and-a-half years into an operation to secure vast desert reaches of Afghanistan from the Taleban, British commanders quietly admit they are seriously undermanned. While the official line is that Prime Minister Gordon Brown must decide if more troops are needed, officers on the ground in the southern Afghan province of Helmand concede privately that they do not have enough men or helicopters to seize and hold the territory they oversee. With nearly 60,000 square kilometers (22,000 square miles) of desert, mountains, a dense river valley and lush poppy fields to patrol, Britain has a little over 8,000 troops and just eight Chinook transport helicopters at its disposal. “There's only so much we can do,” a colonel in the Parachute Regiment said with exasperation last week, comparing the number of troops unfavorably to some small countries, where he said more than 8,000 police were usually available to keep the peace. When asked if additional troops are needed, Brown and his Defense Minister Des Browne tend to say that they listen to their commanders on the ground, and if they do not ask for more, then no more will be sent. When asked on the record, commanders, of course, defer to the government, creating a classic Catch-22. The pressure is on, with Britain's troops and equipment pulled to remote corners of Helmand, trying to keep as much of it stable as possible. Hunkered down in small forts, resupplied occasionally, the Taleban are aware of the constraints. At a small base in northern Helmand, a squad of British troops protects a dam and hydroelectric plant. They say they cannot go more than 3 km (2 miles) beyond their perimeter to take on the Taleban because otherwise they are overstretched. “The Taleban know it. If we attack them, they go just over 3 km away and we have to come back,” explained a junior officer commanding around 100 troops at the remote mountain base. Long-term mission Seven years into a conflict that shows no sign of abating and with the Taleban resurgent, the undermanning comes at a bad time. And it may get worse before it gets better for the 53,000-strong NATO-led coalition. Last month was the deadliest for foreign troops since the conflict began, according to independent website icasualties.org. Forty-three troops were killed, including 10 French soldiers hit in a single Taleban ambush. There will be a special vote in the French parliament this month to decide if the deployment should continue. While no pull-out is expected, the debate is a sign of the times. Canada and the Netherlands, which have a combined 4,000 troops in Afghanistan and have both suffered sustained casualties, are both considering ending their deployments when their mandates expire over the next two years. NATO has struggled to get major nations to contribute more to its Afghan force, and as the death toll rises the challenge only gets greater. A NATO summit in April generated some increased commitment, but that momentum has since been lost as issues such as Georgia and Russia have filled the agenda. The United States this week stepped into the breach, promising to send an extra Marine battalion and army brigade – around 5,000 troops – by January as it draws down in Iraq. That would raise the overall number of troops in Afghanistan to nearly 80,000, still a long way short of the numbers in Iraq, a country that is a third smaller than Afghanistan and now widely considered to be more secure. Afghanistan lacks strong security forces of its own, the government is under pressure and the Taleban resurgent. Neighboring Pakistan is also turbulent and militants have hideouts there. A strong foreign presence is essential, the US argues. Britain is expected to send more forces next year, but it is still some months off and may not be substantial. What concerns commanders more is whether the long-term commitment is there. “We must expect to invest military capability in Afghanistan certainly for the next three to five years,” Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the commander of British forces in Helmand, said last week as he skirted the issue of more troops. “The most important thing is that the international community demonstrate both strategic discipline and patience to endure. Maybe the greatest threat is that the durability is occasionally questioned.” - Reuters __
