Extended interview: Bob Ainsworth
Updated on 04 September 2009
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth talks to Krishnan Guru-Murthy about the British strategy in Afghanistan, when troops might come home and the resignation of his aide Eric Joyce.
Mr Ainsworth reiterated the earlier commitment by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to grow the Afghan army to 134,000 by November 2010.
"Now does that mean that our troops can come home in November of next year? No it doesn't. I don't think that we will have an Afghan national army that is capable of defending its country by that date, but we will have made progress.
He added that British troops would leave "at the point where the Afghan national army is capable of defending its country without our support".
"It is not just a matter of numbers; it is a matter of quality as well. You can see in our own forces. We have got 9,000 forces, but you can't measure the British contribution to the coalition in pure numbers - we have got some of the best forces in the world, those who are capable of confronting the insurgents in the hardest part of the country. It's a matter of quality as well as quantity.
"I don't know of anybody in the kind of situation who has been prepared to set a date for the end of operations, and I think it would be utterly ridiculous for us to do so.
"I'm not prepared to say that there is a particular date where we are going to be able to withdraw entirely, but what we will be able to say, and what we have got to be able to see
"I recognise that support for this operation isn't going to stay there in the long term if we can't show progress. If I didn't believe that we could show progress, I therefore wouldn't support the operation. I believe that we can and once we are able to do that, then I think people will feel a lot more comfortable about our involvement in Afghanistan.
"Part of the reason that there are doubts is that people fear that we can't do this, that we can't make this progress. I think that we can, commanders in Afghanistan most certainly think that we can. When you go out there and talk to people who actually do the job, they know that it is doable."
He expressed his regret that Eric Joyce had chosen to resign as his aide, saying "I am sorry that I lost him.
"A parliamentary private secretary who has worked with me for only three months decided to resign. That is sad - I didn't want it to happen. But he chose to do so."
Mr Ainsworth did agree with Mr Joyce that the public were not convinced the war was about security. "This is not new," he said. "There is a section of the public that are not convinced that our operations in Afghanistan are essential to our national security and our national interests back here at home. I think that they are totally wrong.
"I think it is self-evident - Pakistan and Afghanistan have got such long term connections with this country. It is the nexus of terrorism [in Pakistan and Afghanistan] and if we allowed Afghanistan to return to the state of lawlessness that it was in 2001 it would become again the haven for al-Qaida and a direct threat to us back here at home.
"That is the main reason that we are there."
