Brighton: Britain`s Defence Secretary said on Monday that the UK has only limited scope to send more troops to Afghanistan, despite calls from military leaders to support US General Stanley McChrystal`s demand for extra soldiers.
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth told a meeting at the governing Labour Party`s annual conference that Britain won`t be able to significantly increase the size of its force in Afghanistan.
"We can only make a relatively small part of that as the UK, so others have got to step up to the plate," Ainsworth told the meeting.
McChrystal, who commands both NATO and US forces in Afghanistan, has called for as many as 40,000 extra troops to stabilize the country. Britain has about 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, the second largest force after the United States.
Ainsworth said that Britain`s military had been seriously stretched by simultaneous deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, before UK forces withdrew from Iraq earlier this year.
"We were pushing people too hard in many ways. It`s not sustainable — sustainable for a short period of time, but not for a long period," he told the meeting.
But military commanders differed — with a present and a past leader offering support for the McChrystal plan.
Lt Gen Jim Dutton, the most senior British general in Afghanistan and deputy commander of NATO`s forces there, said Britain`s government should support McChrystal`s plan.
"If you want to achieve long-tern stability, and therefore a lack of terrorism potential in an area, you need to be doing more than simply patrolling the skies," he was quoted as telling The Times of London.
Gen Mike Jackson, a former head of the British Army, told the same meeting that Britain should support a temporary troop surge in Afghanistan.
"When so much blood and treasure has already been expended, if this is a decisive year, we should act decisively," Jackson said.
Bureau Report
