Defence of the Realm

It is always unwise to take any official statement at face value – but the same might be said of any statement by the media. Healthy scepticism should be the default mode. So what does one believe when the media charges the government with misconduct, and the government flatly denies the charge?

That is the conundrum presented by a piece in The Sunday Times today. Written by a reputable journalist, Stephen Grey, under the headline: "No 10 asked army to delay Afghan attack until after Gordon Brown's visit", it makes a very serious charge.

Specifically, Grey alleges that during the recapture of the Musa Qala in December 2007, General Andrew Mackay – commanding the operation - "was furious to be asked by Downing Street if he could delay the operation and spare potential embarrassment to Brown." Mackay refused.

The scenario is plausible enough, and the background is set out in Grey's book, Operation Snakebite.

If the operation had been successful – as was anticipated – Brown could have been accused of "political opportunism", attempting to bask in reflected glory. If the operation failed, or there had been a high number of civilian casualties (the greater fear), this could have proved embarrassing for Brown when he met president Karzai.

As to the accusation that No 10 sought to interfere, this is indeed flatly denied. A Downing Street spokesman states: "The suggestion that Downing Street asked for a delay, or indeed any change, to military plans in Afghanistan before the Prime Minister visited at the end of 2007 is utterly untrue."

So, who do we believe? Well, in his book, Grey publishes details of a meeting of "generals and civil servants" at the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall on 4 December 2007, when the attempt to interfere with the operation was supposedly made. With it due to start in three days time, he refers to an "official" (no more detail is given) asking: "Does it have to be so soon? Can't it all be delayed?"

There then appears to be a general discussion about the political implications of the coincidence of the operation with the prime minister's visit. Addressing the meeting via an intercom was General Nick Houghton, based at Joint Operations HQ in west London. He, according to Grey, was asked to "check back" with theatre and "see if there could be any slippage." But, Grey adds, "few expected anything to change".

From this narrative, several points emerge. Firstly, the "official" initially asking whether there could be a delay was not identified. Secondly, there was no mention of No 10 – in this or any other context. Third, there seems to have been a general discussion on the proposition, from which it can be inferred that a consensus was reached. Fourth, this "consensus" was translated into a request that Houghton "check back", couched in terms of "see if". This implies that this was an exploratory question – a query - and by no means a demand.

Finally, and crucially, Houghton was not at the meeting. He was communicating via the intercom from another location. He then – or perhaps even someone delegated by him - communicated with "theatre", although Grey does not specifically assert that anyone talked to or communicated directly with MacKay.

MacKay, of course, was in Afghanistan (as indeed was Grey at the time). If he was contacted directly or indirectly by Houghton or someone deputed to do so, how did MacKay know that the query came from No 10? This is not specified, all in the context of Grey himself making no mention of No 10.

Herein lies perhaps the crux. Most people are familiar with the joke of First World War vintage, recalling a message saying: "send reinforcements, we're going to advance." Garbled in transmission, it comes out as: "send three and fourpence (old money), we're going to a dance". A similar dynamic might be at play.

Deconstructing the key parts of the narrative, we have in London an unidentified official, a general discussion and a somewhat ambiguous "request" which could be construed as asking for information on options. What precisely was conveyed to MacKay in Afghanistan, by whom and in what circumstances, is not specified.

At the receiving end, however, it is quite possible – perhaps aided by ambiguous wording or even some embellishments – that MacKay believed he was being asked to delay the operation and the source of the request was No 10. But a belief does not make it so. MacKay could have been misled, or simply misunderstood what was being asked of him.

As to the meeting in Whitehall, it is quite possible that the issues discussed reflected concerns that political fall-out would reflect badly on the officials, and they would be blamed for not taking measures to mitigate potential problems.

Rather than being directed by No 10, therefore – and Grey makes no accusation as to Gordon Brown being aware of what went on - the officials could simply have been covering their own backs. What we know of the narrative is entirely compatible with officials seeking to establish that options had been considered, and for good reasons had been discarded.

In the event, Grey in his book does not record MacKay's (or anyone else's) response to any query. That the operation went ahead as planned is testament to the fact that the response to the Whitehall query was "no". In fact, Houghton need not have referred it to MacKay - he had the authority to say "no" then and there.

If he did refer what amounted to a "request for information" back to theatre, it would have been as a matter of "form", in full expectation that the answer would be "no". If MacKay, against all expectations, had said "yes", most likely Houghton would have told him to stop being a bloody fool and get on with it.

On that basis, although Grey asserts that MacKay was "furious to be asked by Downing Street if he could delay the operation", we have no context. And whatever message MacKay did receive, Grey relies on his recall, some time after the operation had finished.

Interestingly, nothing Grey asserts in relation to MacKay's actions and reaction is in quotes. The narrative is unsupported by direct (or any) evidence. Rather, it is based on hearsay and ex post facto recollections, relying heavily on a particular interpretation of what could be an ambiguous request, delivered via a fragmented communication system.

Yet there can be no disputing the seriousness of the charge made by The Sunday Times - that attempts were made to interfere with a military operation for political purposes. That is serious, a breach of the long-standing constitutional principle that politicians do not interfere with the conduct of military operations.

On the other hand, the newspaper seems to offer very slender grounds on which such a serious accusation is made. For one of such gravity, more would be expected. Without more evidence, healthy scepticism should apply.

COMMENT THREAD

Following on from Stephen Grey's critique of the campaign in Afghanistan, sociology professor Anthony King offers his own observations about the capabilities of the British Army, in a piece entitled "Why we're getting it wrong in Afghanistan".

King is an interesting observer, having carried out several studies of the British military, and he is thus better qualified than most to contribute to the ongoing – albeit limited – debate about the performance of the Army.

In framing his own critique, he picks up on Grey's identification of the role of the institutional culture of Britain's armed forces: "cracking on" - the unshakeable determination of Britain's troops. Says King, the British army's determination to "crack on" in Helmand may be brave, but foolish.

Grey is right, according to King, in asserting that the ethos of "cracking on" is the army's greatest quality; effective armies require fortitude and morale in order to endure the losses that they will inevitably suffer. Yet, as he notes, it may be the army's greatest weakness too.

King tells us that he has worked with the British armed forces for the last five years, watching them on operations in Kabul and Basra. From that experience, he says, it has become clear to me that the culture of "cracking on" may not mean merely that British troops from the Somme to Sangin have dutifully enacted orders which they know to be poor but, more seriously, it affects operational command itself.

Rather, he observes - as Grey notes - British commanders have blithely conducted missions in Helmand despite a woeful lack of intelligence about the theatre and knowingly inadequate military resources for any realistic chance of success.

Now follows King's analysis, which is more than a little illuminating. During their initial training at Sandhurst, he notes, army officers are taught to retain the initiative: when they are confronted by the immediate presence of an enemy, it is better to do the wrong thing decisively than to do nothing at all. Passivity almost always leads to defeat, while determined, concerted action - even if initially implausible - can often unhinge opponents.

Thus, on recurrent exercises primarily based on conventional warfare, the centrality of activity, of tempo and offensive action - of cracking on - is repeatedly emphasised to trainee officers. At the tactical level, this prioritisiation of action and initiative is surely correct, imbuing a robust work ethic in Britain's armed forces which is appreciated and valued by their allies, like the US. From the Balkans to Afghanistan, multinational commanders have looked to British troops to carry out tasks that other nations have been reluctant to perform.

The trouble is though that the same ethos of action is evident at staff college where officers are trained for operational command. Although the concept behind Britain's Joint Service Command and Staff College (created in 1997) was innovative, the institution was imbued with traditional British military culture. It was and remains a testament to "cracking on."

Giving students little time for thought and independent reading and research, the college seems to replicate a conventional military exercise in which the speed and quantity of output is prioritised over quality - and potentially incorrect action over cautious contemplation. The result is that Britain's operational commanders feel the need to act and impose themselves on any situation.

More worrying still, says King, British commanders often have a narrow concept of the ideal form of military action. Despite well-worn claims to expertise in counter-insurgency, the British army actually regards conventional military combat as the ideal - and indeed ultimate - test of their professionalism. Like Clausewitz's military genius, British officers today want to test themselves under "the most murderous fire."

This encourages the premature and excessive use of violence despite wider the political situation. In June 2008, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith judged the Taleban insurgency to have been defeated (at least temporarily) as a result of a series of decapitation missions by special forces he had commanded. But by the end of the tour in October, he took a rather different line, arguing that this was a campaign which could not be won by the very military methods which he had advocated only months earlier. British commanders are prone to confusing local tactical superiority with operational success.

Even now there are inadequate numbers of troops in Helmand. However, rather than tailor the campaign to their resources, commanders have consistently "cracked on"; seeking to dominate the whole of Helmand, a hostile province the size of Wales, with just a few thousand troops, and dispersing their forces across the province into small, isolated platoon and operating bases.

Even in the Sangin Valley, King observes, where there are several significant positions, the British bases cannot mutually support each other; they are too far apart, while Musa Qaleh is some twenty miles away to the north. As British commanders in Sangin have themselves noted, troops in these locations "sit in a bubble," and this inevitably means they are engaging in numerous firefights.

Institutional factors within the military establishment seem to have further encouraged this preference for "cracking on." Never easy, tensions between the services have become increasingly strained over the last decade as a result of declining defence budgets and, as they approach the future defence review in 2010, these frictions have reached a crisis point. Each service is desperately seeking to protect itself from cuts; furious and bitter arguments have been reported, with each service trying to undercut the other.

And intense tactical activity in Helmand has become a potent tool in this competition: it is very difficult to cut regiments that have fought hard and suffered numerous casualties in Helmand. Budgetary pressures, then, have actually precipitated a preference for high-intensity war-fighting in Helmand - a pathological institutional reaction to chronic under-funding, ministerial mismanagement and poor governmental guidance.

So, King asserts, a new Afghan strategy is essential - and the announcements from US General McChrystal and Gordon Brown at the end of August recognise this. However, their new strategy in Helmand also requires a reformation of Britain’s armed forces themselves.

The success of General Petraeus in Iraq rested finally on a common recognition by the US Army and Marine Corps that the way in which they trained, planned and conducted military operations required profound revision. In short, operational success demands institutional reform at home.

While valuable at the tactical level, the culture of "cracking on" needs to be expunged from operational command. The armed forces, the ministry of defence and government need to develop more mature criteria on which to assess the performance of commanders - judging them by their political contribution to the campaign, not by the number of air assault operations they have conducted.

There is some evidence that the British armed forces may be capable of this change, says King. In previous campaigns in Malaya and Northern Ireland, the British recognised, after false starts, that the key to success in counter-insurgency campaigns was the slow suppression of insurgency through intelligence, negotiation, the presence of adequate security forces and cross-governmental coordination.

The British now need to relearn these lessons very quickly. The alternative is that their commanders in Helmand will continue to disperse their forces in futile and blunt demonstrations - ensuring that they crack on to defeat not only in Helmand but at home, in the arena of public support, as well.

And that is the view of an academic, but one with a profound knowledge of the military. Rarely do I find myself reviewing a paper and ending up repeating it almost word for word. But with such a taut analysis, there is little "fat" and much to think about.

King's analysis, added to Grey's, and much more – including the recent observations in the British Army Review - all add up to the singular fact that the British Army is failing to perform.

While some less perspicacious observers prefer to direct their attention to the political management of recent campaigns, even the military seems to concede the need to rethink its operations, while the evidence mounts as to the scale of the failings.

COMMENT THREAD

Whether it was his intention or not, the overpowering impression conveyed by Michael Yon's most recent post is one of utter hopelessness.

We see small numbers of British troops, besieged in their own garrisons, completely under-resourced and unable to prevail, with the Taleban operating freely under their very noses, dominating the surrounding countryside.

What brings this home is Yon's description of the difficulty in transferring from the main operating base in Sangin – FOB Jackson – to the secondary base at Inkerman. Although only four miles away, walking or driving was not possible. Enemy control of the terrain is so complete in the area between Sangin and Kajaki than the route was deemed too dangerous. Helicopter lift is required.

However, writes Yon, we need more helicopters. The helicopter shortage is causing crippling delays in troop movements. It's common to see a soldier waiting ten days for a simple flight.

When Yon finally managed to get a seat, it did not take him direct to his destination. Instead, it flew probably eighty miles to places like Lashkar Gah, and finally set down at Camp Bastion. The helicopter journey from Jackson began on 12 August and ended at Inkerman on the 17th. About five days was spent - along with many thousands of dollars in helicopter time - to travel four miles.

At Inkerman, it is still mostly a gunfight, though the use of bombs is increasing. The base sits on the desert side of "highway" 611 that goes from Highway 1 (the "Ring Road") to Kajaki. The 611 marks the border between the deadly Green Zone and the desert. The road is almost completely controlled by the enemy. Only tiny patches of the 611 are under serious NATO/ISAF influence.

Some will take issue with this statement, Yon writes, then adding: "if they claim to be in control, they should readily accept the challenge to drive in an unarmoured car in those areas they claim to control."

Only two platoons are stationed at Inkerman, which means only one platoon at a time can leave the base. But using one platoon to cover this area is like trying to water a football pitch with a drop of water, Yon observes. The enemy fights just outside the base, even planting IEDs in view of the guard towers.

This is not the only base under pressure. There are several satellite FOBs and Patrol Bases, each of which is essentially cut off from the outside world other than by helicopter or major ground resupply efforts (which only take place about once a month).

The latest ground resupply effort from Camp Bastion resulted in much fighting. The troops up at Kajaki Dam are surrounded by the enemy, which has dug itself into actual "FLETs." FLET is military-speak for "Forward Line of Enemy Troops." In other words, the enemy is not hiding, but they are in trenches, bunkers and fighting positions that extend into depth. The enemy owns the terrain, writes Yon.

So different is this picture from that we see presented on the MoD website, for instance, that it is impossible to reconcile what we are told officially with what Yon tells us. But then, from the tip of the spear, we get this:

The soldiers keep streaming in from the mission. The Pentagon and British MoD spin lies (though I have found Secretary Gates talks straight), but veins of pure truth can be found right here with these soldiers. The Pentagon and MoD as a whole cannot be trusted because they are the average of their parts. There are individual officers and NCOs among the US and UK. who have always been blunt and honest with me. Among the higher ranking, Petraeus and Mellinger come to mind, but for day-to-day realities this is where it's at. Out here. Nothing coming from Kabul, London, or Washington should be trusted.

"Don't you know there's a bloody war on?" proclaims The Sun today, parading the "207 faces of our Afghanistan dead" (but not, of course, the faces of the Danish or Estonian dead). They are, declares the paper, "stark reminders of the bloody war we are fighting".

Immediately, it then rams home its favoured narrative – government baaaaad, Army gooood - developing the theme with a series of talking heads, each offering carefully crafted sound-bites all cherry-picked to support the narrative.

"Wounded heroes are fobbed off with pittances and generals are ignored when they beg for better kit. Our troops deserve better. Much, much better," we are told, the paper citing the great sage, Lord Guthrie, who points to a "scathing dossier on procurement disasters written by an experienced Labour defence adviser."

Three examples are given, the "Surveillance planes due in service by 2003 will not arrive until 2010, with the cost of each having risen from £100m to £400m", the "new battlefield radio developed at a cost of £2.4billion proved too heavy to carry and didn't work properly anyway" and a "new class of submarines due in service four years ago is not expected to arrive until next year after huge rises in cost."

Quite what the relevance of a "new class of submarines" is to the "bloody war" in land-locked Afghanistan is not explained to the readers, the Bowman radio problems are largely sorted and as for the "surveillance planes", these are the Nimrod MR4s which are not intended for land surveillance in Afghanistan.

Their role (previously provided by the MR2s – which were a highly unsatisfactory stop-gap) is being provided by a combination of other assets, including the Hermes, Predator and Reaper UAVs, the Shadow R-1, the Sentinel and Rivet Joint.

That The Sun is playing mind games is further illustrated by its follow-up assertion that, "... we already know that life-saving armoured vehicles were stuck in Dubai for want of planes to take them to Helmand." This is the Ridgeback saga and, as we already know, the delay in fielding these vehicles has nothing to do with a shortage of "planes". It was the Army's decision to delay deployment until the next roulement, against the wishes of the politicians who wanted them fielded immediately.

The issue here is that The Sun knows this as well but, in pursuit of its cheapskate Punch 'n' Judy narrative, such an inconvenient fact does not fit with the message the paper is trying to convey. And, we already know that when a fact does not fit the story, the answer is to change the fact.

Everything, of course, must be expressed in terms of personalities, so on is also wheeled General Sir Anthony Walker, former deputy CDS to fulminate about the "shame of politicians". Thus does Walker have it: "...our gallant troops, excellently led in Afghanistan, are under-resourced and poorly directed by the MoD. The quality of the ministerial and bureaucratic team in the MoD is woeful. Even the Secretary of State is widely known as Bob Ainsworthless on ARRSE, the Army internet chatroom."

This sort of sniping is hardly worthy of a General, retired or otherwise, especially as the military establishment is so quick to condemn Labour "smears" against one of their own, General Dannatt, who departs from his post today as CGS.

Would that we could see some balance, such as that offered by Stephen Grey, but that is not The Sun's style. It has a narrative to sell and nothing must get in the way of that.

That a tabloid should play to the gallery in this manner is, of course, no surprise but what is less acceptable is that its low-grade analysis is endorsed by apparently serious politicians such as John Redwood. He notes with approval that the paper "asks the right questions".

That rather illustrates the level of commitment from our politicians, and especially Mr Redwood who has never knowingly attended a defence debate, yet is now so expert in his pronouncements.

Taking on The Sun however, is not on the agenda. This is the publication which claims to be "proud to be the Forces' paper." It tells us, "We admire their astonishing courage and weep for their dead and injured. But they need the right kit. They need money. They need to feel their Government is behind them."

It would be helpful also if the media was behind them, supporting them intelligently instead of using them as a political football and exploiting their needs to promote their own sales. And it would be even more helpful if the politicians could see through the hypocrisy of the media and define their own agenda. But then you can't have everything.

COMMENT THREAD

"The more focus there is on great military offensives, the faster the money and blood is expended; and the greater the pressure for rapid results, the less chance there is that the fight will ever be won," writes Stephen Grey – author of Snake Bite - in the current edition of Prospect Magazine.

This may contradict the siren calls for more troops in theatre, but Grey's argument has an ineluctable logic. It starts with him assessing the psychology of the Army, the ability to "crack on" - its greatest quality and perhaps its greatest weakness. Commendable in adversity, it can also mean failing to challenge impossible orders, or unwillingness to expose a flawed strategy.

Many, in fact, believe the Helmand campaign to be flawed, a view expressed by a "senior Whitehall figure" who declared that Helmand "was a terrible strategic blunder." His views were not uncommon. Citing the plentiful material support in Vietnam, where there was no shortage of helicopters, Grey himself observes that, "unless the strategy is fixed, reinforcement could well make things worse."

The rot started with the fallacy that the campaign was more of a conventional than a guerrilla war (which explains the initial enthusiasm from an Army bogged down in Iraq) leading to the "mowing the lawn" sweeps which were viewed as a positive outcome, as they would have been in a traditional war.

The "lie" was exposed by Brigadier Andrew Mackay who used the recapture in December 2007 of Musa Qala to engineer a turning point. It was no good destroying a town and then arriving afterwards with cement mixers or wads of cash, as US doctrine seemed to imply. Thus, the aim was to take the town without knocking it down and by persuading the Taleban to flee, not fight.

A plan for reconstruction was devised to begin on "day one" after the town's recapture, and a battalion of Afghan troops was earmarked to garrison the town, with Nato troops kept out.

The military did its bit, taking the town with minimal civilian casualties but, as Anthony Loyd pointed out in the following July, the reconstruction was botched. The civilian agencies, including Britain's foreign office and development department, and the Afghan government came nowhere near to doing their part.

Beyond this, though Grey looks at a dimension we rarely consider – the idea of talking to the enemy to discover their motives. He also explores the need to avoid the indiscriminate killing of "Taleban" leaders. As has been rehearsed on this blog, the Taleban is not a homogenous, hierarchical group.

Through the eyes of an Irish EU official, Michael Semple, and another Irishman, Mervyn Patterson, Grey tells us that the Teleban of southern Afghanistan, was made up of bands of competing fighters, driven to fight more by a sense of tribe and nation than religious ideology. The US decision to demonise their leaders had prevented many from retiring, or switching sides. Instead they had been driven into Pakistan, where they had regrouped and forged closer ties to the remnants of al Qaeda.

"Reconciliation," Semple found, was possible and a process was initiated, effectively to be sabotaged by president Karzai. Had the British and their allies understood what was going on (and supported it), this - says Grey - might have stopped much of the fighting in the first place.

Ignorance, however, seems to have exerted itself in other malign ways, leading the newly-arrived British army unwittingly to blunder into the opium "turf wars", ending up in Sangin backing the drug mafia and driving rival tribal groups into the hands of the Taleban. British and US special forces campaigns to "decapitate" their leadership have made this worse, effectively eliminating the very people who could ultimately reconcile the insurgent groups.

Thus, while foreign secretary David Miliband now supports new talks with the enemy, three years of battles - which the Taleban were always said to lose – have brought a doubling in insurgent numbers in Helmand, making the kind of engagement which might have worked in 2006 much harder. Belated as it is, it still needs to be tried, writes Grey.

Now, farmers who last year might have supported the coalition are more likely to turn to producing IEDs and the area to the west of the province's capital Lashkar Gah has become a "Taleban stronghold." Retaking it has been the central objective of coalition troops, the British-led operation "Panther's Claw" having made a "land grab" akin to the operations of 2006.

Brigadier Tim Radford, the British taskforce commander, is "absolutely certain" that Panther's Claw has been a success. Lessons have been learned. A new swathe of land has been brought under government control - and it will be held.

Like many of us, Grey is sceptical. Nato has nothing like the troop strength to garrison the province and British troops, he asserts, meanwhile, "remain overstretched" in the zones they have held since before the summer. The Afghan army is not ready to step up and the Afghan government is not able to provide officials capable of delivering the security and services that might win over those infamous hearts and minds.

Musa Qala showed that there is little point winning ground for an Afghan government regarded as corrupt and unable to deliver basic security. "The problem with our approach this summer," one senior western official told Grey, "is that Afghanistan is neither willing nor capable of taking over the areas that Nato troops have captured … It's a fiction that they'll soon be ready."

On the domestic front, Grey sees no particular room for optimism either. He tells of how Whitehall officials seethed at what they regarded as General Dannatt's opportunism in using recent casualties to spread the blame for three years of bloody stalemate. As seen from London or Washington, the story of Helmand was more often of commanders who pushed soldiers into harm's way, sent back endlessly optimistic reports, and extended the conflict beyond the resources and political will available back home.

Their complaint, says Grey, has merit. Politicians dispatched troops to Afghanistan, but Nato generals decided how to deploy them. Most of the crucial decisions - from sending troops to defend the platoon houses, to "mowing the lawn," to Panther's Claw - have been made by soldiers. If an operation was launched with insufficient troops (or helicopters) it should not have been launched at all.

As to the US approach of "clear, hold and build", Grey dismisses it as "a tactic, not a strategy." It leaves unanswered just how much of this vast, lawless country should be cleared and held. There have already been calls for tens of thousands of more troops. Yet all of these dreamed-of reinforcements would never be enough to garrison all the areas of rebellion, never mind the whole country. Unlike in Iraq, we have reinforced before we know how to win.

The answer – or one of them – is to recognise that western intervention has limited value. Not all enemies can be dealt with at once. Do not reach for military action as the first response and pick our battles more carefully. Doing fewer things better - and letting the world know about them - can have greater effect than pouring more troops into an extended offensive.

Britain, says Gray, can still do good if it learns deeper lessons from its campaign. Its armed intervention should be concentrated on smaller areas, with a much greater emphasis on local intelligence. This must go hand-in-hand with economic development, and above all matching the scale of the mission with the resources available.

To this, we would add one caveat – nothing long-term can succeed unless the military manages to stem the flow of casualties. Without that, there is no long-term for British involvement. As we observed earlier, we have to deal with the IED.

COMMENT THREAD

On the one hand, the current edition of the New Statesman gives space to current defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, who tells us that opposing war in Afghanistan is "defeatism" The war in Afghanistan is too important to be reduced to a political football. We are fighting there to protect our national security, he says.

On the other hand, in a long editorial, the same magazine opines that, "Our military presence in Afghanistan is part of the problem, not the solution." Britain should follow Canada's lead and set a date for withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is time we accepted that we are losing this war.

Ainsworth would have it that British troops know they are in Afghanistan to prevent the country becoming a haven for terrorists, as it was in 2001. But they are also motivated by the plight of the people they are fighting alongside. They understand clearly why they are there and the progress they are making.

He then observes that "this sense of purpose and momentum has not translated to the home front in the way that it might have," continuing with the lament:

Despite the huge influx of US and other Nato troops, despite the focus of the Obama administration and the recent success of operations in Helmand, some in the UK believe the fight is not worth it. This defeatism has been exacerbated by political arguments about British troop levels, vehicles and helicopters that often misunderstand the nature of coalition warfare.

It was to combat al-Qaeda that British forces first entered Afghanistan in 2001. That was a limited commitment. Five lives were lost in the first five years. Then, in 2006, when the troop numbers rose dramatically, the British headed south to Helmand with a mission described by the then defence secretary, John Reid, as being "to support reconstruction", but which has shifted constantly.

Others have spoken since of the need to support the Afghan government. Or to lift the war-torn country out of poverty. Or to fight the growth of the world opium trade that is centred in Helmand. Or, as is the official line now, to secure the country from a revival of al-Qaeda. "If we can't even get straight why we're there, how can we get straight our strategy to win?" one UK battalion commander said to me recently.

One truly wonders whether Bob Ainsworth is aware of the cynicism with which his statement is greeted in informed circles when he blithely tells us that conditions are improving in Afghanistan, based on the "message" he got "in Afghanistan when I visited last week".

One recalls the then newly appointed defence secretary Des Bowne visiting Basra on 18 May 2006, when he declared, "Basra is calm and British forces are working hand in hand with their Iraqi and coalition partners. Suggestions that the city is, in someway, out of control are ridiculous." Two weeks later, Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki announced a state of emergency in Basra, in a bit to contain the escalating violence.

Recalling also Stephen Grey's evidence to the Commons Defence Committee last week, one thus simply speculates how long the "lines-to-take book" was this time. The new defence secretary will have been told what he wanted to hear, and shown that which was convenient to show him, upon which basis he delivers the "upbeat" message that he was always going to deliver anyway – whether he had been to Afghanistan or not.

So taken with Grey's evidence was Jim Greenhalf that he was moved to write his own post on it, observing that much of what was said was worthy of the front page of The Sunday Times.

Anyhow, Ainsworth has delivered his own message to Chatham House today in a keynote speech which was delivered shortly after death of another soldier had been announced, the seventh in a week and the 176th to die since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001.

His response to those casualties is charted by The Daily Telegraph which tells us, "More British soldiers will be killed in Afghanistan and there is no end in sight to the campaign, Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary has warned." He adds, "Let us be under no illusion. The situation in Afghanistan is serious - and not yet decided. The way forward is hard and dangerous. More lives will be lost and our resolve will be tested."

So much of the rest of the speech is the usual FCO/MoD extruded verbal material that the only rational thing to do is to glide softly by, although there is some merit in comparing the defence secretary's views with the critique by Matt Waldman, who has some sensible and realistic things to say but, in other ways, is part of the problem.

Of special interest to this blog, however, is Ainsworth's frontal assault on the media criticism of the Viking and other poorly protected vehicles in theatre. "Every effort is being made to increase protection - such as the introduction of Mastiff and Ridgeback troop carriers, the improved armour on Viking and Jackal vehicles, and the more heavily armoured Warthog vehicles coming in 2010," he says, continuing with the "line-to-take" supplied by the military:

With this suite of vehicles military commanders will deploy their assets according to the tactical situation on the ground. But as we develop measures to counter a threat like IEDs, so our enemies adapt - for instance by building higher yield bombs to overcome heavier armour. So let us be clear, sacrificing manoeuvre for heavy armour in every circumstance is not the answer.

We are doing everything we can to counter the IED threat at source. Our forces are finding and diffusing these bombs. But tellingly, they are also concentrating on the networks and the people building them and supplying the technology, the parts and the know-how.

We are getting inside the production process - some in the military call this approach 'getting left of the bang'. When we target the bomb makers and take out the capacity to produce, we cut the threat. Getting left of the bang will save lives - of our troops - and of the Afghans themselves.

The latest news from Afghanistan is of a third soldier being killed yesterday, making five in less than a week and bringing the total to 174 dead. The latest casualty is another from the Welsh Guards, killed while on foot by a "contact explosion". He was taking part in a "deliberate operation" near Gereshk, as part of Operation Panthers Claw.

Given the intensity of operations and the hazards of war, it is inevitable that we are seeing a spike in the casualty rate and, to put it in perspective, the current losses are modest compared with most other campaigns.

We are told, of course, that in war, "risks must be taken" - usually by the people who are not taking them. But that risk must be balanced by the rewards. If the operation in Afghanistan was succeeding, with progress towards a stable, peaceful and prosperous country – with our expenditure of blood and treasure really making the difference – then we could concede that it has been worth it.

Not so, says Stephen Grey, freelance journalist and author of the bestselling book Snakebite, who recently gave evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee on the "Comprehensive Approach" – the supposedly co-ordinated inter-agency system which is tasked with bringing peace and re-development to Afghanistan.

"We owe it to all those that are sacrificing themselves in Helmand, to be brutally frank about what is going on there and what is going wrong," Grey tells the Committee, "because it is only with that frankness that I think certain things can be put right."

One admires his optimism as he then goes on to declare that, "From the perspective of those on the ground, I think the Comprehensive Approach has largely been a parody of reality. In some ways the failure to get that right has done as much to stir up conflict and cause what is happening as it has to bring peace to Afghanistan, which surely is the ultimate objective there."

Taking a measured look at that statement, Grey is telling us that the upsurge of violence in Helmand province is a result of our presence there, and that, in effect, the 174 lives lost, the hundreds more injured and the expenditure to date – over £3 billion on the military effort alone – has achieved precisely nothing. In fact, it has made matters worse.

Stephen's full evidence can be read here and needs to be read carefully by anyone who wishes to gain a greater understanding of what is going on out there.

So inadequate and ill-co-ordinated are our efforts that, according to a soldier who has e-mailed Grey with his views, the sentiment that most accurately summarises our efforts is "a sense of total lack of delivery of promises." The view is that "very little of what is talked about is actually being put into practice."

"All we really did," says this soldier, "was to fight and kill the Taliban." He adds: "The numbers are staggering, and why is that? Because we are good at it, structured for it and resourced for it, but that should not be the centre of gravity of our efforts."

Indeed it should not be the centre of gravity of our efforts and one remedy that Grey offers is "roads". More specifically, he says:

... there are ways of tailoring development projects so that they can be both doable in terms of advancing security and development, for example, road building. Roads are much more difficult to completely destroy than a new clinic, for example. They both enhance security and they boost the economy, allowing people, for example, to take legitimate crops to market as well as allowing a much more efficient security deployment.

Two days ago, Yorkshire Post columnist Bernard Dineen ventured his opinion on Snatch Land Rovers and the court case to be mounted by families of soldiers killed in these vehicles.

"The Government" and "the MoD", he ventured, are too diffuse a target. "Lawyers acting for the families should instead be suing Gordon Brown personally because he is directly responsible. Five former Chiefs of Staff stood up in the House of Lords and laid the blame on his behaviour during his time as Chancellor of the Exchequer."

This is a classic example of the low-grade personality politics to which we referred in a recent piece, where the media relies on a pre-determined narrative in order to analyse and comment on events, rather than develop arguments based on objective evidence.

Looking at the broader issues, there are more serious problems in the military than the Snatch - or its deployment - and, if we accept that the UK and its military are at a critical moment, then there are two options for dealing with the situation. One is precisely that taken by the bulk of the media, embodied in the Dineen approach – the "route of least resistance". This is to pass blame for all shortcomings onto a lame duck government, specifically Gordon Brown as the embodiment of the government.

That is certainly the view of Major Patrick Little, a recently retired infantry officer and Advanced Command and Staff graduate. His second option, though, is obviously to be preferred. That is for the British Army specifically and defence more generally to turn the critical mirror on itself. This mirror, he writes in the current edition of the RUSI Journal ...

... will lead to an acknowledgement of shortcomings. It will demonstrate unequivocally a willingness to learn, pay the price of failings, and a determination to adapt.

The military, as currently constituted, is a deeply dysfunctional organisation, not least evidenced by its state of denial over its performance in Iraq. It is also one which – as CDS Jock Stirrup admitted in January - was "smug and complacent" about prosecuting counter-insurgency warfare, relying too much on its experiences in Northern Ireland – the lessons of which it did not even apply properly.

It is also a military which, as Stirrup also admitted, has yet to complete a "fundamental reappraisal" of Britain's counter-insurgency training and structures and which, as we have seen recently, seems unable to foster a "spirit of informed debate" when it comes to reviewing its own performance.

Furthermore, despite some reputed high-fliers and intellectual heavyweights in the middle ranks, this is a military that has been unable to come up with a coherent strategy for the prosecution of the counter-insurgency in Afghanistan, is (still) making a complete mess of its equipment procurement and is unable to mesh with US doctrines.

General Sir Richard Dannatt ... has presided over the diminished reputation of the Army of which he is so proud. He needs to look to his own lack of strategic leadership, and his failures to grasp the nettle of turning the Army into an effective counter-insurgency force.

As for the Army generally (and the military as a whole to a lesser extent), it needs to come to terms with quite how much its reputation has been diminished and how much goodwill it has lost – and is losing through the inept handing of the "information war" which is so much part of any counter-insurgency campaign.

The worst is, the longer and deeper the military remains in its current state of denial, blaming anyone and anything but itself for its own shortcomings, the worse it will get. Already, the MoD publicity effort is a parody of itself. The way it is going, the rest of the military will follow, to become a tarnished asset and a shadow of its former glory.

It was never the case that the MoD was going to take the charge of lying without attempting a comeback and, sure enough, after Stephen Grey's piece in The Guardian that we looked at last week, Nick Gurr, the MoD's Director of Media and Communications, has tried his hand at a rebuttal on the MoD website.

Addressing the issues that the "MOD is restricting access to conflict zones" and that journalists have been "lied to and censored", Gurr deals with each in turn.

The points he makes on the access issue look eminently reasonable, stating the obvious – that air transport to theatre is limited and that there is an increasing demand for media access, which cannot be met. Gurr would have it that the MoD is doing its best, the number of media visits to operational theatres (Iraq and Afghanistan) having increased from 152 in the year to Oct 2007 to 246 in the year to May 2009. For Afghanistan during the same period they rose from 90 to 116 - an increase of more than 25 percent.

What Gurr does not say though is that much of the increase is through a programme of encouraging reporters from regional and local papers to follow their home regiments – ranks of very often inexperienced and compliant journalists, many of whom (not all) who lack specialist knowledge and thus are easy prey for the military propaganda machine.

An example of this comes with a recent piece from Harry Miller of the Surrey Comet, writing about a re-supply mission to a patrol base 2km west of the Musa Qala District Centre.

He travels with the 3 Scots in "some of the newly delivered Jackal armoured vehicles, used for reconnaissance, rapid assault, fire support and convoy protection." These, presumably, are the Jackal 2s, the virtues of which Miller extols, telling us that, "The new design of the vehicles has meant that Improvised Explosive Devices are having less of the desired effect and crews are much more likely to survive the impact with only minimal injuries."

Following on from Harding's piece on 1 June, expressing "safety concerns" about the Jackals, no self-respecting specialist defence correspondent would have written such an uncritical piece.

For the MoD to have got Miller to have written such a glowing testament – which could only have been repeating what he had been told – was, therefore, something of a coup, representing hard core propaganda from an unwitting journalist.

Yet, four days after the piece was published, Major Sean Burchall was killed – the most senior British Army officer to date in Afghanistan – in a Jackal. It may well have been a Jackal 2. Yet, while the MoD is happy to see "puffs" for the Jackal, when it comes to bad publicity for the machine, the MoD website is curiously silent.

Throughout the piece on Burchall's death, there is no mention of the Jackal, reference being made only to "armoured vehicles", a description which would not normally be applied to this equipment.

To favour relatively impressionable reporters, which then justifies restricting more frequent access by experienced journalists, and then to omit details of the Jackal in the press release, cannot be called lying or anything so obvious. But these are nonetheless classic examples of how the MoD seeks to manipulate the message to the public.

Gurr, however, claims that the MoD "wants the media to see first hand the efforts of our forces in Afghanistan", to which effect he argues that "our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines are our best advocates," on which basis it is "in our interests to get the media there to see it for themselves." We owe it to our forces to ensure their story is told, adds Gurr.

In fact, though, the MoD's prime concern is to get the media to report the "story" it wants them to report. Those journalists who are compliant find that the MoD cannot be too helpful. Those who question the official line find that all sorts of difficulties arise when they want access to theatre or want to talk to people on the ground.

If this is the subtle – and deniable – end of media control, the plain lie is also a tool of the trade. But, to be credible, the lie must be denied. Thus does Gurr aver, "We don't tell lies. We are not allowed to." Of course, this is a lie.

We have far too many examples of outright lies from the MoD to believe otherwise – from the denial that there was major fighting in al Amarah during the height on the Mahdi uprising in 2005, to the false expectations raised on the conduct of Operation Sinbad in late 2007 to the falsehoods perpetrated over the recovery of Musa Qala, pretending that it was an Afghan-led operation.

The strict definition of the lie, however, encompasses more than just the telling of an untruth. It takes in not only the act, but default or sufferance – the processes of allowing untruths to be perpetuated for want of interventions that would correct them.

These are the common fare of the MoD but its tenuous grasp of the meaning of truth leads it further down the path of deception than can be imagined. One classic – and frequently employed stratagem – is to keep quiet about operations which would be of interest to specialists, using its own staff or journalists to cover the events and then only to publish the details if they go to plan – whatever the plan was.

That was the strategy adopted with Operation Sond Chara (Operation Red Dagger), over Christmas last. No embeds were present through the whole operation and only a very carefully sanitised version was released to the public.

The same goes, of course, for the deaths of individual soldiers. Stephen Grey complained that there was less coverage of British deaths than they deserve because the MOD was not getting journalists to the front line. Gurr disagrees, declaring that his organisation produces detailed eulogies "for all our people who are killed in action." That might be the case but, as we have seen with Major Burchall, the releases published by the MoD rarely include any significant operational detail.

For all Gurr's protests, though, he himself is most revealing about the real agenda. "There is a good story to be told in Afghanistan about all the things our forces are achieving in the toughest part of the theatre," he writes. "We want this story told and we want journalists there to help tell it." The journalists are there to tell the "good" story, and it is Gurr's job to make that happen.

COMMENT THREAD

Penetrating the closed – and frequently inept – minds of the MoD publicity team is a task best not attempted by the faint-hearted. But, to judge from their output on Afghanistan, no lessons have been learned from Iraq and the same dire publicity model is still in place.

The latest example of this is seen on the MoD website, where we get classic tale of derring-do from "Our Boys" in a style that would put snake-oil salesmen to shame.

That is not in any way to denigrate our troops, or to question their dedication – merely the treatment of their activities by the MoD publicity machine. For, what the very stupid people in this department do not seem to be able to understand is the a constant diet of gushingly-phrased "good news", in the absence of context and without any reference to the things that did not go so well, is not information but propaganda.

And so you might say that it is not the job of the MoD website to put the whole picture. It's job – certainly in the view of the team – is to put out a positive message, countering the negativity of the media. What they seem to forget is that this site is financed by the taxpayer. PR is fine for private sector corporates, but the duty of a tax-funded site is to provide public information, not "spin".

In this case, the "positive message" covers the week-long Operation Zafar, conducted recently by the Mercian Regiment and elements of the Afghan National Army, to push the Taliban out of several villages in the area of Basharan, close to Lashkar Gah. This seems a logical extension of Operation Sond Chara which began in mid-December last year, aimed at cleaning the Nad-e Ali district.

That operation itself, planned at short notice after the attempted take-over of Lashkar Gah by the Taleban in the October (described by the MoD as "recent attacks") was publicised without any real explanation of the broader strategic context. That is again the case with Operation Zafar. It "plops" out as a stand-alone operation, with no indication that it is part of an overall plan – if indeed it is.

But then, this is not about informing the reader. The message we are supposed to take from this piece is immediately evident from the framing, which heavily emphasises the role of the ANA (and the ANP), complete with a glowing testimonial from Mercian CO, Lt-Col Simon Banton. He tells us that, " … the Warriors of the Afghan Army proved to be seasoned fighters and fought hard to provide security in this part of their own country."

Later from Lt-Col Banton, we also get: "This operation was another example of the progress being made by the Afghanistan National Army. They proved to be flexible, committed and brave. On more than one occasion it was touch and go as the enemy fought hard but the Afghan Warriors did not retreat."

All this may be true, but it also has the hallmarks of an I/O (Information Operation), the nature of which was revealed by author Stephen Grey, where the coalition PR machine sought to convey that the operation to recover Musa Qala had been ANA-led, even to the extent of hiding coalition men and vehicles for the photographs of Afghan forces raising the flag in the town after it had been stormed by US and British forces.



A very similar PR strategy was adopted during the Iraqi occupation, with the spin machine taking every opportunity to talk up the capabilities of the Iraqi Army, even when it was evident – and later proved – that the formations being hyped were seriously deficient and incapable of independent operations. The ulterior motive, of course, was to pave the way for the withdrawal of British troops, predicated on the legend that the insurgency there was an "Iraqi problem", which needed an Iraqi solution.

Such a view of this current operation may be overly cynical and even wholly distorted, but candid views are hard to find. However, we do occasionally get some clues, and the video (above) tells you a great deal more. The MoD has its reality, but it does not necessarily belong to this planet.

COMMENT THREAD

Having in December 2007 followed the Musa Qala operation as best we could at the time, it is of more than usual interest that a book has been published, offering the first detailed account of what went on.

This is Operation Snakebite written by Sunday Times journalist Stephen Grey, described as "the explosive true story of an Afghan desert siege".

For those who enjoy the "war book" genre, this is a stonking good read. It is finely crafted, with a well-structured narrative and a good mixture of characterisation, description and fact to keep the reader turning the pages to the very end. It also provides a valuable historical account of an at times horrifying story – as the blurb puts it – "of a war which has gone largely unnoticed back home."

The reason it has gone "largely unnoticed", of course, is that the MoD not only avoided telling anyone about it, but put a security block on the official publication of details, which left the MoD website devoid of information, with journalists contacting the Taleban on their mobile telephones to get details of the operation.

Courtesy of Grey, we now know that there were several reasons for the MoD's reticence, one being the coincidental visit of Gordon Brown to Camp Bastion. With the largest operation then to have been mounted in Helmand Province and with the outcome far from certain, officials were concerned that news of the operation might detract from the prime minister's visit, especially if there were casualties.

But the major reason, Grey tells us, was that both the British and the Americans had decided that this was to be an I/O – an "information operation" – otherwise known as a propaganda exercise. The intention was to convey to the outside world that this was an operation led by the Afghanis, assisted by coalition forces.

As a result, we had the bizarre scene of the "capture" of the town centre being photographed by the MoD's Defence Combat Camera Team, showing jubilant Afghani troops raising their national flag. British and US forces who had fought their way into the town, after periods of intense combat, were forced to hide their vehicles and keep out of sight for the fiction to be perpetrated.

The fighting by the coalition forces, the lead up to the operation and the political background, are well-described by Grey, leaving the reader under no illusions that this major operation was almost entirely a coalition effort, made possible by the injection of massive US forces, including elements of the US 82nd Airborne Division, which paved the way for the assault with a daring, if risky, helicopter assault.

Behind this operation are the political machinations, both Afghani and military, which lends a conspiratorial overtone to the book, lifting it above the ordinary "war book", giving it more depth than would be expected from this genre.

With a highly informative account of the history of Helmand to open the book, this makes this a rounded narrative, which culminates in a short analytical chapter which tries to set the operation in the broader context of the counter-insurgency operation in Afghanistan.

Of special interest is Grey's detail of the number of mine strikes suffered by British forces, one of which he witnessed, giving a moving and personal edge to the account, which benefited from his presence as an embedded reporter and his personal knowledge and friendships with some of his subjects. He also notes that the King's Royal Hussars were equipped with Mastiffs, with the squadron taking fourteen IED hits, suffering no serious injuries – although does not link the two issues.

There is also a graphic and detailed account of the intervention of USAF AC-130H Spectres in the final stages of the assault on Musa Qala, a role which Grey describes as "decisive", confirming the utility of these airborne gunships as a battle-winning weapon - something of which British procurement officials should take note.

Despite its vibrancy as a book however and an amount of technical detail, Grey is obviously at the limit of his knowledge when it comes to Army equipment. At one point, he describes a Sultan APC as a "light tank" and an Afghani Army truck as a "Bedford" when it is an International 7400 truck. These and other minor points suggest that Grey is more of a "people" man and lacks a wider understanding of military issues.

That, to an extent, is also reflected in his analysis, which tends to be superficial and derivative. He perhaps over-reliant on the opinions of those he interviews – of which there are an impressive number, in excess of 200. Despite his access to top-ranking military officials, though, he makes very little use of them - and we thus do not see enough of Grey's own thoughts in terms of evaluating their responses.

This is not necessarily a weakness if your expectations are of a well-written historical narrative, in which Grey the journalist excels, aided by superb maps, illustrations and photographs. One important omission though is an index, which limits the utility of the book to serious students of the Afghani campaign.

That notwithstanding, for what it is, it is a valuable and important addition to the growing library of works beginning to emerge from the campaign and is an essential read for anyone who seeks a better understanding of what is indeed "a war which has gone largely unnoticed back home."

COMMENT THREAD

There is too much happening in this damn world for any one individual even to be able to start giving a coherent picture. That makes our masthead statement rather forlorn, where we offer to "discuss issues related to the UK's position in Europe and the world".

Inevitably, therefore, choices have to be made and, with limited resources, we can do only so much. Thus when things are being covered elsewhere, we tend to leave them, unless we have something to say which we feel adds value. Instead, we often try to focus on issue we believe important which are not getting the coverage they should.

For that reason, we return again to the subject of Afghanistan. It is not the only important issue in the world or the UK, and it is not the most important. But it is fair to say that, relative to its actual importance – both internationally and domestically – the coverage of the issues is dangerously slight. In our own limited way, therefore, we feel the need to redress the balance.

Of particular concern is one issue pointed out on our forum, in relation to yesterday's Dispatches programme, and the comments by our soon to be Chief of the General Staff, Gen David Richards about our ability to admit our mistakes and learn from them.

Asked by Stephen Grey why Americans speak so candidly about things that go wrong, but in Britain "every operation... seems to be a success", Richards suggests that the Americans "have the confidence and resources, to correct the errors that they identify." In the British camp, however, Richards admits that he is "not certain we always feel that we're going to, so we tend to plug on and hope that we'll find a way through our problems."

This, from such a senior military officer is a startling admission which, with the other responses from Stirrup and Dannatt, suggest that there are institutional failings within the military which far transcend the individual errors that we have seen and reported.

One of the major problems here, though, is the contemporary media and political narrative, which positions the military as the "heroes", with the gallant generals – Dannatt in particular – standing up for "Our Boys" against the venal and incompetent politicians, who are also charged with "lacking military experience".

In the general context of personality politics, therefore, we have a scenario where every failing or shortcoming – real or perceived – is laid at the door of the politicians, and most often at the figurehead, prime minister Blair and now Gordon Brown.

We would not even begin to suggest that either and both of these did not bear a very great responsibility for the disasters we are experiencing. However, this one-dimensional narrative enables the Service Chiefs to float serenely above the fray. They can thus make blunder after blunder, in the certain knowledge that their political masters will take the flak, leaving them free to repeat the same mistakes or invent new ones – completely unchallenged.

One slight sign that perception is changing comes from, of all people, Con Couglin in his blog, not that you would not guess this from the title of the piece, which proclaims "Government incompetence is destroying the British Army's reputation." The sting is in the tail though, where Coughlin writes:

It's not just that we don't have enough "force enablers" - armoured vehicles and helicopters, the government has also failed to provide sufficient force levels to adequately secure the southern Afghan province. As a consequence the Americans - as happened in Iraq - are now having to send their own troops to help bail us out. As a result the proud reputation of our military for delivering results on the battlefield lies in tatters. All those responsible for this appalling state of affairs, whether in the government or the military, should hang their heads in shame.

… Gates showed his slow but palpable alienation from the so-called iron triangle of defense contractors, lawmakers and military service executives that has long promoted building the best weapons systems, no matter what the price. In the future, he said, weapons should be engineered to counter "the actual and prospective capabilities of known future adversaries," not what a potential adversary might create with "unlimited time and resources."

It was difficult not to be impressed by the "Mission Impossible?" Dispatches documentary on Channel 4 last night, not least for the galaxy of military "stars" that journalist Stephen Grey managed to interview – including Jock Stirrup, CDS, and Richard Dannatt, CGS.

However, as I suggested in my post on Sunday, such high-level access comes at a price, and the MoD would have driven a hard bargain to allow such prestigious interviews to have gone ahead.

This would not amount to anything as crude as an attempt to shape the editorial content of the programme, but the deal was undoubtedly in terms of what was left out, or left unsaid. That left Grey, rather cleverly I thought, to say on the Channel 4 website, "I will leave viewers to judge for themselves what these men have to say."

If we were intended to read between the lines, that was not difficult as they were far apart enough to drive a Challenger II between them. And, if there was a message to be read from that exercise, it was not a happy one. Certainly, what I took from it was an impression of uncertain objectives, lack of strategic direction, a confused chain of command, disastrous tactics, lack of resources and inadequate equipment.

Nor can we be assured that this is in the past, although it what there that the heavy hand of the MoD was probably at its most oppressive. We were allowed a backwards glimpse at the chaos, but there was very little analysis of where we stand at present, or what the future prospects might be.

Such was the detail, however, that we are going to have to come back to this for a more thorough analysis. But what was most striking of the early part of the programme was the rehashing of the story of the disastrous "platoon house" policy of 2006, the film centring on the events at Musa Qala, culminating in its retaking the year before last, largely by US forces.

We were also reminded that there were four such platoon houses, the other three at Sangin, Geresht, and Now Zad. We mentioned the latter briefly in February 2007, referring to the epic struggle of the Gurkhas at that site.

However, while we got the history of Musa Qala, nothing was said of Now Zad. But, yesterday evening we received the daily picture update from the DoD which, by complete coincidence, offered the photograph shown above, with the following narrative:

US Marines with 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment conduct an operation in Now Zad, Afghanistan, April 3, 2009. Residents have abandoned Now Zad, a village in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, because of the strong insurgent presence. The Marines, assigned to a ground combat element of Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force – Afghanistan, are conducting operations to help the Afghans regain control of the area. (DoD photo by Gunnery Sgt. James A. Burks, U.S. Marine Corps/Released)

In Afghanistan, an Air Force B-1B Lancer bomber destroyed an anti-Afghan forces staging area and several enemy positions in the area around Now Zad using guided bomb unit -31s and -38s. Enemy forces had targeted coalition units using heavy machine guns and automatic weapons prior to the bomber's arrival.

Coalition ground forces called in several Navy F/A-18C Hornets and F/A-18E Super Hornets to hit enemy targets in the vicinity of Kajaki Dam, including an enemy mortar position, observation posts, communication tunnels, and a spotter position in a walled compound. A variety of GBU-series precision weaponry was used to carry out the strike, which took place in response to anti-Afghan mortar fire.

An F/A-18C and a coalition aircraft used a GBU-12 and GBU-38, as well as a strafing pass to strike anti-Afghan forces spotted gathering in a staging area near Musa Qala. Enemy forces were engaged in readying rockets for launch against coalition units. The coalition aircraft struck a large group of enemy combatants, while the Hornet hit a series of pillboxes and bunkers in the area. The Hornet also attacked enemy targets in Now Zad following reports of enemy fire there.

During a second engagement taking place in the area around Kajaki Dam, Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles and A-10 Thunderbolt IIs dropped GBU-38s and performed strafes, targeting enemy personnel with RPGs and automatic weapons. The A-10 destroyed an enemy lookout tower with one of its bombs as an F-15E hit a gunman hiding behind the berm of a small irrigation water pool. Coalition ground forces followed up the airstrikes with a ground attack.