Blair defends UK Afghan mission

More than 3,000 British soldiers are serving in Afghanistan

Tony Blair has told MPs that British troops in Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province are involved in one of their "more dangerous missions".

Five UK soldiers have been killed in the region in the past three weeks in clashes with Taleban militants.

He would make sure that commanders get "anything they need and ask for in order to protect our troops".

But Lib Dem Malcolm Bruce questioned whether Parliament had been "misled by the scale of the risks of the mission".

Tribute

He spoke out as two British soldiers killed during operations in Afghanistan on Saturday were named as Cpl Peter Thorpe and L/Cpl Jabron Hashmi.

Cpl Thorpe, 27, of the Royal Signals, was from Cumbria, and L/Cpl Hashmi, 24, of the Intelligence Corps, attached to the Royal Signals, was from Birmingham.

Anything they need and ask for in order to protect our troops I will make sure that they get Tony Blair

They died when a rocket-propelled grenade struck the regional headquarters in Sangin.

Mr Blair paid tribute to the bravery of troops in the region who were "doing an absolutely extraordinary job" and stressed that any requests made by the armed forces would be responded to "positively".

However, Mr Bruce said there was concern that the troops had been "put into a situation where they may be over exposed", particularly in their efforts to deprive Afghan farmers of their livelihood from poppy cultivation for the drugs trade.

He argued that 55,000 households were dependent on poppy cultivation which yields 12 times the amount that wheat does.

He asked why the cultivation had not been phased out, with the farmers reimbursed, as had happened when Thailand's drugs problem was dealt with.

'Pre-emptive action'

The prime minister said there was no doubt that as British troops moved down into the south of the Helmand province "it's going to be more dangerous".

He said there was a "lot of nonsense spoken about the mission being uncertain".

Its main aim was to assist in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and to make sure the country was not dependent on the drugs trade, he said.

"In order to do that we will have to defend ourselves when attacked and take pre-emptive action where necessary," he said.

"This is a more dangerous mission."

Obligations

Troops were "not simply taking" livelihoods away from those involved in poppy cultivation and Britain was putting more than $250m into programmes for alternative ways of earning a living, in conjunction with the Afghan government, he said.

He rejected newspaper reports which claimed that generals had demanded "this and that" from the UK government, adding: "I haven't received any request like that.

"Anything they need and ask for in order to protect our troops I will make sure that they get," he said.

"Our obligation to them is to give them what they need to do the job and if they come to us and say this is what they require in addition, of course we will respond to it positively.

"We always knew this mission was going to be difficult, precisely because of its importance in turning the country round."