Nick Clegg calls for Afghan rethink
- 00:01:33
- ITN
Nick Clegg calls for Afghan rethink
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has said lives are "being thrown away" in Afghanistan as the latest fatality is named. In a break with the cross-party concensus on the conflict, Mr Clegg said the Government was not enusring that British soldiers are being given the proper equipment. Lives are "being thrown away because our politicians won't get their act together", he added. His comments come after the deaths of seven British soldiers in the past seven days and amid signs of disquiet within Whitehall at the growing public dismay over the lengthening casualty list. Mr Clegg said: "As leader of the Liberal Democrats, I have been keen to maintain the cross-party consensus on Afghanistan that formed after September 11, and has not faltered since. "But recent events have led me to question, for the first time, whether we're going about things in the right way. I am concerned that we are simply not giving our troops the means to do their difficult job. We must not will the ends without being prepared to will the means." He said two of the recent British fatalities including Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe - the highest ranking British officer to be killed since the Falklands War - were killed while travelling in a vehicle "unable to withstand a roadside bomb". The Lid Dem leader added: "I am appalled that so many of our soldiers have been killed because of inadequate equipment, and disturbed to hear from experts that we don't have enough forces to hold and rebuild territory once it has been won." A total of 176 British servicemen and women have died in Afghanistan since the start of operations in 2001. There are about 8,300 British troops based in the country. On Wednesday, Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth warned that success in Afghanistan would take "courage and patience", and predicted that more British lives would be lost in the fighting ahead. But he insisted that progress was being made and that it remained essential to ensure al-Qaeda was denied a renewed foothold in the country to launch fresh terror attacks against Britain and the West. The seventh British soldier to be killed in Afghanistan has been named as Christopher Whiteside, 20, from Blackpool. The Light Dragoons trooper died in an explosion in Helmand Province on Tuesday while taking part in Operation Panchai Palang to clear the Taliban from the central Helmand river valley. Lieutenant Colonel Gus Fair, Trooper Whiteside’s Commanding Officer, said he "had been tested in some of the most intense fighting ever experienced in Afghanistan for four days prior to his death and had never been found wanting".
ITN | July 9, 2009
