By DEFENCE PROFESSIONAL NEWS
08:26 GMT, August 21, 2009 General James Dutton, the UK’s top Commander in Afghanistan, spoke to the British media last night about minimising civilian casualties in the country and whether extra British troops are needed there.
Based in Kabul, General Dutton is NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) mission’s Deputy Commander in Afghanistan. Speaking to Channel 4 news yesterday, Wednesday 19 August 2009, about reducing civilian casualties during NATO operations in Afghanistan, he said: “There’s always going to be a level of civilian casualties however hard we try. But I would want to emphasise just how hard we are trying.
“General McChrystal [Commander ISAF] has re-energised this effort since his arrival here two months ago. But there has been a determination to reduce civilian casualties to the absolute minimum, certainly for my tour which is now nine months gone here and indeed before that.
“So we are as careful as we can be, and we are always looking for more ways of reducing civilian casualties.”
The Channel 4 interviewer then asked General Dutton if the more NATO tries to minimise civilian casualties then the more the Taliban will use civilians as shields?
General Dutton said: “Well that’s true, and I mean we always point out that civilian casualties from any source are a tragedy, of course.
“When we, the coalition forces, create civilian causalities, it is of course always by accident. We always investigate those incidents, and, in any way that we can, we try and make amends for them and learn lessons from them.
“Of course, you make the point for me that the insurgents are doing this cynically and in order to create casualties, because that is the effect they want to achieve. But, nevertheless, any civilian casualties are to be hugely regretted and we try to reduce them as much as possible.”
Regarding the calls for an extra 2,000 British troops to be sent to Afghanistan, General Dutton said: “Well we always want more troops and more equipment, military commanders always do.
“Rather than just focus on the numbers of British troops because, as you correctly introduced me, I’m the Deputy Commander of the whole ISAF force, so looking at this Afghanistan-wide, we are, since General McChrystal’s arrival, conducting a review of the strategy, and that will then lead us on to what we call a ‘troops to task’ or a ‘resources to task’ review.
“We’re only just beginning that stage, so it’s too early to say what we want and where. But we’ve been saying for a long time that we lacked the capacity, specifically in Helmand but also in the whole of the south of the country, to counter the situation as it has developed over the past two years.
“And of course the recent influx of US troops, 17,000 of them, the US Marines, and now the US Army Stryker BCT [Brigade Combat Team], which is moving into the Kandahar and Zabul area, is already beginning to make a big difference.
“But it’s too early to see how much of a difference it’s going to make, and so really too early to say what other forces or other force-mix might be required.”