. We would clear it out insurgents but we wouldn’t have the force levels to be able to stay there to dominate the ground. We would have to withdraw. And the moment we withdrew the insurgency would come back again, hence the grass would grow. With these extra troops it means that we can take ground and now we can hold it.

WERMAN: Stay with us Mr. Beattie. I want to go to Washington DC right now to have Kyle Flynn join the conversation. Flynn also did two tours in Afghanistan as a US Special Forces non-commissioned officer. Now Mr. Flynn you served in Uruzgan Province. Shed some light for us on why this type of counterinsurgency campaign is so labor intensive. I mean here in the States we’re talking not 500, we’re talking tens of thousands potential new troops.

KYLE FLYNN: Well if they’re switching to the population center and counterinsurgency strategy then the idea is to get in work and live in the heavily populated areas. In Afghanistan that’s particularly difficult because of the rural terrain and the geography and the villages are so spread out. We were working in a small town called [PH] Dayraoud which is in the southwest corner of the province right where Helmand and Kandahar meet. In this situation we went in trying to work by with and through the local forces. We were not going to do any unilateral missions if we could avoid so.

WERMAN: I mean to get in and live among the population, that sounds like you’re aiming to win hearts and minds. Adding forces like that will they have to have those kinds of capabilities to live in and among the population as you’re saying?

FLYNN: Right. I think the idea is you just have to provide some level of security before you can accomplish anything else including any type of development, any type of governance. There has to be security before any of those other things can follow suit.

WERMAN: Well let me ask you both about a long war in Afghanistan where success seems so elusive. When you were there can you tell me about one experience, each of you, that you think was successful and what made it happen? Mr. Beattie.

BEATTIE: Well you know many victories that we have there or many successes are always tinged with a slight degree of failure. But I remember when I served in 2006 we were extremely light on the ground with troops but yet we went down to a place called Garmsir in the south of Helmand. We were able to take it and we were able to hold it using indigenous forces to be able to hold that place. The US marines moved in there subsequently and they’ve had what they’ve termed as a catastrophic success where they’ve completely swamped the area. They’ve taken control. The population are flooding back into the villages. To me that’s an outstanding success brought about from very small means to a major operation.

WERMAN: And Mr. Flynn do you have a similar story?

FLYNN: Ah yes. We landed boots on the ground in [PH] Arusgan in [PH] Dayraoud in early October 2007. Our main objective was to go and secure and by doing so we built numerous checkpoints in the area. We fought. We cleared the land and now we were training host nation indigenous forces at the same time to man those checkpoints. And as we ended up clearing that area – it took us about five months of fighting – and now the last three months of the tour there was not a single shot fired.

WERMAN: So what happens then if the naysayer to raising the troop levels in Afghanistan come back and say well look at these two examples. I mean if you do this cleverly we can control territory. We can win this.

BEATTIE: The problem you have Marco is the territory is so vast you really are talking about huge open deserts with small pockets of population spread amongst it. Or if you go to the River Helmand sort of nearly tropical lush green along either side of the bank. You need the forces to be in there because if you’re not in there influencing the local nationals and having effect on the enemy well the truth is the void would be filled by the Taliban themselves or the insurgency. So it’s either British boots or American boots in particular villages in areas. And if it’s not them then it’s going to be the enemy. So we need the numbers to dominate.

WERMAN: Now the Obama Administration of course is in the midst of an intense debate about the best way forward in Afghanistan. There are experts including apparently Vice President Joe Biden who say boosting the number of troops in a big way would be a mistake. Others say up to 60,000 additional US troops are needed. Kyle Flynn what do you think about that?

FLYNN: It just depends on the mission what they’re actually trying to accomplish there. Sixty thousand troops, will that even be enough? I don’t think anyone really knows at the moment. It depends on how we utilize those troops and where we place them throughout the country. I even think with 60,000 there are still large [INDISCERNIBLE] of territory that we would have to seed to the Taliban.

WERMAN: Doug Beattie, Prime Minister Gordon Brown also said today that a safer Afghanistan means a safer Britain. President Obama has said something similar here in the US. Why do you think the mission in Afghanistan has been a tough one with the public in both countries?

BEATTIE: I’m not really sure what it’s like in the US but certainly in Britain I don’t the government in Great Britain has articulated well enough by saying it makes a safer Britain. I mean it’s a very sweeping statement and I think they need to get down to the fine detail and explain exactly what they mean. For me if I look at it I think sometimes when I look at Afghanistan it’s maybe even a sideshow to a whole regional piece because just next door its neighbor, Pakistan, has got its own major problems and that’s a nuclear country. So by securing Afghanistan it gives Pakistan a breathing space to deal with their insurgency. And if you can imagine actually if the Taliban were resurgent in Pakistan and threatened, the nuclear sites there, I mean what would Iran be doing now? You know they’re already calling for nuclear weapons or that capability. They would have a justified reason to have it. What would India do if the Taliban were going to take over nuclear weapons in Pakistan? Would they stand and watch while their neighbor falls to the Taliban?

WERMAN: And Kyle Flynn why do you think the US is there? I mean is the 9/11 no haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban still kind of the best case President Obama can make?

FLYNN: We believe that that is the reason why we’re still there – to deny al-Qaeda a sanctuary from which to train and operate. I also think that now we were getting into the sensitive are of nation building which no one seems to want to talk about in length.

WERMAN: I’d like to know from both of you what your kind of assessment of the Taliban is at this point. I mean why do you think they’ve been able to have so much success, gains to get so much traction on the ground in these parts of Afghanistan? Kyle Flynn.

FLYNN: I believe that they use a level of fear, intimidation, and violence that not even the allies can match and they coerce the local Pashtun population into supporting them.

WERMAN: And Doug Beattie what do you think?

BEATTIE: Well I think Kyle has really hit the nail on the head. He’s absolutely right. But I think there’s something deeper than that as well is because in truth we call them the Taliban but that’s really just a flag of convenience. The Taliban are mixed up with a variety of different groupings from Taliban to al-Qaeda to Islamic fundamentalists to the farmer who believes we’re in their country eroding their way of life or in their country about to take away their means of supporting their family which is the poppy. And they’re grouping together to form what is a really exceptional light infantry which is hard to root out when they’re fighting amongst a population and your hands are tied behind your back trying not to have civilian casualties and yet the enemies and amongst them they’re extremely versatile in the way they do business.

WERMAN: And are you both saying then that the Taliban and al-Qaeda can kind of group together better than the allies can? I kind of heard that from you Kyle Flynn.

FLYNN: I think the relationship has grown closer since 9/11 and I’m not sure if al-Qaeda itself is operating in Afghanistan which we’re assuming that’s what we’re hearing or if they’re still operating primarily in Pakistan across the [PH] Duran line. But I believe the ties are much closer now than they were after 9/11.

WERMAN: Former US Special Forces non-commissioned officer Kyle Flynn on the line from Washington and former British army captain Doug Beattie speaking to us from New Castle, England. Gentlemen thank you both very much indeed.

BEATTIE: Thank you.

FLYNN: Thanks.

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