BRITAIN: British prime minister Tony Blair yesterday signalled that he will urge his Nato colleagues at the forthcoming summit in Riga to recommit themselves to the rescue of Afghanistan from terrorism and drugs. At the summit in 10 days' time, he will back calls for the dispatch of extra troops and a relaxation of the rules restricting some countries from engaging in full combat with Taliban forces.
Nato officials have said the number of caveats imposed by countries contributing to the international security assistance force in Afghanistan is restricting the force's effectiveness. Extra troops are needed in the coming months.
Speaking at a joint press conference with the Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Mr Blair made a pointed comparison to Nato's reluctance to intervene in the Balkans, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. However, the prime minister yesterday drew criticism from the former chief of the UK's defence staff, Lord Guthrie, who said that the army did not have enough equipment to carry out the job it was being asked to do.
Mr Blair was in Kabul for the first time to celebrate its liberation five years ago and to assess the progress of Afghanistan's reconstruction. He is planning to go to the summit in Latvia to press his Nato colleagues - especially from the EU - to contribute more to the reconstruction and security drive. "The summit is the right time to bring into sharp focus the progress Afghanistan has made and to rediscover within ourselves the belief and the vision that took us here and which keeps us here until the job is done." Mr Blair also acknowledged that reconstruction of the country would take some time and suggested that nation-building had proved to be more difficult than first thought. "We are wiser now to the fact that this is a generational struggle." He said the task was not simply one of driving out the Taliban, changing the government in Kabul and then organising elections.
The prime minister repeatedly defended Britain's commitment as an act of self-interest rather than high-minded imperialism.
"We came to Afghanistan because it is obvious that the problem in Afghanistan had become a problem for the whole world. We have got to stay for as long as it takes, not just for the security of the people of Afghanistan, but for our own security."
But Lord Guthrie, chief of defence staff during the Kosovo war, described as "astonishing" recent promises by the prime minister that the army would be given anything it asked for in Afghanistan. "It [ the pledge] was greeted with hollow laughter by serving servicemen and women," he said during the Queen's speech debate in the Lords on security and defence. "There are no helicopters sitting on shelves and trained air crews cannot be magicked up from nowhere."
Lord Guthrie said he had spoken to senior officials who gave the impression that Afghanistan and Iraq were short-term problems.
"This really is not time to indulge in wishful thinking, and politicians have to realise that it is their duty to supply adequate, well-trained, well-paid and well-equipped forces," he said.
Lord Guthrie described medical support for British troops in Afghanistan and Iraq as outstanding. But the army was too small, he said, training had been curtailed, and exercises in Canada had been cancelled.
"We have so little in reserve that a new and surprise threat will cause grave problems," he warned.
A Pakistani journalist working for the BBC went missing yesterday after visiting a relative in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.
The reporter, Dilawar Khan Wazir, works for the BBC's Urdu-language service, covering the tribal areas on the Afghan border where security forces have been battling Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Several reporters covering the conflict have been killed over recent years.
Wazir had not been heard from since the morning, when he left his brother's lodging in Islamabad, bound for the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan, his brother, Zulfiqar Ali,said.