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UK troops could start leaving Afghanistan next year, says Cameron
Prime minister says British troops could start withdrawing troops in 2011, but the decision will be 'based on the conditions on the ground'
Britain could start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan as early as next year, depending on conditions there, David Cameron said today, following his first meeting with Barack Obama in Washington.
The prime minister raised the prospect that a pullout of Britain's 9,500 troops could begin next year when asked today whether Britain could emulate the US, which hopes to start withdrawing its forces from July 2011.
"Yes, we can but it should be based on the conditions on the ground," Cameron told BBC Radio 5 Live. "I mean, the faster we can transition districts and provinces to Afghan control, clearly the faster that some forces can be brought home. I don't want to raise expectations about that because that transition should be based on how well the security situation is progressing."
Although hedging his bets about the start of a withdrawal next year, Cameron said the British public should be clear that, by 2015, the UK would not have "combat troops or large numbers" in Afghanistan, "because I think it's important to give people an end date by which we won't be continuing in that way".
Afghanistan featured prominently yesterday when Cameron met Obama in his first visit to the White House as prime minister. Both leaders are under strong domestic pressure to bring troops home as the casualties mount up with the Taliban showing no sign of wilting.
"Victory in this war is being able to hand over to an Afghan government and an Afghan army and police force that are capable of securing their own country," Cameron said in another interview, with Britain's GMTV.
The desire of Obama and Cameron to start pulling out combat troops next year, however, could put them at loggerheads with General David Petraeus, the new US commander in the country.
Plans to begin handing control of provinces in Afghanistan to Afghan security forces by the end of this year have been quietly dropped amid fears among European countries that Petraeus is less committed to a speedy transfer of power.
The change of tack, revealed in the final communique from yesterday's historic international conference in Kabul, reflects Petraeus's concerns that security conditions in Afghanistan are too weak for a transition of power to begin as quickly as originally planned, a Nato official told the Guardian.
Although the conference agreed that the security needs of the entire country will have to be met by the Afghan army and police by 2014, major European troop contributors were looking forward to more rapid progress in the relatively stable north and west of the country, where Germany, Italy, Norway, Spain and others have personnel.
The difficulties involved in any transition were highlighted yesterday when an Afghan soldier killed two US civilians and one of his own comrades in Mazar-e-Sharif, one of the most stable cities of northern Afghanistan.
The incident marred the otherwise successful conclusion of an international conference on Afghanistan led by Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
Beneath the diplomatic niceties, it became clear that plans first agreed by Nato ministers at a meeting in Estonia in April had been quietly dropped.
Nato had hoped that by the end of this year a cluster of neighbouring provinces in the north-west of the country would have begun the handover to the Afghan army and police force.
But in the final agreement of the conference, a reference to transition taking place on a "province-by-province" basis, which appeared in an earlier draft, had been removed.
A Nato official said the change reflected Petraeus's wish to slow the pace of the transfer of power.
European powers had wanted to announce which provinces would be handed over at a summit of foreign ministers in Lisbon in November.
The official said: "For Petraeus, Lisbon is not a problem. His main concern is the US political timetable, and being able by next summer to show progress that won't unravel."
According to the official, the slowing of the timetable sparked a heated exchange between Petraeus and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato's secretary general, during a video conference last week.
Speaking before this week's conference, a senior European diplomat said Petraeus's approach was far less welcome than that of his predecessor, Stanley McChrystal.
"Petraeus is trying to slow everything down, pushing back any announcement of transition until 2011," he said.
Although the speed with which foreign forces move from frontline combat to a purely supportive role may slow down under Petraeus, there was full agreement on the ambitious target that the entire country should be under Afghan control by 2014.
Despite the continued weakness of, and corruption within, the Afghan security forces, Karzai said he remained "determined" that they should be in full charge of Afghanistan's security by then.
The meeting in Kabul was the first time such a conference had been held in Afghanistan. It was supposed to symbolise the growing ability of the Afghan government to manage more of its own affairs.
UK troops could start leaving Afghanistan next year, says Cameron | World news | guardian.co.uk
